A Stamp For Every Country Collection

Found this page for an album collecting one stamp for every authorized postal agency, past and present. Almost 800 stamps.

http://postalmuseum.si.edu/stampgal...ryalbum.html

It looks like a fun project but I wonder how feasible it is. I would hate to start it only to find that some of these stamps are unavailable or cost a fortune.

Also, I would want to do it with mint stamps and to purchase a large world packet mixture to start, since it would be cheaper than buying many of these individually. Anyone know a good world packet source for mint stamps?

Finally, what is a good paper stock to print these on?

Thanks for posting the link here at SCF.

I've been discussing this with other collectors in another group.

I would suggest you hold off on using the album pages for the time being. It's nice, but there are some issues that probably need to be addressed or considered:

1. There are more than a couple of factual errors/typos that need to be corrected. For example, it looks like they accidentally combined the Romania and Russia sections.

2. The pages are in landscape mode. I personally do not like landscape mode format for album pages.

3. Be prepared to disagree with what was or was not included. You know how some of us can have pretty strong opinions on these things.

I will not consider using the album until there is a portrait mode album available. Also, I will definitely wait for a revised version that has all the errors corrected. It looks like they did not beta test this album. In my discussion group, several errors were posted within a few hours.

Nice album pages, though. The time, money, and effort put into providing a free album has to be appreciated.

k

Most of the spaces can be filled without having to spend a lot of money. There will be a few areas where every stamp in that country/entity has a premium. For instance, I think every stamp in New Britain catalogs for at least ~$25.

Thanks. I might hold back printing the pages out but nothing to stop me from gathering a lot of these in advance. Any advice on finding a good packet source? I am overseas and don't have access to a stamp store so the shipping would kill me for each stamp. I will be able to find some of the Chinese ones though.

Oh, just to add, if I don't print the pages, does anyone know of an electronic list of the stamps mentioned in this album? I don't want to start typing out 800 names for a checklist.

I don't know of any pre-existing electronic list. However, using Adobe Reader, you can save the entire pdf as text only and open with any word processor. Then do a global replace to get rid of all the page breaks. It's not formatted, so the list will look ugly, but it's still a list.

I'd have to agree with khj: the list suffers some serious shortcomings.

In Asia alone, I don't see entries for the Chinese Treaty Ports, and in the Indian States, there are four States missing - Dungarpur, Shahpura, Kotah and Tonk; the last two will cost an arm and a leg to acquire used specimens from - mint are unknown, AFAIK. I don't seriously expect ever to have any anyway, and I seriously collect the Indian States. Mint stamps from Dungarpur are possible ... if you have around $1000 to spare.

Tony, did you check out the dates for Hong Kong in the album?

I'll assume it's a transcription error rather than a typo?

I decided to start making a spreadsheet with the names and already found a mistake on the first page. No mention of British Columbia & Vancouver Island.

Who is behind this project? Do they have a location where you can find updates or give them suggestions?

Tom Swift wrote



One stamp per country/postal authority is one of my collections, I limit however to those countries that used their own stamps and not stamps from other countries with overprint. Based on the Michel online catalogue I count 700 of those countries, whereas the total number of countries listed in that catalogue is 1060 and some may only be listed in their specialized print catalogues and hence be missing in the online version. I'm at about ¾ of the way, some countries are difficult to find, and you certainly won't find them in kiloware.

I decided to take landscape sceneries as motive for that collection, cancelled and from the classical era if possible. For some countries such motive doesn't exist, in which case I take coat of arms, crowned heads or whatever is available, provided that it's cheap, but for some of those even the cheapest stamp is expensive or too expensive for my taste, so I use either a reprint or a colour copy.

Many of those landscape stamps are single stamps of a set and cancelled much easier to find that mint, that's why I collect cancelled. I use a stockbook and print a label for each stamp with country name, catalogue number, catalogue description of stamp picture. I join a couple of pics from the album.





I made a list of all 700 countries, drop me a mail and I can send the file.

Klaus

Either a transcription error, or the British packed up and went home way too soon

"EVERY AUTHORIZED POSTAL AGENCY" that's the limiting factor here ,who authorized the agency ? There are over 100 city or states that overprinted the Third Reich stamps after WWII. How about all the overprints due to the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the hundreds of Spanish Civil war issues ,this list should be over 1500 .

Thanks KlausR, sent.

I took the "Authorized Postal Agency" comment to mean approval from the Universal Postal Union. I looked at their page but could find no list of defunct countries or regions.

I was thinking about printing these pages as well but will probably hold off until there's a portrait mode available. I could probably fill about half the spaces with stamps I already have laying around, and most of the rest of the spaces could be filled cheaply and easily. But a quick glance shows that they do have some spaces for Swiss Cantonal issues and all the German States, some of which have no cheap (genuine) issues in the catalog. There are probably some other similar areas like that as well. It'll be another collection that will end up about 98 or 99 percent complete. Which is OK.

Linn's website has a fairly comprehensive list under their "Reference" Tab. Look for a link title 'Stamp Issuing Entities'.
The nice thing about this list is that it all comes with a fair amount of historical background.

To further expand on a 'Country' collection, one might also include speciments of stamps issued under various postal administrations within each country. For example, Germany could be represented by a stamp issued by: German Empire, Weimar Republic, 3rd Reich, each of the various Occupation Zones, Republic, DDR, Unified Germany.
Great Britain could be represented by a stamp produced during the reign of each Monarch. This idea could also expand to all the members of the UK.
One could also include stamps issued by war-time occupying countries. Add to this all the thousands of special issues and locals, and such a collection could easily become unwieldy.