Mid Century Russian Stamps - Just Got A Nice Collection

Hi,
Just thought I would share............
Recently I won a collection of Russian stamps, 350 or so all minted between 1946 and 1962. They are mounted on Minkus pages, where as I use Scott's International.

This has really given me a chance to compare the two major albums.

The Minkus has many more illustrations, which is a big help in identifying some of these stamps. However, the pages seem to be cluttered.

The Scott's has fewer illustrations, and the descriptions on the others is in English, whereas the stamps are strictly Russian.

I'm embarrassed to say that even with a year of Russian in High School (Lane Tech, Chicago, 1962), I sure can't read and translate the wording.

Ha, but at least the Scott's pages are laid out more nicely.

What I find odd is that the stamps are not in the same sequence. It appears that the Minkus are year based, but the Scotts are more "Scott number" based. Is that true?

As I only collect thru 1959, I will have a number of early '60s stamps to surplus.

ENJOY!

Are the 1960's mint topical sets? :D

Most, but not all of the approx. 75 "60s stamps are cancelled. But the cancellations are light and almost all are on a corner of the stamps. All are in fine condition, and there are some "sets" (full or partial, I don't know), especially for 1962.

These stamps were all on a stock sheet and either were not hinged or if they were, very lightly.

Hi again,
Finished loading the stamps in the Scotts Part 1, 2, 3, & 4. What remains are some duplicates and the 1960s issues.

One thing I found - and need to keep in mind - is that when buying album pages, the stamps in that album may not always be where they belong. The purchased pages were Minkus, and there were at least 10 stamps applied to the incorrect space. Once I realized this, it wasn't a problem to locate where (timewise) the stamps really belonged.

If you need help identifying anything, I can read Cyrillic.

Thank you! I have a simple Cyrillic dictionary, plus my Russian textbook from High School and so far I've managed to fit them to what should be the correct spaces. I have to tell you, this was my best buy since jumping back into the hobby two years ago. I'm still "short" on Russian stamps from WWI to the beginning of WWII, but I'll be looking for those.

The Russian stamps tell so much about the country's history from the Czars / Tsars thru the revolution, the horrible Patriotic War, the forming of the USSR, the rebuilding of the country, and the space race and cold war.

I find it all simply fascinating.