A Neat Colombian Collection, And Sadly The End Of An Era :(

I stopped by my local philatelic watering hole and picked out a neat little Colombia collection, but more on that later.

The owner informed me that he will be retiring in the next 60-90 days. I've suspected it was coming, as he was diagnosed with Parkinson's about a year ago and has been slowly going downhill. Deteriorating balance, speech, etc. It's still a bit of a shock though, as he's always been a vibrant man and he'd always joked about "working until he dropped"... we all thought his shop would be open at least another 10 years.

I don't begrudge him his decision though, as he deserves to spend some retirement time with his family while he's still able to enjoy it.

I've been going to his store for more than half my adult life. Dropping in after work a few afternoons a week, Saturday morning with the other "counter rats" seeing what new stamps and coins have come in. While my revenue collection outgrew his stock and resources quite a few years ago, I still picked up world lots and collections from him regularly. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, I've been "stocking up" over the last year, as once he closes up shop, there won't be a stamp shop within 100 miles.

It's a regular part of my adult life that I'm going to miss, as well as his company, as he and his wife are moving across the country to be closer to their children. While I'm happy for him, it's still a sad day. :(


Anyway, enough maudlin' on my part. This little Colombia collection is really intriguing. It's not chock full of catalog value, but it was painstakingly assembled, with an eye for completeness as far as perforations and color, and has numerous varieties and some bisects that are not listed in Scott. Also some neat cancels as well.

I wanted to scan it all in as I think it makes a pretty decent set of reference images for classic Colombian material.

Please be patient as the images are fairly large (I wanted to capture the handwritten notes).

The Colombian collection to have is the airmails. :-)

Nice collection , thanks for showing it.

And you really don't see this material much at all. Lovely stamps!

Very pretty collection - thanks for posting it!

Hi

From a Colombia collector. Really nice material! A lot of the plate varieties are hard to find. I wish I could find material like this.

Now what you need is a 1980's Barriga or Temprano, or both, catalog.

Jerry B

Very nice pick up sorry to hear your dealer is closing shop would be interested t know if he has any other latin america material

Sorry to hear about your dealer, from me. There is still at least one store-front dealer in metro Denver. I patronize him occasionally to pick up Showguard mounts.

I came close to bidding on a very old Colombia collection in the past year; I think it was up with Daniel Kelleher. The scans and description were intriguing. But had to decline since I have yet to process a couple Mexico collections bought in the past two years. I "knew it was a mistake" when I joined MEPSI and discovered Nick Follansbee's annual auction. ;-)

I know exactly how you feel. The only stamp store in this area closed years ago. Losing a friend at the same time, well that's a double whammy.

It could be out of topic but currently im in Bogota, Colombia for vacation. I was trying to find a dealer here but I couldnt so far. does anyone know a dealer a bogota?

thanks

Found by searching the internet:
Found in the internet:
stamp dealer
Address: Carrera 15 # 85-15 in Bogotà
Open 10 until 17.30
phone 635 4110

good luck and have a nice stay!
Heinrich

I've never lived in an area that had a stamp shop. Plenty of coin dealers, but they didn't want anything to do with stamps.

Hi trabz

I sent you an e-mail about 2 dealers that I know in Bogota. I am not sure if you received it since there has been no remarks.

Jerry B

The only thing wrong with your description was "little." This looks pretty extensive to me. Nice! Thanks for sharing.

Super nice!

I do like the way that old time collections were written up, described and mounted on quadrille pages. There is something very interesting and fascinating about seeing such a specialized collection. Do you think that you will try to fill in some of the empty spaces on the written quadrille pages with some of the loose stamps that are in the manila stock sheet pages if they are the missing ones?