Hi everyone. I am brand new to this forum, and I am really happy that I stumbled across it! I'm a relatively young philatelist (turning 25 on Sunday!) and my collection thus far is probably novice compared to most of yours... But that's okay. I have no one in real life to connect with on stamps, so I hope that I can talk to everyone on this forum.
I have two areas of focus in my collecting: Psychology/Psychoanalysis as a topical choice, and Japan in terms of collecting a country. I am a perfectionist and as such refuse to use hinges for my stamps... Currently have a subscription to Bill Steiner's pages and I mount even "worthless" used stamps to them. Definitely pricier, but that's to be expected with a hobby.
By any means, in acquiring a set of the 2009 Scott catalogs for way less money than the 2014/2015s would have run me, I've been able to quickly identify most of my Japanese stamps. But this one seems to be running me for a loop! I might just be overlooking it (I swear after looking at the Scott catalogs for more than a few hours I see stamps when I close my eyes), but it's peculiar because the stamp's face value is 20 Cents, implying that it is US currency. It has the Japanese Flag and Imperial Crest on it, too...
I looked through the Ryukyus and could not find it there either. Perhaps this is a revenue stamp? Are the Japanese revenue stamps even covered in Scott?
Also, off topic but I own Japan Scott 8 and 15... they are probably forgeries. Is there a guide available for teasing apart which are authentic and which are forged?
Posted 10/07/2014 8:40 pm
