1843 - 1857 Swiss Stamps - Great Grandfather's Collection

Hello Again,

Around this time last year I posted some iPhone (low quality) pictures of some of my great grandfathers stamp collection. The feedback given to me was to post higher quality scans of the stamps in order to verify authenticity. The images below are scans of some the first pages of his Scott Specialty Album - Switzerland.

As a background, the whole collection contains at low estimate of 20,000 stamps ranging from Early to Mid USA, Swiss, Germany, England, Canada, Britain, United Nations and "First Day Covers". The collection has been stored away for the past 35 years as we were overwhelmed with the sheer volume of stamps. Over the past year we started the process of trying to understand what we have and feel that this forum can provide us invaluable insight. Comment below on your opinion of the scan's provided and any steps we should take going forward.

Truly fantastic. I remember your previous post and was immediately taken with the quality and quantity of your relative's collection.

The 6k Black appears to be an authentic Zurich #1L2 from 1843 - but I'd better let the Switzerland specialists speak up on the rest.

Thank you for sharing!

Brian

Chase333, I hope someone here can help you out.

Those stamps, to me, are stunning. I love these early Swiss but I'm not an expert by any means. Recently I spent some time working to identify the "Struble" stamps. The strubles are the seated Helvetia stamps you have shown, 1854 and 1855-57. I don't think Authenticity is an issue with these. From what I know, these stamps were not forged. But, there are five (I think) different printings. So identification is an issue. You could try the link below for some insight.
http://www.stamp-collecting-world.c...l_part1.html

Considering the first four rows of stamps through 1852, your images are just not high enough resolution to discern authenticity. Consider posting individual scans of each of these stamps at 1200dpi, starting with the first. It would also help if you either obtain a basic Scott catalog and make a basic ID yourself or provide pertinent details you see for each one.

For example, the first stamp: which direction are the red lines, horizontal or vertical, how many diagonal lines in the four corners of the inner frame containing the 6, how many horizontal lines in the top and bottom inscription blocks? The image just looks way too fuzzy to me to see these basic ID features.

My guess is the 6k is not genuine, but that's only a guess.

Regarding the second row of stamps, is there a black border around the cross and are the lines uniform or not. How many vertical lines in the handle of the post horn etc.?

For the 6 Zurich, check if the double dots above the letter you (trema) are existing