Stamp Sources For Scott International Vol. I "Big Blue"

I recently purchased the Scott big blue album and am very excited about filling the spaces.

However, I have some severe time restraints (family, work etc...) that limit my stamp collecting activity.

Are there dealers that sell or are willing to make exact sets to match this album?

I would love to hear some suggestions of where to look.

Thanks

I have not seen such a thing. I suspect a dealer would charge a relative fortune to do the assembly work.

You may find it is easiest to buy partially-filled Internationals at auction and pull out what you need. After you've cleaned out a few, you'll probably start to find that you have lots of material left in place after picking one over, which will allow you to resell it. Rinse and repeat.

Unfortunately, auction prices for Internationals with some number of stamps seem to have gone up a lot in the last decade. A Part 1 that was $100-200 ten years ago is probably $500-750 today. Or at least it seems that way to me.

"Willing to make exact sets to match this album "-----NO ! A dealer would end up with a lot of broken sets ,because your willing to buy the four or five lower value stamps and he gets stuck with the higher values to a broken set .Go with what CJD said ,buy other Internationals and fill as many spots from those collections before you start on single stamps .

Welcome ashuber- Congrats on the Big Blue.

Fortunately for you, there is a "checklist" available- complete from Aden to Quelimane at this time.

http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/

You can use it as a "wantlist" to give to dealers for those stamps you do not have, and would like to acquire.

That is how I use it.

But I agree with the posters here - first acquire some feeder collections to fill many of the spaces first, then use a "wantlist", if necessary.

Have fun!

ashuber congrats on the Big Blue! I echo the earlier comments on getting a hold of an existing album and transfer those stamps on over. Try to get one that someone used decent hinges on and watch out for those issues that still have gum on them being stuck to pages, like Hungary and Liberia. This will be the cheapest way in the long run. Are there stamp stores in Israel?

Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions & insights. One of my issues is that I am in Israel and it is very expensive for people to ship heavy albums here. Maybe next time I'm in the states I'll pick one up and stick it in my luggage.

Another question, is it possible to use the older Scott International Junior album as a feeder album? Is the coverage mostly the same for the earlier years? I notice these albums go for less on ebay than the Big Blues.

Also to answer one of the questions above:

1. Yes there are stamp stores in Israel and some great auction operations- they mostly specialize in Israel and Holy Land material though.

Absolutely!

The overall differences between the earlier "Junior" album and the recent Big Blues is minimal- less than 10%.

There can be space and arrangement differences on the first page and last page of a country, and some of the smaller countries were dropped in the recent Big Blues.

For lots of information about this, see the "Filling Spaces" blogsite by Bob Skinner.

http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/

Enjoy your Big Blue!

Short answer, yes.

Perversely, coverage dropped a bit over time. Some smaller countries were dumped entirely in later editions of the Internationals. The blogs by members jkjblue (linked above) and 1840to1940 ( http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/ ) are invaluable resources.

The other thing you might do is look at EU-based auctions, where the postage costs may be lower. You won't necessarily find many Scott albums, but most GB auctions feature albums such as Ideals and Imperials with worldwide coverage (more extensive than Scott Internationals) to 1936. Substantial old Schaubek all-world albums also often appear.

I'm working on a Big Blue Volume One, too. Here are the sources that I have bought from in the last year. Of course, your mileage may vary.

--Stamps2Go. Online venue with multiple vendors selling what is perhaps the largest selection of stamps in the Blue, generally reasonable prices.
--KAP Stamps. Mail order with several price lists a month. Most countries 50% off.
--Poppe Stamps. Large selection, every stamp photographed. Downsides are their prices tend to be higher, ship from the Philippines, and mostly use other catalog numbering systems than Scott. But when you need to fill that empty space....
--DelCampe. I've picked up some difficult to find stamps and sets from this auction/fixed price online service.
--Zillions of Stamps. I've yet to buy anything from them, but they are on my radar.

If anybody else has favorite sources for individual 1840-1940 worldwide stamps cataloging under $10, I would love to hear about them.

There are many country collections on Big Blue pages on sale on ebay all the time. Instead of buying whole albums you can do it country by country. Most Big Blue country collections can be shipped to Israel for about $9.

And one of the best sellers of country collections on Scott and Minkus pages is a certain KenR2, otherwise known as KRelyea. Since he is too modest to toot his own horn, I'll do it for him.

For the most part it will cost more to go country-by-country. But buying a number of less-filled Internationals could get more expensive because you'll end up with the same floor-level corpus of common stamps many times over.

The best would be to buy the most fully filled International WW you can afford (try to avoid getting caught up in one of the insane bidding wars that break out on EBay--if that happens, walk away from it). This will not be cheap but will be cheaper than asking a dealer to assemble the same thing for you. THen watch for less well-filled Internationals that have a relative concentration in one area, e.g., in British Commonwealth or French Colonies etc.

Or go directly from one good basic but expensive feeder to filling in the weak spots via country selections as Ken R. has suggested.

Again, watch for bargains and be ready to walk-away if a couple of highly motivated bidders get out of hand. Sometimes you can tell where the wholesale level for particular lot lies by noticing at what point the 5000-feedback or 8,000 feedback bidders drop out. The 100-feedback or 200-feedback are more often going to be buying at retail, as end-users. The really high-feedbackers, with exceptions are more likely aiming at resale and won't bid past a point where they assume they can still sell at a profit.

Since ebay prices for well-filled "feeder" Internationals have inflated over the past 5 or so years (as noted up thread), do seriously consider careful perusal of the stand-alone auction houses' sales. It may just be possible to get a better deal on your basic feeder album(s) there than is possible on ebay these days.

Regardless of venue, be on the lookout for picked over feeders. Non-picked over ones are going to cost more but in the long run, one well-chosen collection like that is better than 2 or 3 cheaper but repetitive picked-over ones. It's the unusual stuff that gets picked out and you are left with the repetitive common stuff.

Wow, Hieronymus, great great post.

Thanks again to all who have contributed - I am looking forward to exploring many of the avenues suggested here.

Hieronymus Thanks for the kind words, now that I've been "outed" does it mean I have to behave? My wife says that's impossible.

I agree with everything you said. Strong Big Blue collections are scarce. I often see collections with 17 or 27 volumes or even more but with these you are usually are buying a lot of empty pages, or stamps you don't want. I think the Noblespirit 19th C album that sold for $6000+ last week was a good example of an ebay feeding frenzy and I wonder why more people don't sell good collections on ebay?

Ken

If you are someone who inherit of a collection and know nothing of selling on ebay, you will turn to more traditional way, like stamps stores or you google and found this : ( look at the second one, a real joke )