Early Austria - Couple Of Questions

Last weekend I picked up a combination Germany/Austria album. It had some nice German stamps I needed but I hadn't been collecting Austria.

The Austria is almost complete from #1 through 1934 or so. I'm now interested in working on this and have a couple questions.

I also have an earlier collection I picked up and quite a few early Scott Junior International albums to pick through. Wasn't too interested in Austria until I picked this one up though.

1- Some of the very early have some decent catalog values, are there forgeries I should be looking for on any of these? None seem really expensive but quite a few CV more than a few bucks.

2- I'm taking these all out of the album and will be remounting in Steiner pages - Are these stamps all ok to take a water bath first?

Here are the first 6 pages as they are now. I did notice the 1st stamp in the 2nd row of the 2nd page is placed wrong - perfs match the row under it..










thanks for any tips

I don`t think there are forgeries among these.
1850 issue: there are 3 types (2 for 1,2,3,6 Kr and 3 types for 9 Kr)- you`ll find how to sort them in any better catalogue. It`s much harder to sort them by paper (Handpapier or Maschinenpapier).
1858 issue: 2 types. Here the catalogue value differs a lot, so it`s important to sort them properly (it`s a nice `Hermannstadt` cancellation on the 2 kr stamp - now Sibiu in Romania - Transsylvania).
Some of these have missing perfs, the 1850 2 kr black imperf has only 3 good margins.
If you intend to soak them, be aware that the 1858-1864 are embossed - press them gently and carefully.
Glue remnants won`t soak easily, classic Austrian stamps have some very sticky glue...

Mike

Like you, some time ago I worked my way through a large selection of pre-WWI Austria from a variety of sources. For the slightly later issues - the 1874-80 heads, the 1883 arms and the 1890 heads in particular - there are many variations of perforation to look for. These are itemised in catalogues. They won't, I suspect, be provided for by Steiner, so it depends whether you want to devote time, or simply to collect to the pages.

Have fun.

Geoff

Thank you very much!

I soaked everything except the 1850 imperfs this morning. They're all drying now. You're right, that gum can be real sticky. A lot of the stamps still had envelope chunks left from the original owner's fight with them. I was successful at all but one in getting them cleaned up.

I do have lots to choose from from my other albums so I'll be aiming for nice cancels, especially dated ones.

I like checking for variations so I'll keep anything not covered by the Steiner pages on a stock sheet at the end.