A Great "Great Depression" Stamp Album For Teenage Beginners

georgelelandturner in his Help - Antique Stamp Collection ... thread has presented an inspiring period album for beginners in their early teens with an interest in geography and history (see https://goscf.com/t/43969 ).

Unfortunately, the first 50 pages of the album are missing. Probably published in the U.S.A. in the mid-1930s (the illustrations of the newest stamps included date back to 1932), it is interesting to now, some 80 years later, re-read its impressive characteristics of the stamp-issuing countries reflecting the then views, attitudes, uncertainties (row 9, p. 98: Russia), fallacies of geopolitics (row 11, p. 110: Sweden), etc. in the Great Depression period.

The countries are arranged in more or less alphabetic order, often mixing the continents in sections reserved for such places as Gold Coast - Grenada - Hong Kong; Hamburg - Hannover - Heligoland; Honduras - Hawaii, all of the 8 of them found on a single page, but each of them properly identified (and sometimes even cross-referenced, see row 9, page 99: St. Thomas & Prince Islands cross-referred to Portugal, row 7, p. 92).

The spaces reserved for stamps are adapted to the restricted need for them resulting from the limited finances of juvenile beginners. And, indeed, as far as I can remember the stamps gathered in it were the commonest and cheapest sorts available then in Central Europe as well (except for some of the large-format airmails of the Latin America). What's more, the dates of issue of all of the stamps found in it do not exceed the limit of the 1930s either. What a perfect picture of the then economical, yet perspective-providing initiation into the hobby!

I still remember albums for beginners like this one I used to see as a very young boy, only the stamp-issuing countries included lacked such a wealth of the background description.

And I am still reminded of the thrill of those days browsing through the splendid World Encyclopedia of Stamps and Stamp Collecting: The Ultimate Illustrated Reference to over 3000 of the World's Best Stamps by Dr. James Mackay (1936 - 2007, my stamp-collecting contemporary) published in Czech in 2007 (pity the English-language original was not available in the sales in my country).

Would some of the brave guys, such as nethryk, create a similar monument to stamps seen as a particular art form reflecting the world of today and that of yesteryear ...


Would it be possible for some of the readers to identify the author or the publisher of the above album?

Fascinated to read the then up-to-date, highly educational characteristics of the stamp-issuing countries in the album, I also posted a similar message on the Vintage Postage Stamp Album thread of the Stampboards forum.

Although read by some 230 members of the SCF forum and about the same number on the Stampboards, no reply has been received so far.

Small wonder as stamps from beginner's albums used to be rehoused and the emptied-out and torn starter albums got thrown away.

This appears to be a fragment of the particularly admirably well-done thing that hardly anyone will have preserved.

Moreover, this is an album retaining a sample of what was available to an unpretentious stamp-collecting beginner in Massachusets in those years.

Pity the first 50 pages as well as pp. 116-119, mostly reserved for the U.S.A., are missing and the text on pp. 52, 67, 73, 77, 82, 86, 100, 104, 112, 120 and the following pages, if preserved, cannot be read in full.

Having spotted the post of Tue Apr 12, 2016 18:00:40 pm by Ries in the Vintage Postage Stamp Albums thread on Stampbords I've managed to solve the mistery of the great "Great Depression" postage stamp album for teen-age beginners.

The Google search engine has helped me to discover that The Adventurer Album for Postage Stamps of the World was published by (Copyright 1934) H.E. Harris & Co., Boston, U.S.A. in two versions:

one consisting of 127 pages for more than 4,000 stamps,

the other of 66 pp. for nearly 2,000 stamps.

The remarkable descriptions of the stamp-issuing countries are often very similar in both versions (somewhat abbreviated in the latter) but sometimes different (and improved).

Compare

Page 51/147
GREECE
GREECE (or "Hellas" as the Greeks call it) attained its greatest power and glory in the 5th Century B.C. - 2,500 years ago! It was then the land of art, learning and peerless civilization; its capital, Athens, was the world's center of art, learning and commerce. When ancient Greece lost its power, its glory quickly followed. Overrun and ravaged in turn by Romans, Goths, Vandals, Slavs and other marauding nations, finally conquered and subjected for four centuries to the murderous rule of the Turks, the wonder is that Greece survived at all! Not until 1829 did the Greeks regain their independence. Greece is a rugged and mountainous country with a pleasand healthful climate. Most of the people are farmers and herdsmen, and merchands engaged in marketing the crops.


Page 29/66
GREECE
The irregular coast of GREECE has many excellent harbors, and today, as in ancient times, a large portion of the people engage in commerce and shipping. The rest of the people are chiefly herdsmen and farmers. The land is mostly mountainous; sheep and goats are grazed on the grassy hillsides while in the sunny valleys wheat, grapes and tobacco are raised.


I wish I had had this album when I was young and beginning to learn English. What ease I would have picked up lots of good English with!

You can see pictures of this album on ebay. Just search for "The Adventurer Album for Postage Stamps of the World". There are several listings. One of them looks to be in the early 20's if that's possible. When was Harris founded?

Jack Kelley

Answered my own question: According to Wikipedia, He (Henry Ellis Harris) opened his first retail store in 1921 at Kenmore Square in Boston.

Jack

jkelley01938 - Thank you for your response.

The e-Bay has so far been the only source of info on "The Adventurer Album for Postage Stamps of the World" available to me. It was here that I was able to copy some of the descriptions of stamp-issuing countries from so as to be able to compare them and enjoy their old-time charm and think about how right or wrong they were about estimating the countries' situations about 80 years ago.

I particularly appreciated the educational approach to stamp-collecting that was being improved with practically each new edition.