Anyone Collect Colonies?

I've been toying around with the idea of changing my collecting interest from general pre-1940 WW to just collecting the colonies (for a number of reasons that I can go into in another post, but mostly as a way to focus my [limited] resources a bit).

I know that British and French colonies are popular collecting areas, but I'm interesting in hearing from folks who collect all the colonies including some of the "others" such as German, Spanish, Italian, etc.

Do you have a strict cut-off date for your collection as a whole, or cut off depending on the date each country became independent? I'm thinking of still having a general 1940 or so cutoff.
How do you store your collection? Steiner pages? Stockbooks, etc?

I'm thinking of using Steiner pages and grouping them geographically…

Appreciate your responses

I collect some of the smaller colonies and occasionally will collect beyond the date of their independence. Most often, though, I stop with the first stamp issued by the newly independent nation.

I collect British and French and Belgian Colonies. I don't NOT collect the others, but they appear less often, and the German issues are pretty dull. The standard albums for British Colonies are Gibbons's Imperial (pretty comprehensive to 1936), George VI and QEII albums. I keep my other pre-1936 colonies in a Gibbons Ideal. For later French colonial issues, I use the free pages from France Timbres -

http://www.album.france-timbres.net/

I focus on pre-independence material, but I've acquired quite a lot of later stuff.

Pages for Italian Colonies here -

http://www.ibolli.it/php/album_index.php

Geoff

French colonies are my main collecting area at the moment. I had a fairly narrow focus on the Somali Coast, French West Africa, Morocco, and anything designed by J. de la Neziere (Dahomey palms, Senegal marketplace, Niger camel) up to about 1941, but I keep expanding the parameters. 1960 is now the cutoff - most of the colonies became independent while those that remained produced increasingly boring issues. I like the first wave of postwar pictorials.

I use Vario pages so I can be flexible. I group waves of issues from all the colonies together so one can easily see the changes in aesthetics and French politics. I can include the yachts from the formerly German colonies.

For other colonies, I stick to a representative sampling from each colony. I like the designs of Italian colonial issues and may develop that collection later. I poach into the British colonies a little more, but just for the early engraved pictorials.

Chris, although I mainly collect definitives, dues, and officials, there are certain countries where I collect much deeper. Many are colonies or possessions- St. Pierre and Miquelon, Somali Coast, Afars and Issas, and several of the Spanish possessions such as Fernando Po, Ifni, Rio Muni, Spanish Guinea, and Spanish Sahara. Most of the latter issues are very limited value but can be collected to virtual completeness. I also just like the Spanish colonies material. Really want to do more with the French area, especially in Africa and the Middle East (Algeria, Tunisia, Togo, Lebanon, Syria).

I really like Portuguese Colonies as well but focus mainly on the definitives. Exceptions would include Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea, Timor, St Thomas and Prince, Cape Verde, and Portuguese India where I also collect a number of the pictorial sets from the 1950's and 60's.

Netherlands colonies are also enjoyable though here again I collect mainly the definitives for Dutch Guinea, Antilles, surinam, and earlier Indonesia. In many ways the Colonies issues are more interesting philatelically than the mother country.

I have been putting together a small collection of German colonies with readable postmarks. It is interesting to associate them with maps of the colonies and see where they were postmarked.

I collect only the Belgian colonies and only up to their independence. I used to collect a lot of other colonial issues, but, have scaled down my collection so that I can centralize on the areas I want more.

Chimo

Bujutsu

German colonies may seem boring, with a limited set of designs. This was due to the relatively short life of their colonial empire. My collection includes forerunners, German issued stamps and stamps issued by the Allied forces occupying the colonies. Also postal history. postal cards and reply coupons.

I collect worldwide but have focused on the French empire and postcolonial states over the past two to three years. If you are looking to get a bit more deep into colonial collection, you might want to start sourcing some of the specialized catalogs for the various colonial regions (the 4 volumes of Maury for the various parts of the French empire, Afinsa for the Portuguese colonies, etc.) These catalogs can open up whole new collecting vistas beyond what is listed in a more basic catalog such as the Scott Catalogs. Like Graeden I use Lighthouse vario pages, which give me the flexibility to include varieties that most printed albums simply do not allocate space.

A couple of great examples being -

- Senegal's 1914-1933 Market Pictorial issue comes in three different vignette types (listed in the Maury Afrique catalog)
- Several of the Portuguese Colonies have types to the Ceres issue based on the rotation of the stars before and after the colony name at the bottom of the stamp (listings in the Afinsa Portuguese Colonies Catalog)

DJCMHOH do you collect the Ceres issues mint, used, or a mixture?

shermae I haven't really moved into the Port Colonies much at all at this point, been working on the French. Prob early next year I'll start tackling them, though I tend to be ADD when it comes to focusing on building up my collections (oooooh that's pretty what country is that.....)

I have collections of British colonies, and some French. My main interest lies with the Portuguese colonies. I have comprehensive collections of all colonies and end the collections in 1975, when the Portuguese granted independence to all colonies except Macau (they tried to give Macau back to China, but China declined at that time so as not to upset the then "window to the world" that they had with Hong Kong).

I use the Scott International pages exclusively to store my Portuguese colonial collections. I've dispensed with the Part I pages (to 1940) because the Part I pages generally lack the needed spaces. Since I have numerous complete sets prior to 1940, I use blank quadrille International pages.

As examples, I need one stamp to complete all major varieties of Lourenco Marques. I'm fairly close to having all major numbers of Angola except for a few 1960s era items and several of the 1947 air mails. My Timor is complete except for a handful of postal tax issues. Funchal and Ponta Delgada both are complete, including the elusive bisects for newspaper mailings.

My next challenge will be getting the upcoming Scott Classic Specialized catalog since the re-do of the 1914-26 colonial Ceres issues is now done. Meaning I will need to re-do most of my Ceres colonial issues and see what is missing.

My Angola and Mozambique Ceres collections already reflect all the perfs and papers. Ceres also has many other varieties including shades and plate flaws. As an example, before the re-do, Scott listed 40 different stamps in the Ceres set. I have just under 330 different stamps in my Angola Ceres collection.

Anyone who has an interest in Portuguese colonies....I would strongly encourage you to join the International Society for Portuguese Philately (ISPP). I've been a member since 1991 and have found it to be extremely valuable in my pursuit of the colonies (as well as a decent collection of Portugal itself).

Visit www.portugalstamps.com . Unfortunately, we don't have a membership application on the site at this time. You can click on the reference to Portu-Info (the ISPP journal) and get the secretary's address to request an application. The next scheduled meeting for the ISPP, that I know of, will be at the WEST-PEX show in San Francisco next April.

Climber Steve : do you use the Afinsa catalog for the Portuguese Colonies at all?

And this is why I love specialized catalogs :

Here is an example of the type of detail you get in the Afinsa catalog for those Colonies that have the stars around the name of the colony in the Ceres issues, all sorts of fun combinations to hunt down and as far as I know not at all mentioned in Scott (at least not in the 2015 Classic Specialized that I have).



and this is the information in Maury regarding the vignette varieties on the Senegal Market pictorials of 1914-1933 (sorry not the best scan).

Hi DJCMHOH. Yes, I do have the Afinsa catalog for the colonies. It is a 2002 edition which suffices for me to track all the perfs, shades, and other varieties. I am thinking of upgrading as there is a later edition. I also have an older Eladio de Santos catalog for the colonies, but seldom use it since I got the Afinsa some 8-9 years ago.

You are correct about the "rotating stars" varieties for the Ceres issues. I haven't specifically looked for them altho do identify them if I find them in my collections. Another item grouping, that I don't think is mentioned even in Afinsa, is the "fenda" plate flaws on some of the Ceres issues. "Fenda" is a Portuguese word for slit, crack, or fissure. Basically, a "fenda" is a crack or break in the frame line on top of a Ceres issue. I think someone in the ISPP has cataloged the "fendas" by denomination and colony.

Another "essential" for those serious about collecting Portugal & colonies are references on forgeries. The main guide is D.J. Davies' guide to forgeries of Portugal & colonies. It is available through the ISPP Literature Service. For those who don't speak or read Portuguese; including me; an English-Portuguese dictionary may be useful. I just looked up "fenda" in mine.

Steve - I have the 2011, took some tracking down but was able to source a copy from the Dutch site http://www.collectura.com/ although they don't seem to have any more copies available.

DJCMHOH: re the more current Afinsa for the colonies, glad you were able to get a copy. I saw an ad for it a few issues back in Portu-Info. I think the English dealer Antonio Torres may have been the seller, but not sure. I need to go back and look.