A Whole Herd Of Swiss Standing Helvetias!

The Swiss standing Helvetias are a challenging area, between the watermarks, perforations, and color shades. I thought this lot (en route) would provide a nice "course" on differentiating them. My assumption is that the lot has been picked over for any high-value items, but it still looks to have a nice cross section of perfs, color shades, and impressions. Also some nice cancels to pull for my socked-on-the-nose cancel collection.

This will be a nice learning experience for working with the series.

You were not kidding about a herd!

Impressive!

Have fun!

Good grief! There's a lifetime's work in that lot. In a nice way I am envious because this is just the sort of stuff stamp collectors like to do best. Get things sorted and properly arranged. Good luck, and I'm sure you'll let us know if any goodies emerge.

Wow - that certainly looks like a few interesting nights in the office! Better hope for some stormy and rainy days ... Awesome lot. Best of luck!

Have fun with those! I love how the seller laid them out so very, very carefully to maximize the size and presentation. It probably took them an hour or so just to lay them out for the photos. Regardless, I would love to go through that hoard ... Good job!

Actually it was an auction house, not an eBay seller, which makes it even more surprising, IMO. However, this house routinely provides lots of high-resolution images (I sized them down for posting here).

what catalog are you using for classifying these? Michel?

Likely Scott, even though that's not the catalog that specialist collectors would use (which likely would be Zumstein), but my intent isn't to specialize in these too heavily.

*BUMP*
You might have gone through the whole bunch already.

Still, be advised Scott is still somewhat wonky about the listings aside from their haphazard organization. When you find ones that you can't find in Scott (and not necessarily rare or even scarce), set them aside and consider looking them up later in Zumstein or Michel.

I've noticed this myself, especially when it comes to perforations, as there tend to be "tweeners" in what amounts to quarter gauges rather than half. It's a bit of a minefield.

That would be a fun lot to search for postmarks. See if you can find any razorblade postmarks - https://swiss-philately.co.uk/wp-co...ancels_7.pdf

Lots like these look amazing when spread out for photos. But I hope they take the time to consolidate the lots down into a squared-off arrangement for shipment. This is a pet peeve of mine, and no I am not reasonable or objective about it. When stamps are just stuffed haphazardly in glassines or stock cards, inevitably some become damaged with folded perfs and/or creased corners.

On the flip side, you'll have a blast sorting those!

More importantly, perhaps Dan will get so engrossed in his Swiss pile he will leave some US revenues for the rest of us to buy....

Ain't gunna happen.

In this case, they were shipped loose in the original cigar box they were stored in, which actually protected the stamps in transit.