What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

I spent more time checking Machins from Scott pages. Scott has abdicated listing Machins to SG given how few obvious varieties possible they list. They ignore tagging that is often easy to see without a UV light. They do cover phosphor varieties (less common than the Machin versions) in non-Machin issues.

Now that I am back from my work trip, I am going through my new stamp acquisitions. One of the larger lots I won (for what I hope was a good price) is early Sweden on some pretty thin album pages. Trying to figure out how to best sort, categorize and store - I currently only have US Albums. I also have a few that I am not too sure about that I will be researching - such as the Fem Ore imperf. - green and tan.

Enjoy. The "imperf" looks like a cut-out from postal stationery. A "good" price for these would be low, as they turn up in many older albums.

yes was dollars as in single digits - I love these stamps for no apparent reason so for me it was a good value. Another page plus a few I believe are Denmark - lol - not Sweden, but it's all good.

The two brown 20 cents stamps nearby the 5 ore green lion stamp, are from Switzerland, not from Sweden. "Helvetia" stands for "Confederatio Helvètica" the Latin name of the Central European country. All Swiss stamps bear this name.

The last stamps are, actually, postage due Danish stamps.

Yes the Switzerland ones are not from the lot I bought, I ran out of room on my Helvetia page so I tucked it in there :). The Danish ones I definitely want to look up to learn about as I realized they were not Swedish.

Cursus, I looked into the Danish stamps further. I'm thinking Danish Newspaper stamps, perf 13 from 1907. That is different from postage due correct? And newspaper stamps are considered BOB correct?



First time using my "new" Scott catalog :)

Yes. I'm sorry the're not "Postage due", but "Newspaper stamps". Anyway, The listing of issues depends on each catalog. Major Western European catalogs don't separate charity stamps (semi-postals for Scott) from "normal" ones (Zumstein, does). Stanley Gibbons don't even separate newspaper stamps from regular ones.
For booklet stamps, so common in Scandinavian countries, Scott only lists "two, three or four perforated sides". While most European catalogs list also pairs and Michel, even, "unperforated left" and "unperforated right".
I find Scott "too simple" for European stamps. I've an old copy that just use for exchage stamps. But, for collecting I use European catalogs: SG, Michel, Y&T, Zumstein, Facit... But, I collect mainly Western European stamps. Perhaps for US it's OK...

Yes - I am going through some of the Swedish numeral of value stamps - hmmm some have a horn on the back and other do not? When I look online or in the Scott Specialized, I am not finding any information on the horn vs. no horn. I do see that some are perf 13 and other version perf 14. I am soaking some of the hinges off so I hope to post a picture of them soon for advice. Everyday I realize that with stamps - it is usually not straight forward :)

The Swedes began to add a blue posthorn on the back of stamps in 1886. Some designs first used in the 1872-77 and 1885 issues therefore exist with and without the posthorn.

Thank you guys - here is a pick of some of those that I found in the lot (I have about 5 more) - I know the two below the numerals are actually coat of arms - trying to figure out how to tell between 1rd and 1k -one is a perf 13 for sure. Appreciate your guidance.

EDIT - oh ad there is this little purple "3" in a circle at the bottom of the back of one of the coat of arms - not sure what that is.

The 1 kr deep blue and bistre arms stamps are the top values in the 1886-91 numerals set, p13. The 1r has no posthorn.

Thank you Geoff - yes I found them in the Scott - I believe #49 1K Blister and Dark Blue :) (1886-1891). I think I am starting to understand how the catalogue works.

Today I attended the Knoxville Philatelic Society's monthly Saturday buy and sell meeting. It is mostly members going through the club's stock. When I say stock it includes 24 world-wide boxes of 102 cards of stamps cataloging between $1 -$5, about 20 WW boxes of 107 cards of better stamps, a few binders of large items, some retired APS circuit books, and 2 binders of high catalog US and WW. It is a lot of fun.
I have been going through the US boxes recently. I picked up a few dozen inexpensive used US revenues today. I need to save my money for the KnoxPex stamp show March 7-8. If you are near Knoxville TN, put it on your calendar.

Today, I designed and printed commemorative pages for my U.S. collection from 1945 to 1960. I am slowly expanding my collection of commemoratives and definitives to the 1980s maybe the 1990s. I haven't decided yet whether to collect to current date, although right now I'm not inclined to chase after the newer issues.