My Worldwide Collection: An Ongoing Journey

GeoffHa - I really like the concept of one page for mint, one for used. It solves another problem, and that is "what do I do with duplicates?" Normally, if I upgrade a stamp from used to unused, the used stamp goes back into my stock of duplicates. If I start another page for used stamps, I provide a place to store, and display, duplicates that would otherwise sit in envelopes waiting for some kind of disposition, and taking up valuable space in storage boxes.

I think I'm going to really give this some consideration. Thank you for showing your examples. Food for thought.

Maiden - I'm sure there are going to be many examples of unused stamps that are more common than used examples. If you prefer used over unused, will you be making exceptions for stamps that were never officially issued, and are only known unused? I know some who don't even accept un-issued stamps in their collection.
I guess that's one good thing about mixing used and unused. If one is more affordable than the other, that's the one I usually keep. Unless I happen across the more expensive one, which doesn't happen often with me.

Here is the next batch of mounted French Morocco. As a side note, most of the stamps came from the Morocco album I showed on the very first page of this thread. It's a really ratty, old Minkus album and I've been wanting to give them a better home.





You can see on this page my usual way of noting hidden faults, in this case, a large thin not visible from the front. It is simply a post-it and reminds me that it should be upgraded.

Beautiful group of the Helio Vanguard definitives. Amazing how many dealers sell them as the 1917 line engraved issue.

These issues remind me alot of the issues from Algeria, from the same time period. Luckily, these were placed in the album, that I pulled them from, in the correct spots, so all I had to do was transfer them.

I have comparatively few of the engraved issues, I'm assuming they are a bit harder to find?

Some more mounted French Morocco pages for tonight. This project is progressing faster than I thought. Maybe because I don't have a thousand duplicates to deal with.

Spain, yes the 1917 Fr. Morocco definitives are much scarcer than the 1923-7 issues, especially mint. They are also much harder to find in sound condition.

You are right about Algerian definitives from this era, and I would add that definitives from Tunisia kind of complete the "triangle." They make for a great collection together with many being line-engraved.

Just a note from another collector ----I don't like your pink post-note sticker , for a stamp with a thin . I just use a dash line under a defective stamp written with a pencil ,it looks like a minus sign. That covers all kinds of defects,stains, thins and rounded corners .As I replace the stamp it is simple to erase the pencil line .

spain - the 1943 Moroccan "tower" group comes with different perfs and gum types, should you wish to waste some time. Catalogues aren't hugely helpful about them, though - one of my problem sets that I tell myself I'll come back to!

I've put my WW on hold. Its been way too bewildering for me. I just can't seem to get it organized into anything comprehensible. About to give up.

Jack Kelley

spain,

I'v been spending some time this morning catching up on your more recent postings of Chile and French Morocco. While I will admit a preference for the latter I also like the Chilean issues.

I'm not sure how many of either area I'll find as I work through my own accumulation. As I go through some material I've had in boxes for a number of years I have been running into a few "Wow I didn't know I had that!" moments. Most recently that came when finding a small collection of Tripolitania on Scott specialty pages. But that's what's so terrific about collecting worldwide. There is just so much out there to discover.

On the topic of mixing mint and used, in my younger days I was a strictly postally used guy. At least in my head. Once I made the decision to include CTOs happily the door was open and mint (hinged or not) snuck in. The more the merrier, I say.

Dale

floortrader - I appreciate your honesty, and I am pretty open to try things new. But in this case the post it notes are better for me. As a rule, I don't like using markings on my pages, unless absolutely necessary. I've tried penciling in catalog numbers, didn't like it. I've used notations such as yours in the past, but if I wanted to erase them I had to write it so light that I could easily miss it. The times I did use pencil markings, I wound up just re-printing the page. The post it notes are very temporary and are easy for me to spot even while casually flipping through an album. Currently, I have a few pages here and there that I need to re-print because I had to make some pencil notations on them. To each there own.



jkelley - Don't give up!. Collecting worldwide can indeed become overwhelming. Sometimes even I look at what I have left to do and sigh! In those times I just sit down and get myself re-excited. Sometimes I just flip through a stamp magazine, or pull out a small envelope of stamps see what is in there. Sometimes all it takes I to set a little time for yourself and set a small goal, like sort 1 envelope, mount 1 page, identify 1, 10, 20 stamps that have had you stumped in the past. Or even spend an evening soaking and sorting a country.
It is all a journey, and should be taken 1 day at a time, 1 task at a time.

Statesman - It's great when you find something you forgot you had or never even knew you had. I still continue to find things in my stash. It's like Christmas everyday!

I'm always open to expand things a bit. Unfortunately, as been stated, probably by everyone, Scott catalog is woefully inadequate in that department. It doesn't even mention differing perforation, which I would probably be more interested in than the gum, since I'm more likely to run into used stamps. What is the nature of the perforation differences?
I did notice some have a "rough" cut perforation and some have clean perforations, is that the case? Or is there different perforation gauges as well?
Here are 2 I pulled out, where I actually have 1 of each of the perforations I noticed.

So, while working on French Morocco, I was doing a little straightening up on one of my stamp working "surfaces", and came across yet another envelope of Chile. Not many, about 100 stamps or so, mostly older stuff. How do I keep missing this stuff?

Anyway, I went ahead and sorted it our really quick and went through them to see f there were any I could add to the album. I was able to add 6 stamps, and upgrade another 6, so I'm happy! $ of the stamps I added were on the 2nd page of the album.

Here is the page before:


And here is the new page with the additions and a couple upgrades. I may go ahead and try to target the missing stamps and finish the page.


I'm also a sucker for interesting or socked on the nose cancels and postmarks. I haven't scanned any of them in yet, mostly because I don't have a clue yet as to how I want to present them on album pages. I may just insert a Vario stock page into each album and keep them on it until I can figure something out. At least they will be on display instead of in an envelope.

Here are a few of the ones I've pulled out for Chile. Comments on any of them are welcome.

JKelley wrote: "I've put my WW on hold........." I'm with you on that. I was a "world-wider" for over 50 years. What I finally found that I was putting too much time and energy into collecting areas that weren't all that interesting, to me. Yes, I had pages of French Morocco stamps of the kind that Spain_1850 has recently nicely shown. And a lot of other stuff from around the world.

After a good amount of thought, I decided to go regional, and to specialize in certain areas that are of strong interest. Example of regional areas are Portugal and colonies, and "select countries of Eastern Europe" (Baltic states, Finland, one of my specialty countries of Poland, and Russia). An example of a single country specialty is Mexico.

Lots of countries are now gone, to auction or given away. Still have quite a few that await final decision on disposal. But I've been very pleased with my decision and my wallet/budget has been even happier. As Spain_1850 eloquently put it above: "each to their own." To which I'll add: collect what you want and have fun doing it .

Well, I don't have much, but ... oddly, Maury doesn't mention the perfs, as far as I can see. SG refers to their being issued with perf 11 1/2 or 12, as does Yvert, which further identifies three issues:

(i) perf 12, bright gum. It then notes that two types of this issue can be found, then doesn't describe them, beyond mentioning that the two types can be found se tenant on the 10c, 40c 70c, 80c and 2F;
(ii) perf 11 1/2, with matt gum on the 1F10 and 4F50; and
(iii) perf 12, matt gum, colours slightly different.

I haven't looked at these for a while, so I can't recall if the scruffy perfs are found in one particular issue!