My Worldwide Collection: An Ongoing Journey

WOW ---Interesting and very detail to sorting out those Brazil watermarks . I did the same thing 30 years ago ,to mount those different watermarks , I need to post my pages .

I know you're well beyond "just starting out" but I always have a look at the Big Blue blog as a resource for any tricky (or not so tricky!) areas like this. There are two good posts about these stamps

http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.co...1Stamps.html

and

http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.co...-brazil.html

I always find that I feel more confident after reading one of Jim's posts even if I discover there's a great deal more to find out .......

Great Link ! 1850
Saved.
Not working on my Brazil right now, tackling Czechoslovakia.

I really enjoy reading about Steiner page mods.

Alas, by the time I have figured out I need to add some details to a page, I have already printed and mounted the stamps. I have been trying to find ways to do the cheat sheet approach or better yet use the left side similar to Mystic.

floortrader - I wold absolutely like to see some of your Brazil pages. I always enjoy looking at other peoples collections. They are a great source of inspiration.

crispin - I may be beyond the "just starting out stage", but I am never beyond learning something new. In this case, I am familiar with the BigBlue blog. I have checked it out many times in the past, but I do appreciate reminding me of it however. Thank you!

Rod - I've been keeping an eye on your Czech page. Awesome as usual!

angore - I'm the same way. I've had many instances of "printers remorse", where I discover something I should have included on a page I printed, but too late. Some I went ahead and made the mod and reprinted a new page, but many I haven't.......yet. I have a small stack of bad pages I've printed, or accidental duplicate pages, or pre-modified pages and I really need to become more disciplined in printing because paper doesn't grow on trees..........oh, wait...I guess it does!

A little side project:

This past weekend my wife and I took a drive to do some antiquing, and ended up in antique store we visited a while back. At that time there was a dealer booth that had a fairly large stamp collection being sold. There were about 15-20 stock books and 1/2 a dozen, or so, Scott International-sized albums. Each one being sold by the album or stock book.
I remember going through the stock books and immediately recognizing that this is where the collector stored duplicates in no real order, except by country. And most looked like common material and didn't warrant the price being asked (50% off $60) in my opinion.

You also have to remember that this was before I decided to go full on worldwide collecting, so I wasn't too interested in much anyway.

The albums I remember looking through were basically Big Blue volumes, but the countries were all jumbled up and were really kind of a mess. The binders were all being held together with blue duct tape. There was pretty good coverage on most pages, but nothing I was interested at the time.

But still, could I pass up a decently filled album for $30? I think not. I found one album in particular that had nothing but Eastern European countries in it, so A LOT of Stamps. Countries included Albania, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria mostly. What the heck, I thought, so I got it.

Fast forward to this past weekend. While visiting this same store, I happened upon the same booth, and yes the same collection being sold. A few less books and albums, but still plenty to look through.

This time I was looking through them as a worldwide collector, so nothing was really off the table. The stock books were still not too exciting. But I took a closer look through the albums that were left and found 2 pretty, decently filled. I immediately set them aside for purchase.

I t was pretty obvious this started out as a substantial collection, and that it had been cherry picked, probably even by the first time I saw them a couple years ago.

The 2 albums I picked out had misc countries in them, but there was an abundance of material from post WWII, which is exactly what I was after since I am pretty light in that era.

The album I bought the first tie has been sitting on my shelf all this time, so I pulled it off and stacked it with the 2 current ones I bought, to take this picture.


You'll notice one album with very uneven pages. It was actually a hodgepodge of Scott, Minkus and Harris pages. A real Frankenstein album.

I was waiting for the right time to start going through the first album, when I decided, last night, to just de-compile them all and put the pages into oversized envelopes, by country, for easier access. The binders got tossed, and the pages will eventually get tossed as well.

Brazil continued:

A few more pages finished, mostly for this very long, and complicated, series. Nothing really earth-shattering and some of the pages, that I will not bother to show right now, have very few stamps on them.


This page is one of my "goof ups". I miscalculated the placement of the second watermark graphic, so it wound up too close to the stamp box. You will also note the green arrow at the top of the page. This is my way of indicating a stamp with a hidden defect that needs replacing. I just use the little colored Post-it note arrows you can find just about anywhere. Easy to remove and no having to write on the page.


I didn't have room to print the watermark graphic for the "echelon" version of the watermark at the top of the page. Scott lists it in the specialized catalog, but doesn't show an example. It took me a while to figure it out, but managed with the help of the RHM catalog. I also managed to find 1 example among my "stash'. I'm guessing they are harder to find.

I get around this problem, by using my Album pages as surrogate glassines.
I plop any used soaked examples in the page they are due to reside, mint examples are placed in mounts and placed in there also.

When I have a complete page, I mount all, so the page is finished.
Any subsidiary stuff, I make a personal page.
That way, I can also choose the best examples amongst issues that have multiples.

PS: Those big albums look super, 1850, that's how I like to buy stamps.

the Brazil pages are really starting to come together, and look great. The green arrow is a neat way of marking stamps to be changed and an idea I shall shamelessly copy!

Seeing it made me wonder if that technique wouldn't work for your illustration additions of watermarks and faults and so on. If you printed them out and stuck them in, you wouldn't have to spend time time working out where they needed to be on the page and would alleviate the frustration of them being in the wrong place. The edge of the cut out would be almost invisible if you used the same paper.


I do find that in referring back to articles I've read before, things that I've read but not understood what they meant suddenly stand out and make complete sense - I read and re-read some of the articles in Big Blue and each time find something new

Mixed collections like the ones you show are almost irresistible I find and provide hours of enjoyment - as you say at $30 an album like that you can't really go wrong - the hours of enjoyment per dollar compared to almost anything else you could spend your money on .......

Not much to update right now. The Christmas season has me running around quite a bit, shopping, building things, working overtime. It's rather hectic.

Crispin - Thank you for the nice words. I may indeed try printing out the wmk graphic and placing it on the page. I've had rather spotty results so far with my method. Some I had to even reprint the whole page, which is just a waste of paper. Luckily, I'm almost past the trouble areas of Brazil.


I did have a small "diversion" from the Brazil collection.
I recently re-joined the APS. I've been a member, off and on, for a number of years, but never really took advantage of all the perks. One of those perks is the philatelic rental library, which I have recently gave a try. I will definitely be continuing this, as I cannot afford to buy all the literature for collecting WW.

Another perk is the approval service, or circuit books. Never tried this before, so I signed up this time to give it a try.

One thing I noticed, when signing up, was that there was not a choice of "Worldwide" as a selection to have books sent to you. So instead, I chose a couple countries I had decent knowledge of, hoping to find some hidden gems. I chose Spain & Colonies, Denmark & Sweden, to start out with.

Yesterday, I got my first selection of Spain & Colonies books. My first reaction was that this is a great way to fill in holes, and possibly make finds, without going anywhere, and you can see the stamps first hand, which is a plus.

Then, after going through the 12 books sent to me, I realized that because these go from collector to collector, the first collector in line will have the first opportunity to make those finds.

This was obvious when I saw all the empty spaces with APS numbers stamped into them.

Not sure if I'll ever be at the top of the list or not, especially since I'll be changing countries now and then. Not really sure how all this works yet, but I'll be patient and see "what the cat drags in".

I did, however manage to find a few items to fill in some spaces in Cuba and Ifni, as well as a Spain #1 (type 23 for plate 1) which went into my plate reconstruction.

Brazil continued:

I was able to sit and get a little bit more done with my Brazil project tonight, mostly sparse pages of commemoratives from the 1950's.

But, I FINALLY got through this series (below) as well, with all the watermark varieties. At least the ones I could decipher. I still have an envelope full of them that have hinge and paper remnants on the backs. These will need to be soaked, pressed and cleaned up a little in order to make positive ID on the watermark.

I also came across bunches of the ones with the green "control bars" printed on the reverse sides. I never really knew what they were for so I never bothered segregating them. Now I have.

With the help of the RHM catalog I was able to get them sorted out as well, and with the help of AlbumEasy, I was able to make pages for them, to go along with their non-control bar counterparts.

Here is one such page, with the watermark and control bar graphics added.


I am actually getting near to the end of my initial Brazil mounting. I only printed pages to 1960 for now, although I do have some later issues that I can mount. But I'll probably gie myself a break from Brazil and save the rest for later.

So many projects, so little time.

Almost finished with the base album for Brazil, at least for pages printed up to 1960. I do have some later material, but not much. It is clear that I will probably be on the lookout for an "all different" type collection at some point. I have a lot of empty spaces/pages to work on.

I did manage to make some pages for a few money order cards I had stashed away. Not sure where, or when, I got them, but at least they have a place in the collection now.

I wasn't able to positively identify most of the stamps, due to all the watermark varieties, but I was able to at least narrow most of them down based on the date they were used on the cards. Even the deposit stamps have multiple watermark varieties. I decided to make reductions of the back side of each and inject them onto each page. Another experiment for me. I kind of like it.

I did figure out something very important though. The Lineco archival photo mounts I have are junk! I will not be buying that brand again. They just split and fell apart.

spain_1850: For corner mounts 32 x 32 Leuchtturm are great.Very sturdy.They really stick.
https://www.leuchtturm.fr/collectio...hilatelique/

That "Sherlock" Wmk detector looks interesting,
esp. in a Brazil context.
I wonder if any members have one?

perf12 - Yeah, I should have gone with this brad first. Had a few people tell me about them. As soon as I started having trouble with mine I immediately went and ordered me some from ebay. The ones I got are 19 x 19 though. It's about the same size as the Lineco's I have and are probably fine for most of the things I'll need them for. Thanks for the link though. Some interesting looking items there.




rod - Ditto. I'd love to see some reviews from members here. Sure looks like a pretty high tech toy that's for sure. I love gadgets!