ID Mystery World Stamps: Germany, Turkey, Romania, Nz, Etc.?

Hi all!

My recent Czech stamp album purchase included an envelope with 300+ loose Czech stamps. As I was sorting through them, I noticed that there were also several non-Czech stamps included. I don't know much about stamps of other nations. I can mostly read where they came from on most of them, but I have no idea if these are anything worth hanging onto or if they are just common issues that happened to get mixed in somehow with the others that were sent.

My guess is obviously closer to the latter, but I just figured I'd be safer scanning them and posting here before I just mix them in with my bulk world stamps sorted by type. If there's anything that is of significance, or anything that someone needs for a collection they're working on, please let me know.

Here is the scan (sorry for the large file size...I wanted to make sure the details were good enough to properly ID):

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Bwbollom,

I am in the same boat you are. So far I have 5 full envelops of World Wide stamps and have no idea what they. I'm going to be very interested in what you find out about these since I have a bunch just like them or very similar to them.

Appears to be all relatively common (under $1) and mostly catalog minimum (20c). At least I don't see anything with a premium. But maybe someone else might notice something?

Devlin:
LOL! I don't have nearly as much as you, but I do have a box full that I have (semi)organized by type from several years back. I assumed that those weren't worth much since they were all from "grab bag" type purchases, but these looked older and were just sent randomly, so they had me a little curious. I hope you find some good ones in yours!

khj:
Thanks for the info. That's pretty much what I expected. I just don't have any world guides yet, so I couldn't look them up.

Is it common to get stamps from a variety of countries mixed in when you purchase a single country lot? I'm not complaining at all, just curious. It was actually kind of fun to see all of these random stamps mixed in that I'd never seen before! I would assume it happens from time to time to get one or two...this just seemed to be quite a few for a fairly small envelope of stamps.

Thanks again!

It doesn't happen that often, but I would not say it is unusual.

The most likely scenario is that the collector pulled out stamps from the country of interest and put it in one envelope to check later for stamps that can be added to the album. The remaining stamps get put into another envelope and stuck in the album so they don't get misplaced. Those worldwide stamps are probably not from one lot, but an accumulation from several batches that the previous owner went through.

For example, as I go through lots that are already sorted by country, it's not unusual for me to find 1-2 stamps from other countries accidentally mingled in. Rather than digging out the proper envelope for that country each time, I used to just dump them into a glassine/envelope until I accumulate a few 100, and then sort those into the proper country. Otherwise, I would end up spending a lot of time opening/closing glassines.

In my current method, I use about 7 Elbe pages and temporarily dump the stamps on those according to Scott volume. When I fill up one Elbe page (~200 stamps), I will sort the stamps for that Scott volume.

k

By the way, some collectors like to start a "fun" collection from the extra WW stamps that they normally would not collect.

For instance, the UN stamp is actually UN #1. You can start a WW #1 collection. Many #1's are not as expensive as you think. And if you are real good at spotting them, you can pick many of them up real cheap. On your UN stamp, you have a nice UN emblem. You can start a logo cancel collection. While this logo cancel was common on that era UN stamps, one thing to note is that it does NOT say "FIRST DAY OF ISSUE" between the lines -- that indicates it is a genuine postally used stamp, not one that was soaked of an FDC.

You also have a couple of slogan cancels -- see Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and New Zealand. A great start to a slogan cancel collection.

You have some clear strikes with places and dates. You can collect cancels by location, or one for every day of the year, or one that has your birthdate on it!

The 2 million Mark German stamp is always a great conversation piece, even though quite common. Some people like to collect inflationary issues, as they tend to be quite common. And it's fun to see how high you can get, as some of those stamp denominations make the national debt seem miniscule!

There are endless possibilities, as sometimes you will need a little distraction from your specialty.

Enjoy your Czech stamps; and whatever else might tag along with them!

k

I think the second German stamp is one of the occupation issues from 1945, before East and West Germany were formed. The other one is an inflation issue from the 1920's.

khj:
That makes sense about the sorting. I could see myself doing it that way if/when I end up with a large amount of worldwide stamps. I was just a bit confused as to why there were so many of a variety of countries included, but it was a pleasant surprise

I do like the idea of having an extra/side collection running. Possibly the WW#1 would be a fun one to work on slowly. I thought the UN stamp was nice as I had never even realized that the UN released stamps, so it was an even bigger surprise to see that one in the Czech envelope! Thanks for the ideas and info!

luvthecommonwealth:
Thanks for the info on the German stamps! I'll learn all about these eventually!

bwbollom

You said you collecting Czechs Stmps.
I have this 4 cards, don't know what to do with them.
If you like them, send me your address and I mail them to you.

danko:
I would love to add them to my collection. I will email you right after this. Thanks so much!

No problem! I just happened to learn about those when looking in an old starter album that was part of my dad's collection that he gave me. I was trying to track down what time this blue Berlin stamp was from (turned out to be a "blue flea," stamps that were used to aid Berlin shortly after the war ended).

luvthecommonwealth: Sounds interesting! I'm guessing I'll need to eventually acquire a set of guide books for looking up stuff like this. I ordered the Scott World Catalog v.2 (C-F) so I could have more info about the Czech and related stamps, but that will only include a handful of countries. One of these days...

Many WW collectors have this stamp but may not realize the term "blue flea".

It actually comes in 4 different fonts, as well as perforate/imperforate varieties. The block of 4 above is the imperforate variety.
k

i have some of these

Bw: Know what you mean! Until school is finished...I suffice with the my collection on Stanley Gibbons/the public library. I would be interested in the India and Rhodesia stamps once my post count is high enough.

Khj: thanks for the info. I have one that is the perferated variety.

luvthecommonwealth: I still need to check the library here to see what kind of stamp resources they offer. I looked at Half Price Books yesterday and they had very little...I was actually kind of surprised. I usually can find some decent materials for whatever topic I'm researching at their stores.

email me your info and we can set up a trade for the India & Rhodesia stamps as soon as you reach 50 posts. I don't want to break any rules around here, but you should be there later today or tomorrow anyway since you're already in the 40s :)