A Different Sort Of Bundleware...

Bundleware... a meticulous method of storing multiple stamps of the same type/design/denomination, prevalent in the early-to-mid part of the 20th century, but now seemingly out of vogue.

Individual bundles are usually all of the same stamp design, grouped in 50s or 100s, bound together with string or paper wrappers (like currency wrappers from the bank if you get new bills 20 or 50 at a time).

Most bundleware I've encountered is 1920s-1950s U.S. definitives, usually only of interest if you are a flyspecker or cancel/precancel collector, as the stamps are almost always of nominal value. Finds are possible if one is perseverant, but going through the stuff is a tedious task at best.

I've also seen bundleware from Canada, the UK, France, and Germany, again usually from the early-to-mid 20th century.


This particular group of bundleware is a bit more esoteric and more up my alley: The camel and postrider stamps of Sudan.

Should make for some fun cancel and flyspecking hunting!

Careful loosening the ropes, contents may be under pressure. :).

I wouldn't want to hazard a guess at how many hours it would take to go through this material, even for a casual study.

wow there's some work for a raining day-always liked the stamps of sudan-sadly so so hard to sell with all those tarffis and eBay/paypal rules-nice stamps

From what I can tell, Sudan is no longer on the ebay banned country list.

The list is currently:

Cuba
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)
Iran
Syria

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/...licy?id=4323

Thanks for sharing. Have fun! I can't wait to find myself a bundle of RB23/RB23p!

A few years ago I went to the local stamp club for the 1st time. Before the meeting the is a small bourse where folks sell some stamps and supplies. One table was selling 1 lb bags of off-paper stamps for $5.00, which is pretty cheap. However when I examined the bags I noticed a large part of the content was bundleware made up of US Large Banknote stamps. I bought all they had (4 bags) and asked if they had anymore like those but they didn't know what I was talking about. I sold those 4 bags on ebay for $1200.

OMG, I wish I had seen those listings. Large banknotes by the bundle, now that would be fun!

Just to be a wiseguy I sold them in the original bags with the $5 price in magic marker. It didn't matter I had a lot of bids.

Ahhh. Very interesting. Recently won a lot that include this and wondered, really, all this tied up stuff. Never head of it before. Bundleware. Very intriguing.

In a junk box I bought at auction was a fair-sized plastic box of French bundleware from 1950s. I valued it at zero when I bought it, but got a nice surprise when I started selling the stuff on ebay, about 5 or 10 bundles (of 100 each) at a time -- made about $10 per lot. Common large stamps (eg tourist publicity series), so I guess people buying for postmarks.

BUNDLEWARE ----Is a sorry a$$ way to collect stamps . A waste of time for most .Sure some specialist could discover something interesting but looking at this b oard over 5 years ,not much in the way of specialist discoveries .

Sure some will cry that treasure can be found ,just as likely in buying a packet of stamps or buying a album on ebay sure a treasure can be found even at a second hand store . It terrible to think how many collectors are out their looking for their treasure in a pile of junk .....much like those who's retirement plan are depended on winning the lottery .

I always thought packet makers bought bundleware.

But there are no more packet-makers!

True, a packet maker once had this or somebody accumulated these to try and sell to a packet maker. So... ??


True for the traditional commercial ones. Those were reported to have been largely put together by the kids of the major stamp supply companies for pocket money. There are still packages being made up of X different for sale. I just bought 100 different Faroe Islands used a couple of weeks ago with the ebay dealer having sold many such packets previously.

Of course that only applies if you are in the USA