Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
This week I received the last couple of items to complete the first page for my airmail collection of Peru. As an added bonus, I got a second printing of Scott catalog #C1 and Specimen of Scott catalog #C2. Here's the final layout:
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Series of 1898-1902 United States of America Revenues issues.
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Austrian Newspaper stamps!
Thanks Terry!
-Ari
P.S. I should note Philatelia is doing well and running a little eBay shop. She is a very kind person, and is missed on SoR by those who knew her when she was online.
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Recently received Austrian stamps, 1908-1932 so far. My first experience with stamps from Austria and I am finding quite enjoyable
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Hard Stamps to categorize!
Let me know if you need any of my advice/cheat sheets.
-Ari
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United States of America, I'm working on wine stamps today.
Recently received wine stamps lot of hundreds.
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I am trying to decide how to mount some Philippine revenues.
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Do you have any cancelled in General Santos, old ones. I used to lived in General Santos.
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Bolivia and then United Nations
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I started working on material I acquired over the past six months. Life got busy and it is finally slowing down; my buying hasn't slowed. As I get time I will post in the appropriate threads.
Vince
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Martinque (Country Collection sold on EBay) and Mauritania.
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After a long gap, I've added an item to my collection of engraved stamps. It's a nice used block of four of the 5 cent + 5 cent green Ludvig Forrer stamp from the 1945 Pro Juventute set of Switzerland. Engraved by Karl Bickel senior. I've got several of Bickel's stamps, but this one is a gem. Bickel designed and engraved stamps from the early 1930s till 1965. He died in 1982.
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Pulled out my Czechoslovakian collection; going to consolidate and hopefully find new homes for some of the many duplicates
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Czech Republic (1999 onward) and Costa Rica
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Absolutely nothing - I envy all of you;
Everything is in storage for yet another month, waiting for the remodeling work to get done.
Meanwhile, our house is sold and we have to be out in a week.
Im suffering withdrawal symptoms I think!!!
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Greenland, Liechtenstein, and Estonia
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Waiting for some stamps in the mail.
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Added a large number of German Democratic Republic stamps to my International Part III, IV, and V albums and, drum roll please, managed to reach 50% completion level for the International Part V album. This album is part of my International 1840-1963 based collection to which I have been adding mint stamps beginning in 2017 following original purchase of a Minkus based collection which originally had a total of 12,000 stamps ranging from 1840-1980 in 2005 which I moved to International pages yielding 12,909 stamps in the new album pages on completion of the move on 5/19/2018 (including a very large number of acquisitions made during the move process, noted since there were several thousand stamps that stayed on the Minkus pages as there was no place for them on the International pages due to the mismatch of the date periods covered as well as the greater coverage provided by the original Minkus pages). I now have 43,635 of 85,703 spaces in the albums for 50.97% completion of the album set.
I now only need 647 more stamps for the Part III album in order to reach the 50% completion level for that last remaining album in the set which stubbornly remains below the 50% level which was my original expectation for a potential level of completion goal for the album set. Currently I am at 45.36% completion for that album. The most complete album is the Part IV album which currently stands at 56.77% complete.
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I'm working mainly on Denmark, Greenland and Norway. I just finished breaking down a nice collection of Venezuela which took some time.
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Libya, Christmas Island, and France (Semi Postals)
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Today I spent getting some of the Tangier airmail stamps (Spanish Offices) sorted, identified. Then I created some album pages and got them mounted. 'Sn' numbers are from the last whole Sanabria catalog (1966), and 'Mi' numbers are from the Michel catalog (Volume 5.4. North Afrika-2014). Really interesting stuff, and I enjoyed working with them! The International Zone of Tangiers consisted of an area around Tangier in Morocco that was serviced by the postal systems of Great Britain, France and Spain from 1939 to 1958.
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I spent a lot of time sorting through Spanish era Philippines postal cards (tarjetas). These are all new to me so a learning experience.
Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between yellow, aged yellow, and buff. There is a salmon color too but that is supposedly an organish pink color. There are 19 major varieties with paper and a few print differences as minor varieties.
This book was useful. Scott Classic 1840 to 1940 does not list these - at least the 2018 version I have. Edifil's listings are simplified.
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I created a spreadsheet with most of the common collectible Spanish era Philippines postal cards.
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New Hebrides and British West Africa.
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Philippines Postal Cards. I am on a crash course to understand Philippines. There are some excellent references.
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I am updating my Czeslaw Slania album today.
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angore,
Im fascinated by the wild history of the Philippines. Would love to hear your commentary on some of these items.
BermudaSailor,
Thats awesome that you have have a collection of Slania material. I always love it when folks post his stuff.
Are we confident in saying that Czeslaw Slania is the preeminent engraver of our time?
Here's an interesting thought: Slania (rightfully so) takes up alot of oxygen when discussing master engravers. Who else is out there?
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Interesting, I acquired an album for the Phillippines for a range of items to be added to my existing International 1840-1963 collection and managed to add 60 new stamps to my existing collection from the album. The album itself is interesting as it covers the issues beginning with the Philippine Republic starting in 1946 and running through 1967. Following the removal of items for addition to my International collection there are slightly over 250 stamps left in the album with 10-15 of these stamps being used and the rest mint. Now I have to decide whether I want to complete the new album as it is proving very interesting! :-) The album pages were initially copyright 1959 by G. C. Kobylka in Berwyn, Illinois with additional pages being added in following years apparently. The pages are on a heavyweight paper similar to those used by White Ace.
By a remarkable coincidence, an acquaintance from Seattle reported the day after I received the album that he had just returned from a vacation trip to the Philippines during the American Thanksgiving holidays. I believe it was his first international trip other than a visit to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada by car in the past.
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"The album pages were initially copyright 1959 by G. C. Kobylka "
I have the album too so filled with mint stamps but it is not in my main album. The pages stop at 1958. I have a lot of duplicates for all eras.
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Antigua....from a small collection. Early stamps have several different watermark possibilities and perfs. I have a headache.
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Argentina....used pre 2000 and a new interest in private post mail
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My wife and I just finished watching The Battle of Algiers, which inspired me to do a short web page based on a few of my Algerian stamps and covers. If you haven't watched that film, do so when you have the opportunity. Incredible film-making. What strikes me about the Algerian War is how the French lost their war in Vietnam and literally went straight into war in Algeria, which they also lost, even with assistance from the United State in the form of weapons, matériel, even American helicopters including the Sikorsky Seahorse which transported me and members of my battalion around Quang Ngai and Quang Nom Provinces, South Vietnam, in 1966.
This postcard, from my collection, was sent from the American hospital ship U.S.S. Haven as it transported wounded and ill French Army survivors of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu home to Algeria and France:
Bob
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The French are pretty good at losing wars.
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US series of 1922!
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I have been working on another spreadsheet for Philippines postal stationery. The IPSS has a much deeper listing than Scott in regards to watermark, knife (envelope construction), and minor size differences.
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Had a great morning working on my album. Got up early, thoroughly wiped down my desk, washed my hands, put on my 70s Soft Rock playlist and got to work.
I went to FLOREX last week in Deland and met up with my dealer (that doesn't sound quite right haha). He's in the minority in that he stocks, catalogs and brings lower to mid-level cat value stamps. It seems more and more dealers only want to bring their "top shelf" inventory. He's a great guy and I look forward to seeing him at the Jacksonville show in February. I picked up quite a few regular issues, postage due and several key officials.
I'm really pleased the way my banknote issues are filling in!. When you start this journey it feels like it will take a lifetime to complete your album to the best of your ability. It may be true! For me, one of the good things about this hobby is that you can put it down for a while (month or even years) and it's always right there waiting on me when I get back.
I had a tough week. My older brother Hugh passed away Tuesday morning. He lived in Ocala. He passed at 9:16 AM and my wife and I walked into the hospital room at 9:40 AM. It was so nice to spend a couple of hours this morning with this fun hobby.
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Sorry to hear about the loss of your brother. Stamps can be a good retreat sometimes. The collection is looking very nice!
Send me your address via a message and I can send you one nice stamp to fill in a space.
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Jerrel,
Ooohhh NICE. Yes; address sent! Thank you my Friend! I appreciate that. I think I'm gonna put my head down and finish up these three pages. I only need 12 stamps. Wait, after reading your message this morning make that 11!
PS: Every time I see your name, for some strange reason, I always think about Superman's Father on Krypton. 
Have a great day man.
Ernie
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I'm sorry to hear of your brother Ernie. Thank you Jerrel for being so kind.
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Thank you Joe!
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I second joesm's response.
So sorry about your loss Ernie, it's never easy.
And a big "Thank you" to Jerrel to help fill those great pages of early U.S.
For the past week or so I've been clearing up some folders and boxes of accumulations.
Worked through a bunch of Danzig and then Polish Occupation General Government.
The past few days has been sorting and organizing a large accumulation of French Journee du Timbre material, my only Topical with any depth.
Hopefully this will all end up on pages and into binders in the next few days.
Next up will be German railway cancels - anyone have any information on established German rail mail routes and route numbers through 1945?
Best wishes for the holidays to all.
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Received a new album for the United Nations today. It is a Scott Hingeless album with a brown leather cover from 1975 plus it has supplement pages to extend it through 1995 for stamps plus envelopes and post cards. While a good number of stamps are included (plus the Scott #38 souvenir sheet) it will give me quite a number of items to look for in coming months especially the issues starting in the 1980's plus a few isolated items in the earlier periods. I now have seven different Scott Hingeless albums with the brown leather covers including USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Mexico, and the United Nations which is the order in which I acquired them over the last forty plus years.
Actually I have had the USA album so long that the binder is starting to dry rot along the inner hinge area. Some day I would like to replace that album's binder as I haven't figured out how to repair it so far.
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Jerrel,
That's really cool. Do you like them for the most obvious reason of just taking the whole hassle of dealing with hinges and mounts out of the equation? I wonder if there is a good hingeless album that would fit for me.
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I've got to admit, going hingeless sounds amazing. Finding the right mounts can be difficult, then you've got to both cut them correctly or if they're precut, affix them exactly straight.
I just looked at Palo Premium hingeless stamp album pages for US 1847-1940. You might want to sit down for this. The pages alone are a whopping $353.00.
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Mounted some Puerto Rico stamps on modified Steiner pages. Color ID can be a challenge for a few issues.
Original Steiner page
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Palo produces beautiful albums. I'll stick with hinges as I can deal with them. I love my Palo Canada to 1984! It was expensive but I don't regret it. I also love my Scott National albums.
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I generally really like hingeless albums, my collecting interests are strongly biased towards mint/unused stamps, and I like the clear mounts used in the albums because the albums still look like regular albums. I, also, like the brown leather covers.
I do have some other hingeless albums for modern Japan (up through 1990’s) - Kabe, a second Canada collection - Palo, modern Norway and Finland - Davo, and United States of America (newer all mint collection which has now moved backwards to 19th century issues) - Lighthouse, and a newer United States collection for 1947 through 1990’s mint stamps - Scott Platinum album.
If the original Scott albums were available I would likely have more of them as they continue to be my favorites. They just look luxurious.
For blank page albums the albums and especially the leather wrapped binders produced by Frank Godden are gorgeous.
It would be interesting if the Easton Press book publisher produced some albums. For books they do gorgeous work as well.
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I came across this stamp in my dad's collection.
It is Puerto Rico postage stamp (Scott 21) overprinted with a Philippine revenue (Judicial) design. After a lot of searching various references, I found a notation in an old reference that it is printer's waste.
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At the end of 2024 I had very few worldwide stamps, but during 2025 through participation in numerous giveaways I have great increased that number. In 2026 I am going to take a close look at what I have accumulated and see if I can take a more focused approach here, perhaps focusing on particular countries or series.
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I've been collecting US commemoratives through 1967, and it's pretty much complete (at least up to the $1 Columbian and $1 Trans-Mississippi.) For 2026 I am going to tackle the Washington-Franklins, which have many empty spaces in my album. I haven't figured out the best way to approach the W-F's. I am organized with perf gauges, watermark supplies, checklists, identifiers, and so on. I could buy the one by one through dealers and auctions, or find a big pile somewhere and start sorting!
Geoff
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I have been actively searching out missing stamps for my second volume of the United States of America Lighthouse album which covers the period 1965 through 1985 with Scott numbers 1261 through 2166, duck stamps for 1959 through 1985 with Scott numbers RW26 through RW52, air mail for 1964 through 1985 with Scott numbers C69 through C116, postage due for 1959 through 1985 with Scott numbers J89 through J101, and official stamps for 1983 through 1985 with Scott numbers O127 through O139 and can now report I am on the border of completion with just a few hold outs that are eluding me.
Namely single stamps to fill the spaces for flower issues with Scott numbers 2076 through 2079 from 1984 and dog issues with Scott number 2098 through 2101 from 1984 and single stamps for air mail with Scott numbers C101 through C104 for 1983 and Scott numbers C109 through C112 for 1983 plus C113 an aviation pioneer issue for Alfred Verville from 1985 as well. Oh, and I still need duck stamps RW29 and RW34. The album has spaces for blocks and singles and I have the blocks for the flowers and dog issues but the spaces for the singles are taunting me!
Amazingly I haven't been able to locate the missing air mail stamps in the last two years of visits to stamp shows. I did manage to find all of the required coil pairs for the album pages which I consider a fairly major accomplishment. There are definitely a lot of them! In many respects locating all of the required definitive stamps has been the most time consuming issue with the album.
The last major push towards additions for the album included location of eighty missing items spread throughout the album including a $10.75 face value stamp, several undenominated definitive issues, and two other recalcitrant duck stamp issues which were acquired through eBay auctions.
I, also, completed building an outstanding check list for the United States of America Lighthouse album first volume and can now report that all stamps from 595 through the end of the album are in place for that album excepting two stamps, Scott numbers 1177 and 1181, which have remained elusive. My missing items for that album for the earlier periods now has 134 desirable stamps with catalog values of between 26,000 and 60,000 dollars plus another 177 impossible due to cost as mint stamps items with a total catalog valuation of 1,729,185 dollars! It is interesting to have a lottery win goal - although I suspect that even if the money were there in abundance the 177 impossible list would not happen, the 134 desirable stamps would be more than enough of a challenge. Thank goodness, the album lacks spaces for Scott 613 and C3a! 
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I finished going through all my Philippine postal cards and envelopes so the next step is to get them properly organized in binders.
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Today I received a surprise delivery from Robert Siegel Auctions of some truly lovely stamps for my Great Britain collection including Scott #'s 16a, 83, 95, 109, and J9-J17 plus O35 (SG #'s 33, 158, 162, 183, D10-D18, and O67a) and for Canada collection Scott # F1 and Newfoundland issues 191g and C2 (last has an SG # of 143).
It was truly a bountiful delivery! And best of all my son arrived safely from Spokane, WA and my daughter from Atlanta, GA.
Merry Christmas to all. And blessings to everyone in the new year!
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06:22:34pm
Congratulations Jerrol, Newfoundland 191g is a great find, I would love to have more of the Newfoundland imperforate pairs. The only one I have so far is 184c. I know you are not a seller but if for any reason you decide to sell 191g please give me a shout! Merry Christmas!!
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I spent a few days scanning stamps from the glassine envelopes where I keep them. Today it was some Malaysia.
Because I do not have good access to the stamps, I either end up buying the same stamp over and over again, or I sell the last copy of some common stamp being certain I have it in some glassine somewhere.
Lots of holes in Malaysia between 1990 and 2005, as for post 2005 , this period is just a big black hole in my box.
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Spent a little time this evening sorting used Finland stamps. Nice break between dinner and World Jr hockey.
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My first Niger on album pages.
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Great day today! Received the US 1177 and 1181 stamps today from a Stamporama member. It is amazing how nice it is to see the page completed!
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Worked on Ceylon, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
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This week took me to Ireland and Romania. Trying to fill up my holes before 1940 in Romania.
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Still mounting Madagascar.
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I'm sorting through Japan. Supposedly there are over 70,000 temples and 10,000 flower species in Japan. It seems like every one of them has been on a Japanese stamp. Japan has beautiful stamps - it just takes a while to ID them in Scott as there are so many Japanese Stamps...
Josh
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Madagascar, 1930s-40s. After the thread on Madagascar varieties, I revisited my collection. There are several very similar stamps from the prewar period, the Vichy/Etat Francais era, the Free French, and postwar.
I corrected some mixups. A few were missing from both my Vario pages and from my wantlist so am now on the lookout.
I use Maury to organize most of the French colonies, but then need to locate the Scott numbers so I can seek them out.
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04:24:57pm
I got a couple new empty Harris albums today with 4 inch spines. I spent the last two hours transferring all my Canada pages to the new album. It sure is nice not to have to worry about album bulge anymore. I'll save the old album since it's been in use for 54 years! This might sound a bit silly but the memories are important to me!!!
I'll do the US later since I have extra pages in other smaller albums for US wine stamps and dated reds that should be moved as well as the normal Harris pages. It'll be quite a bit of work since at least one of these extra areas is not designed to fit Harris albums! Lots of work to be done there!!!
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I finally finish Madagascar mounting. I created a new page and redid 2 others to get the color varieties added.
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Working on custom Philippine album pages using Album Easy. I have the 1st pass for regular and airmail issues done. Layout refinement comes later.
It is mostly copying lines and just tweaking stamp box parameters.
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For the past couple of weeks I have been working on Malayan States, Malaya, and Sarawak, after digging out and soaking off where needed. Printed off a number of Steiner pages. Some watermarks easy to see, others not quite so easy.
Still have Straits settlements, Singapore and Malayan commemoratives to sort and mount (did the Malayan butterfly, flower, animals and plant definitives with and without watermarks!)
Fun and games between the snow clearing, bird feeding, shopping, cooking, canning etc...
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I have been working on Newfoundland stamps, mostly finding replacements for a few later period stamps where I initially acquired a used stamp and have now decided to replace the used stamps with mint stamps. I received Scott # 216 today and still have deliveries pending for Scott #'s 78, 199, 223, and 230-232. The remaining stamps still to be located for purchase are Scott #'s 87, 92A, 103, 164, 165, 215, and 218. Just need to locate mint NH, VF or better copies which seem to be particularly difficult with Newfoundland issues especially for lower value items where shipping costs can significantly impact the total replacement cost. Since I am going through the trouble of replacing the stamps I tend to err on the side of particularly nice copies of the stamps as a goal!
Last Saturday I received a fairly large group of MNH Finland lion definitives and managed to fill all but four spaces in my International 1840-1963 album parts for those issues which was very exciting. I definitely got a chance to exercise my ability to interpret stamp colors in going through those stamps.
I may have won a United States Scott #404 in an auction which ended yesterday. The auction item is still showing with a bid status pending after the auction ended last night. That stamp would finish off the Panama Pacific issues and complete a very nice page in the Lighthouse album.
Update: received confirmation that I did win the bid on the USA #404 stamp! Yeah and ouch!
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I wanted to bump the thread that was started by Philatelia back in 2023. However, that thread had accumulated 175 posts and was loading rather slowly. There are a bunch of posts to that topic from March 2025, so I guess it is still a popular topic.
This week I received the last couple of items to complete the first page for my airmail collection of Peru. As an added bonus, I got a second printing of Scott catalog #C1 and Specimen of Scott catalog #C2. Here's the final layout:
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Series of 1898-1902 United States of America Revenues issues.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Austrian Newspaper stamps!
Thanks Terry!
-Ari
P.S. I should note Philatelia is doing well and running a little eBay shop. She is a very kind person, and is missed on SoR by those who knew her when she was online.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Recently received Austrian stamps, 1908-1932 so far. My first experience with stamps from Austria and I am finding quite enjoyable
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Hard Stamps to categorize!
Let me know if you need any of my advice/cheat sheets.
-Ari
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
United States of America, I'm working on wine stamps today.
Recently received wine stamps lot of hundreds.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I am trying to decide how to mount some Philippine revenues.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Do you have any cancelled in General Santos, old ones. I used to lived in General Santos.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Bolivia and then United Nations
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I started working on material I acquired over the past six months. Life got busy and it is finally slowing down; my buying hasn't slowed. As I get time I will post in the appropriate threads.
Vince
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Martinque (Country Collection sold on EBay) and Mauritania.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
After a long gap, I've added an item to my collection of engraved stamps. It's a nice used block of four of the 5 cent + 5 cent green Ludvig Forrer stamp from the 1945 Pro Juventute set of Switzerland. Engraved by Karl Bickel senior. I've got several of Bickel's stamps, but this one is a gem. Bickel designed and engraved stamps from the early 1930s till 1965. He died in 1982.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Pulled out my Czechoslovakian collection; going to consolidate and hopefully find new homes for some of the many duplicates
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Czech Republic (1999 onward) and Costa Rica
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Absolutely nothing - I envy all of you;
Everything is in storage for yet another month, waiting for the remodeling work to get done.
Meanwhile, our house is sold and we have to be out in a week.
Im suffering withdrawal symptoms I think!!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Greenland, Liechtenstein, and Estonia
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Waiting for some stamps in the mail.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Added a large number of German Democratic Republic stamps to my International Part III, IV, and V albums and, drum roll please, managed to reach 50% completion level for the International Part V album. This album is part of my International 1840-1963 based collection to which I have been adding mint stamps beginning in 2017 following original purchase of a Minkus based collection which originally had a total of 12,000 stamps ranging from 1840-1980 in 2005 which I moved to International pages yielding 12,909 stamps in the new album pages on completion of the move on 5/19/2018 (including a very large number of acquisitions made during the move process, noted since there were several thousand stamps that stayed on the Minkus pages as there was no place for them on the International pages due to the mismatch of the date periods covered as well as the greater coverage provided by the original Minkus pages). I now have 43,635 of 85,703 spaces in the albums for 50.97% completion of the album set.
I now only need 647 more stamps for the Part III album in order to reach the 50% completion level for that last remaining album in the set which stubbornly remains below the 50% level which was my original expectation for a potential level of completion goal for the album set. Currently I am at 45.36% completion for that album. The most complete album is the Part IV album which currently stands at 56.77% complete.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I'm working mainly on Denmark, Greenland and Norway. I just finished breaking down a nice collection of Venezuela which took some time.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Libya, Christmas Island, and France (Semi Postals)
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Today I spent getting some of the Tangier airmail stamps (Spanish Offices) sorted, identified. Then I created some album pages and got them mounted. 'Sn' numbers are from the last whole Sanabria catalog (1966), and 'Mi' numbers are from the Michel catalog (Volume 5.4. North Afrika-2014). Really interesting stuff, and I enjoyed working with them! The International Zone of Tangiers consisted of an area around Tangier in Morocco that was serviced by the postal systems of Great Britain, France and Spain from 1939 to 1958.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I spent a lot of time sorting through Spanish era Philippines postal cards (tarjetas). These are all new to me so a learning experience.
Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between yellow, aged yellow, and buff. There is a salmon color too but that is supposedly an organish pink color. There are 19 major varieties with paper and a few print differences as minor varieties.
This book was useful. Scott Classic 1840 to 1940 does not list these - at least the 2018 version I have. Edifil's listings are simplified.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I created a spreadsheet with most of the common collectible Spanish era Philippines postal cards.
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06:56:06pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
New Hebrides and British West Africa.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Philippines Postal Cards. I am on a crash course to understand Philippines. There are some excellent references.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I am updating my Czeslaw Slania album today.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
angore,
Im fascinated by the wild history of the Philippines. Would love to hear your commentary on some of these items.
BermudaSailor,
Thats awesome that you have have a collection of Slania material. I always love it when folks post his stuff.
Are we confident in saying that Czeslaw Slania is the preeminent engraver of our time?
Here's an interesting thought: Slania (rightfully so) takes up alot of oxygen when discussing master engravers. Who else is out there?
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Interesting, I acquired an album for the Phillippines for a range of items to be added to my existing International 1840-1963 collection and managed to add 60 new stamps to my existing collection from the album. The album itself is interesting as it covers the issues beginning with the Philippine Republic starting in 1946 and running through 1967. Following the removal of items for addition to my International collection there are slightly over 250 stamps left in the album with 10-15 of these stamps being used and the rest mint. Now I have to decide whether I want to complete the new album as it is proving very interesting! :-) The album pages were initially copyright 1959 by G. C. Kobylka in Berwyn, Illinois with additional pages being added in following years apparently. The pages are on a heavyweight paper similar to those used by White Ace.
By a remarkable coincidence, an acquaintance from Seattle reported the day after I received the album that he had just returned from a vacation trip to the Philippines during the American Thanksgiving holidays. I believe it was his first international trip other than a visit to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada by car in the past.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
"The album pages were initially copyright 1959 by G. C. Kobylka "
I have the album too so filled with mint stamps but it is not in my main album. The pages stop at 1958. I have a lot of duplicates for all eras.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Antigua....from a small collection. Early stamps have several different watermark possibilities and perfs. I have a headache.
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10:14:54am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Argentina....used pre 2000 and a new interest in private post mail
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
My wife and I just finished watching The Battle of Algiers, which inspired me to do a short web page based on a few of my Algerian stamps and covers. If you haven't watched that film, do so when you have the opportunity. Incredible film-making. What strikes me about the Algerian War is how the French lost their war in Vietnam and literally went straight into war in Algeria, which they also lost, even with assistance from the United State in the form of weapons, matériel, even American helicopters including the Sikorsky Seahorse which transported me and members of my battalion around Quang Ngai and Quang Nom Provinces, South Vietnam, in 1966.
This postcard, from my collection, was sent from the American hospital ship U.S.S. Haven as it transported wounded and ill French Army survivors of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu home to Algeria and France:
Bob
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
The French are pretty good at losing wars.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
US series of 1922!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I have been working on another spreadsheet for Philippines postal stationery. The IPSS has a much deeper listing than Scott in regards to watermark, knife (envelope construction), and minor size differences.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Had a great morning working on my album. Got up early, thoroughly wiped down my desk, washed my hands, put on my 70s Soft Rock playlist and got to work.
I went to FLOREX last week in Deland and met up with my dealer (that doesn't sound quite right haha). He's in the minority in that he stocks, catalogs and brings lower to mid-level cat value stamps. It seems more and more dealers only want to bring their "top shelf" inventory. He's a great guy and I look forward to seeing him at the Jacksonville show in February. I picked up quite a few regular issues, postage due and several key officials.
I'm really pleased the way my banknote issues are filling in!. When you start this journey it feels like it will take a lifetime to complete your album to the best of your ability. It may be true! For me, one of the good things about this hobby is that you can put it down for a while (month or even years) and it's always right there waiting on me when I get back.
I had a tough week. My older brother Hugh passed away Tuesday morning. He lived in Ocala. He passed at 9:16 AM and my wife and I walked into the hospital room at 9:40 AM. It was so nice to spend a couple of hours this morning with this fun hobby.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Sorry to hear about the loss of your brother. Stamps can be a good retreat sometimes. The collection is looking very nice!
Send me your address via a message and I can send you one nice stamp to fill in a space.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Jerrel,
Ooohhh NICE. Yes; address sent! Thank you my Friend! I appreciate that. I think I'm gonna put my head down and finish up these three pages. I only need 12 stamps. Wait, after reading your message this morning make that 11!
PS: Every time I see your name, for some strange reason, I always think about Superman's Father on Krypton.
Have a great day man.
Ernie
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08:19:07am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I'm sorry to hear of your brother Ernie. Thank you Jerrel for being so kind.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Thank you Joe!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I second joesm's response.
So sorry about your loss Ernie, it's never easy.
And a big "Thank you" to Jerrel to help fill those great pages of early U.S.
For the past week or so I've been clearing up some folders and boxes of accumulations.
Worked through a bunch of Danzig and then Polish Occupation General Government.
The past few days has been sorting and organizing a large accumulation of French Journee du Timbre material, my only Topical with any depth.
Hopefully this will all end up on pages and into binders in the next few days.
Next up will be German railway cancels - anyone have any information on established German rail mail routes and route numbers through 1945?
Best wishes for the holidays to all.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Received a new album for the United Nations today. It is a Scott Hingeless album with a brown leather cover from 1975 plus it has supplement pages to extend it through 1995 for stamps plus envelopes and post cards. While a good number of stamps are included (plus the Scott #38 souvenir sheet) it will give me quite a number of items to look for in coming months especially the issues starting in the 1980's plus a few isolated items in the earlier periods. I now have seven different Scott Hingeless albums with the brown leather covers including USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Mexico, and the United Nations which is the order in which I acquired them over the last forty plus years.
Actually I have had the USA album so long that the binder is starting to dry rot along the inner hinge area. Some day I would like to replace that album's binder as I haven't figured out how to repair it so far.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Jerrel,
That's really cool. Do you like them for the most obvious reason of just taking the whole hassle of dealing with hinges and mounts out of the equation? I wonder if there is a good hingeless album that would fit for me.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I've got to admit, going hingeless sounds amazing. Finding the right mounts can be difficult, then you've got to both cut them correctly or if they're precut, affix them exactly straight.
I just looked at Palo Premium hingeless stamp album pages for US 1847-1940. You might want to sit down for this. The pages alone are a whopping $353.00.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Mounted some Puerto Rico stamps on modified Steiner pages. Color ID can be a challenge for a few issues.
Original Steiner page
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08:30:57am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Palo produces beautiful albums. I'll stick with hinges as I can deal with them. I love my Palo Canada to 1984! It was expensive but I don't regret it. I also love my Scott National albums.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I generally really like hingeless albums, my collecting interests are strongly biased towards mint/unused stamps, and I like the clear mounts used in the albums because the albums still look like regular albums. I, also, like the brown leather covers.
I do have some other hingeless albums for modern Japan (up through 1990’s) - Kabe, a second Canada collection - Palo, modern Norway and Finland - Davo, and United States of America (newer all mint collection which has now moved backwards to 19th century issues) - Lighthouse, and a newer United States collection for 1947 through 1990’s mint stamps - Scott Platinum album.
If the original Scott albums were available I would likely have more of them as they continue to be my favorites. They just look luxurious.
For blank page albums the albums and especially the leather wrapped binders produced by Frank Godden are gorgeous.
It would be interesting if the Easton Press book publisher produced some albums. For books they do gorgeous work as well.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I came across this stamp in my dad's collection.
It is Puerto Rico postage stamp (Scott 21) overprinted with a Philippine revenue (Judicial) design. After a lot of searching various references, I found a notation in an old reference that it is printer's waste.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
At the end of 2024 I had very few worldwide stamps, but during 2025 through participation in numerous giveaways I have great increased that number. In 2026 I am going to take a close look at what I have accumulated and see if I can take a more focused approach here, perhaps focusing on particular countries or series.
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07:17:27pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I've been collecting US commemoratives through 1967, and it's pretty much complete (at least up to the $1 Columbian and $1 Trans-Mississippi.) For 2026 I am going to tackle the Washington-Franklins, which have many empty spaces in my album. I haven't figured out the best way to approach the W-F's. I am organized with perf gauges, watermark supplies, checklists, identifiers, and so on. I could buy the one by one through dealers and auctions, or find a big pile somewhere and start sorting!
Geoff
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I have been actively searching out missing stamps for my second volume of the United States of America Lighthouse album which covers the period 1965 through 1985 with Scott numbers 1261 through 2166, duck stamps for 1959 through 1985 with Scott numbers RW26 through RW52, air mail for 1964 through 1985 with Scott numbers C69 through C116, postage due for 1959 through 1985 with Scott numbers J89 through J101, and official stamps for 1983 through 1985 with Scott numbers O127 through O139 and can now report I am on the border of completion with just a few hold outs that are eluding me.
Namely single stamps to fill the spaces for flower issues with Scott numbers 2076 through 2079 from 1984 and dog issues with Scott number 2098 through 2101 from 1984 and single stamps for air mail with Scott numbers C101 through C104 for 1983 and Scott numbers C109 through C112 for 1983 plus C113 an aviation pioneer issue for Alfred Verville from 1985 as well. Oh, and I still need duck stamps RW29 and RW34. The album has spaces for blocks and singles and I have the blocks for the flowers and dog issues but the spaces for the singles are taunting me!
Amazingly I haven't been able to locate the missing air mail stamps in the last two years of visits to stamp shows. I did manage to find all of the required coil pairs for the album pages which I consider a fairly major accomplishment. There are definitely a lot of them! In many respects locating all of the required definitive stamps has been the most time consuming issue with the album.
The last major push towards additions for the album included location of eighty missing items spread throughout the album including a $10.75 face value stamp, several undenominated definitive issues, and two other recalcitrant duck stamp issues which were acquired through eBay auctions.
I, also, completed building an outstanding check list for the United States of America Lighthouse album first volume and can now report that all stamps from 595 through the end of the album are in place for that album excepting two stamps, Scott numbers 1177 and 1181, which have remained elusive. My missing items for that album for the earlier periods now has 134 desirable stamps with catalog values of between 26,000 and 60,000 dollars plus another 177 impossible due to cost as mint stamps items with a total catalog valuation of 1,729,185 dollars! It is interesting to have a lottery win goal - although I suspect that even if the money were there in abundance the 177 impossible list would not happen, the 134 desirable stamps would be more than enough of a challenge. Thank goodness, the album lacks spaces for Scott 613 and C3a!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I finished going through all my Philippine postal cards and envelopes so the next step is to get them properly organized in binders.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Today I received a surprise delivery from Robert Siegel Auctions of some truly lovely stamps for my Great Britain collection including Scott #'s 16a, 83, 95, 109, and J9-J17 plus O35 (SG #'s 33, 158, 162, 183, D10-D18, and O67a) and for Canada collection Scott # F1 and Newfoundland issues 191g and C2 (last has an SG # of 143).
It was truly a bountiful delivery! And best of all my son arrived safely from Spokane, WA and my daughter from Atlanta, GA.
Merry Christmas to all. And blessings to everyone in the new year!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
24 Dec 2025
06:22:34pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Congratulations Jerrol, Newfoundland 191g is a great find, I would love to have more of the Newfoundland imperforate pairs. The only one I have so far is 184c. I know you are not a seller but if for any reason you decide to sell 191g please give me a shout! Merry Christmas!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I spent a few days scanning stamps from the glassine envelopes where I keep them. Today it was some Malaysia.
Because I do not have good access to the stamps, I either end up buying the same stamp over and over again, or I sell the last copy of some common stamp being certain I have it in some glassine somewhere.
Lots of holes in Malaysia between 1990 and 2005, as for post 2005 , this period is just a big black hole in my box.
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09:50:18pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Spent a little time this evening sorting used Finland stamps. Nice break between dinner and World Jr hockey.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
My first Niger on album pages.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Great day today! Received the US 1177 and 1181 stamps today from a Stamporama member. It is amazing how nice it is to see the page completed!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Worked on Ceylon, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
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01:10:59am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
This week took me to Ireland and Romania. Trying to fill up my holes before 1940 in Romania.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Still mounting Madagascar.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I'm sorting through Japan. Supposedly there are over 70,000 temples and 10,000 flower species in Japan. It seems like every one of them has been on a Japanese stamp. Japan has beautiful stamps - it just takes a while to ID them in Scott as there are so many Japanese Stamps...
Josh
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04:08:52pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Madagascar, 1930s-40s. After the thread on Madagascar varieties, I revisited my collection. There are several very similar stamps from the prewar period, the Vichy/Etat Francais era, the Free French, and postwar.
I corrected some mixups. A few were missing from both my Vario pages and from my wantlist so am now on the lookout.
I use Maury to organize most of the French colonies, but then need to locate the Scott numbers so I can seek them out.
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
05 Jan 2026
04:24:57pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I got a couple new empty Harris albums today with 4 inch spines. I spent the last two hours transferring all my Canada pages to the new album. It sure is nice not to have to worry about album bulge anymore. I'll save the old album since it's been in use for 54 years! This might sound a bit silly but the memories are important to me!!!
I'll do the US later since I have extra pages in other smaller albums for US wine stamps and dated reds that should be moved as well as the normal Harris pages. It'll be quite a bit of work since at least one of these extra areas is not designed to fit Harris albums! Lots of work to be done there!!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I finally finish Madagascar mounting. I created a new page and redid 2 others to get the color varieties added.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
Working on custom Philippine album pages using Album Easy. I have the 1st pass for regular and airmail issues done. Layout refinement comes later.
It is mostly copying lines and just tweaking stamp box parameters.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
For the past couple of weeks I have been working on Malayan States, Malaya, and Sarawak, after digging out and soaking off where needed. Printed off a number of Steiner pages. Some watermarks easy to see, others not quite so easy.
Still have Straits settlements, Singapore and Malayan commemoratives to sort and mount (did the Malayan butterfly, flower, animals and plant definitives with and without watermarks!)
Fun and games between the snow clearing, bird feeding, shopping, cooking, canning etc...
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today? (Part 2)
I have been working on Newfoundland stamps, mostly finding replacements for a few later period stamps where I initially acquired a used stamp and have now decided to replace the used stamps with mint stamps. I received Scott # 216 today and still have deliveries pending for Scott #'s 78, 199, 223, and 230-232. The remaining stamps still to be located for purchase are Scott #'s 87, 92A, 103, 164, 165, 215, and 218. Just need to locate mint NH, VF or better copies which seem to be particularly difficult with Newfoundland issues especially for lower value items where shipping costs can significantly impact the total replacement cost. Since I am going through the trouble of replacing the stamps I tend to err on the side of particularly nice copies of the stamps as a goal!
Last Saturday I received a fairly large group of MNH Finland lion definitives and managed to fill all but four spaces in my International 1840-1963 album parts for those issues which was very exciting. I definitely got a chance to exercise my ability to interpret stamp colors in going through those stamps.
I may have won a United States Scott #404 in an auction which ended yesterday. The auction item is still showing with a bid status pending after the auction ended last night. That stamp would finish off the Panama Pacific issues and complete a very nice page in the Lighthouse album.
Update: received confirmation that I did win the bid on the USA #404 stamp! Yeah and ouch!
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