Turngren Philately

State of the Collection - July 2024

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 04:00:00 GMT

Almost a year. Almost a year since my last article. I’ve been busy! Should I feel guilty? I don’t think so, it is my pet fun project after all. Life has been very busy and my stamps are now splitting time with collecting records and CDs, trying to learn a new sport, and a number of other things.

But not abandoned! I’ve been getting a LOT of work done on my stamps as well. Specifically, in offloading material I don’t need anymore. Thank goodness for club auctions! I’ve also done a lot of rearranging, partly out of a desire for efficiency and partly because everything already had to be moved out of (and then back into) my office due to getting new flooring put down. That coupled with the reduction in mass due to getting rid of material means it made sense to have things arranged a bit differently.

What I’ve gotten rid of so far:

I decided to stop my US collection roughly at the end of WWII. (Scott #940 or so, as I recall). US stamps aren’t my main focus, so I don’t feel the need to complete a collection as I do with my Austrian material. I scoop stuff up if I find it at a good price, but it’s not generally what I seek out. The exceptions to this include the Flag Over Porch series, which I collect, and any unused postage that is modern - which I actually use on mail. Roughly ten pounds of off-paper modern US material was offloaded at the most recent club auction!
I sifted through all my worldwide material - sorted and unsorted, on paper and off…for countries I don’t specifically collect, I set aside everything that looked old or interesting, and offloaded the rest. So now my non-specialty worldwide stuff is all sorted and off-paper (with the exception of a new acquisition, which I will get to later). That was another 10 or so pounds to go to the club auction! (I had to use a hand truck last month!)

What I still need to get rid of:

I have two large plastic tubs filled with modern US FDCs. Thousands of them. Most have come out of box lots I’ve gotten at club auctions, lots I’ve bid on because there are other things in them…I don’t collect FDCs in general (aside from scooping up Austrian FDCs occasionally). I haven’t decided how I want to move these. I know I can get more money (not that I’m in this for that reason) by listing them on eBay, perhaps in lots of 10, 20, 25 FDCs at a time…but at what cost in terms of time making the listings and sending them out? Alternatively I can cart them into the next club meeting and put a $1 opening bid on them and see what happens. I’ve been back and forth on this for at least a year, who knows if and when I will get around to it. The bins are under my desk so somewhat out of sight and out of mind.
I also need to decide which of the “secondary” countries I’m collecting I still want to collect, and in what date range. France and Italy are two examples that come to mind first - I’ve been setting aside material from both those countries (among others) with the intent of cataloguing them. They might be a good example to pare down to a date range similar to what I’ve done with my US material.

Sounds like I’m getting rid of everything, doesn’t it? I’m still acquiring though, I’m just being a little more intentional about it.

Here are some of my more notable acquisitions in the last year:

Got a nice box lot of Great Britain/British Area. Two thirds or so of the material is more modern than I’d like (like a small topical collection for Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee) but buried in there was a lot of early GB and colonial stuff. Two sets of SG#2 and #3 among them. I’ll repackage the stuff I don’t want and list it at an upcoming club auction. I think it was a nice buy overall.
A good friend reached out to me putting me in touch with a member of their family who wanted to pass along his collection to someone who would appreciate it. I was a little skeptical because I had no clue what he had, but boy oh boy was I pleasantly surprised. There was several boxes of loose material (which I’ve already ingested into my main collections) as well as 4 HUGE Minkus Global albums, a US plate block album (which I will pass along to someone else or use as postage), and a Scott US album with a few spicy little early stamps in it. I’m in the process of breaking down the Minkus albums now - he specialized in GB and British areas, so there’s some wonderful material in there. I’m also trying to keep the pages largely intact so that I can bring the albums/pages to club auction in case anyone wants a more or less complete set of Minkus pages through 1970 or so. They’ll have to be okay with a few hinge marks, but if it’s cheap enough I’m sure there will be a few bites.

I finally got my hands on a 10 Schilling Dolfuß and it’s beautiful. That was one of the most glaring holes in my main collection, and as of now holds the top price I’ve paid for a single stamp. There’s a tiny bit of a grease visible in the gum on the back, but it’s only noticeable if you’re looking for it and it’s imperceptible from the front. Good enough for me - especially at the price I got it for!

Other Projects

As I may have written before, I managed to score the entire print run of Austria, the journal of the Austrian Philatelic Society (UK) at one of their mail auctions. I’ve managed to get all of them digitized (the bulk of which, the first 126 issues, did not exist in digital form). Turns out a book scanner was a great investment! I’ve been working with the president of the society (who is also the current webmaster) to tackle getting the site updated and also trying to find a great way to make the back catalog of journals available to members in an easily searchable fashion.

I also plan to begin making album pages this year. My hope is to start with modern Austrian material and work my way back. My hope is that my album pages will be written in such a way that they will essentially be their own exhibit. The reason that I want to start modern and work my way back is because the earlier material still needs a lot of work - for instance translating information from German about the 1850 issue in terms of its multiple types and sub-types…I want to have all that ironed out before I make pages, so that I don’t have to keep re-making pages as I learn more about them. I’ve decided that I’m going to use Scribus for this, so high up on my list is also…learning Scribus. I am choosing Scribus because it’s open source and works perfectly on Linux, and it’s also an application that I can use real measurements in. For instance if I know I want to make a square 15 by 18 mm, I can do that instead of guessing at it, printing it, realizing it’s too small or large, etc. by trying to translate it into pixels or similar. I’m sure there’s the possibility of an article or two in there somewhere, as it will be a huge learning experience for me.

Other Notes

I was saddened to hear about the passing of Bob Hole, from Bob Collects Stamps. I’ve interacted with him several times over the last few years, and he was a wonderful person. His videos are still on YouTube, look him up.
I’m on Facebook and Instagram, but I rarely interact there - things are posted there automatically. If you want a fast answer from me on anything, be sure to check out my Mastodon account - https://philately.social/@turngren_phila (and any collectors are welcome to make an account there as well - accounts still have to be manually approved, but it doesn’t take me long to get to them, it’s a spam prevention measure)

That’s all for now…

Using a Microscope to Identify Austria's National Costume Series

Sun, 27 Aug 2023 15:37:26 GMT

Wow…3 months have flown by. No articles for 3 months…I’ve been busy. Part of the delay however was that I discovered after beginning this article that it was going to be a completely different article than I had originally intended…you’ll see why below.

The National Costume series was issued in 1948 - and then reprinted in 1958. I’ve always struggled with this set…the same designs were printed both times (with just a few exceptions, certain denominations were part of one set but not the other), and they are very hard to tell apart. At least the first set (from what I can tell based on reading) was printed in two resolutions - with a 70 line per cm raster and a 100 line per cm raster. The difference between the earlier and later printings will have to wait for me until I can get my hands on a micrometer as there is a slight difference in paper thickness between the two. Scott, as usual, isn’t very helpful:

Designs of the 1958-59 printing are clearer and on most values appear sharper than on the 1948-52 printings.

Awfully subjective, isn’t it? Reminds me of the debate about the “fine” and “coarse” printing on the 1867 Franz Josef issues. In practice, the two aren’t binary - there’s a scale between them. You can take two stamps, and say “clearly this one is finer than the other, which is a coarser print,” but when you introduce a third you’ll quickly see why this is problematic. If you had 300 of them (especially if they’re used!) you could arrange them in a line from coarsest to finest. Where do you draw the line?

Looking at these costumes stamps are very similar. Sure, you can hold two up under a light and say “well obviously the stamp in my right hand is finer and clearer than the one on the left, it must be from the second printing.” Then you bring in a third. Then you realize the stamps you’re looking at are used. Is one faded? Has it been handled more and potentially rubbed off some of the ink? Was it an unusually light run across the printing plate? Is it darker and less sharp because they had just added the ink as opposed to a method that might have the design be ever so slightly lighter toward the end of the run?

I’m not an expert in printing - this is all conjecture - but my point is that there must be a ton of other variables that can affect something like “clearer and sharper.” For several years I had resigned these to going in glassines marked “1948 or 1958, sort later” for each denomination. A few months ago I finally decided to take the plunge and find some concrete information.

First, I looked at the ANK. It features the two printings as separate sections in the catalog (1948 vs 1958) as well as going into a bit more detail surrounding paper types, gum types, plate flaws, etc. That’s a little more than I’m looking for right now - I just want to have these sorted under the appropriate catalog number.

**Remember when I said I messed up and thought I was writing a different article? Here’s my big mistake… ** Initially I misinterpreted what I was reading online from several sources (see here as well as here) as the two types being the 1948 and the 1958 printings…but that’s not the case. I think it was my brain trying to make this easier than it really is. From what I can understand, at the very least the first issue has a type I and type II printing.

Because of this misunderstanding on my part - my stamps across this series are sorted and labeled incorrectly. I had decided I was going to write this article months ago, and got the microscope out and started sorting (more on this below, which is the main purpose of the article). Having misunderstood the information, I currently have the earlier set sorted as being “less clear” (the lower-resolution 70 lines/cm rasterization) and the later set as being the “more clear” 100 lines/cm rasterization. Inadvertently, I’ve conflated type I printings with the earlier set, and type II printings with the later set. I didn’t figure this out until I actually started *sitting down to write this article *a few weeks ago, so I’ll have to go back with a micrometer and redo these - at least they are sorted by raster type so far, even though mislabeled.

Just to re-emphasize in case anyone is quickly scanning this because a search result brought them here - it was incorrect to equate the 1948 printing with the 70 lines/cm rasterization and the 1958 printing with the 100 lines/cm rasterization. Rasterization and “clarity” described in the catalogs between the two time periods are not equivalent.

For the first set, the ANK mentions the rasterization, denotes the paper thickness as being 0.09mm, and lays out sub-types primarily divided by differences in gum application. Paper is described as “grayish to yellow-gray paper.” The second set doesn’t mention the rasterization, and is listed as having white paper. Paper thickness is listed as 0.08mm. There are no size or perforation differences between the two issues or any of the sub-types.

Enter the Microscope

Here is my inexpensive microscope looking at two different stamps.

You can spend thousands of dollars when it comes to microscopes, but for what I needed this USB microscope with an LCD panel is more than sufficient. I could have even gone a little cheaper and gotten one that doesn’t have a screen, and I would use a computer along with it - but I wanted this one because I could keep it near my stamp desk and it is sort of an all-in-one solution. Here is a link to the one that I bought, but I’m not endorsing any particular microscope, I use this as an example. It’s cheaply made, the stand isn’t quite 100% straight, but it does just fine for me. There are plenty of similar models online that I’m sure are quite comparable.

I quickly learned that not only was the silvery metal background hard to see things against, but it was also a pain to hold two or more stamps under the lens with my tweezers, while also looking at the screen and using my other hand to adjust the focus. I needed some kind of helper device.

As I’ve mentioned before, the vast majority of my collection is housed in long boxes filled with 102 dealer cards, so I have tons of 102 cards I can mess with…and that’s what I did. I couldn’t just slide the stamps into a card and put that under the microscope…the glare from the plastic, combined with the microscope’s lighting being directly overhead, resulted in a glare that obscured what I was looking at. I peeled back the clear plastic, and I cut the top half of it off. Then I taped the sides back down, so I had sort of a half of a sleeve. This allowed the top half of the stamps to peek out above the plastic (meaning no glare) but still allowed them to be held down by the plastic, resulting in my being able to not have to have a hand holding them down. Then I taped the card down to the microscope’s base so that I didn’t have to move it around and reposition it constantly, or have to reposition it after bumping into it.

Here's my custom card device with two stamps in it.

I started by looking at two easily-identifiable mint copies under the microscope. Once I found those, I placed them both in the sleeve overlapping each other, so that I can view them side by side on the same screen under the microscope. See the image below:

On the left is the lower resolution 70 lines/cm rasterization, on the right is the higher resolution 100 lines/cm rasterization.

The difference is pretty stark when you view it in this context. Now that I had a baseline, it was much easier to take the rest of the stamps - mint and used - and sort them into piles. You can see in the below image that the rasterization is going to put this stamp in the pile of 70 lines/cm stamps.

Lower resolution stamp held against the comparison - this made sorting much easier.

It only took a few hours to go through all of the denominations this way. Each denomination is now in 4 cards/glassines (depending on how many there were), containing both used and mint for each type. As I mentioned above, these are technically mislabeled by year due to my earlier confusion, but at least they’re separated and ready and waiting for the micrometer.

The biggest question I have at this point (aside from “Can anyone recommend me an inexpensive but sufficiently accurate micrometer?”) is what is the raster resolution of the second issue from 1958? That entry in the ANK doesn’t mention rasterization, only paper thickness:

1958, ab 14.8. Freimarkenausgabe. “Volkstrachten.” Papier und gummi gelblichweiss bis weiss, Kammzahnung regelmassige ecken 13 3/4 - papierstarke 0.08mm.

[English:] 1958, from 14.8. postal stamp issue. “Folk costumes.” Paper and gum yellowish white to white, comb teeth regular corners 13 3/4 - paper thickness 0.08mm.

If I knew, for instance, that all of the 1958 printings were of the 100 lines/cm variety, then that would cut the number of stamps I have to eventually measure with a micrometer in half.

I’ve also never used a micrometer, so that will be a learning experience if and when I eventually get one. My biggest concern would be if the paper has the ability to compress at all - can 0.09mm be squeezed down to 0.08mm thus making it harder to tell which is which? I won’t know until I commit to purchasing a micrometer if there will be a clean delineation between the two. What I’m hoping to avoid the most is a spectrum of stamps from 0.079 to 0.092mm or similar, because that would negate the only objective difference between the two series that I can find. Paper color is unhelpful on used material, and “[the 1958 printing is] clearer and on most values appear sharper” is so subjective to be unhelpful for someone who isn’t an expert in this issue.

As always, if you have any additional information that would be helpful, or there is something I’ve gotten wrong, overlooked or misunderstood in the above - please reach out. This is very much a “learn-as-you-go” exercise for me, so I’m ready and willing to absorb anything thrown at me and have no problem making updates and edits.

Research Swap with Mike at Feature Philately

Sun, 14 May 2023 16:06:37 GMT

Mike at the Feature Philately YouTube channel reached out to me and suggested doing a research swap. He is a specialist in Bulgarian items, so he sent me a large packet of Bulgarian material, and I sent him some interesting Austrian stuff. He will be releasing a video on his channel at the same time this article is published. Check the link above to see it!

I received a ton of interesting stamps from Mike at Feature Philately!

I’m very ignorant about Bulgarian history and culture, so this is an area that offered many new things to learn. I’ll go through all of the stamps in this packet by catalog number. As I don’t have any specialized catalog for Bulgarian material, these are all listed by Scott catalog number. I scanned all of the stamps at 600 DPI, you should be able to click on any of the below images to see a larger view.

Cataloguing these inspired me to go through the rest of my Bulgarian stuff (none of it I sought out, it was set aside when sorting a bunch of worldwide material). I ended up having a decent bit of stuff, so I might put together a Bulgarian album at some point. If and when I do, I’ll tell Mike - I know that he makes his own album pages and has offered to send them to me. On to the stamps!

I’ve written a little bit about what I’ve learned in regards to each stamp. Some of the subjects depicted don’t really have information to go with it (for instance a stamp depicting a mail plane) so I’ve just listed what the catalog says the subject is. Other topics appear multiple times, therefore I’ve only written about the subject on the first occurrance (e.g. Shipka Pass Monument). I’ve also included catalog numbers as well as printing method and perforation.

General Issues

Scott 74-75 (1907)

Ferdinand in 1887 and 1907. Lithography, perf 11.5

#74-75 are two of three in this series, there is another 25 stotinki value (#76) which is blue.

Ferdinand (Фердинанд) was Tsar of Bulgaria from 1908-1918. He was part of the Saxe-Coburg family, therefore related to the current royal family of England, who changed their family name from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor years later. Ferdinand oversaw the entry of Bulgaria into WWI on the side of the Central Powers, and he abdicated at the end of the war, crowning his son Boris III Tsar.

Scott 420-422 (1942)

The next several groups of stamps are all part of a larger series, 420-433. Photograveure, perf 13

10 stotinki - This stamp features Kubrat, who is credited with starting Old Great Bulgaria in the 600’s CE. Kubrat was ethnically a Hun, however spent his early life in the palace in Constantinople. He helped the then-emperor (Heraclius) form an alliance with the people of the Black Sea/Caspian steppes (modern Ukraine, SW Russia, Georgia, Armenia). This region became “Great Old Bulgaria,” the eventual fall of which - and resulting migration from - led to what is currently Bulgaria.

15 stotinki - Cavalry Charge (The catalog doesn’t specify which cavalry charge when so I’m assuming this has to do with the above and below stamps…)

30 stotinki - The Rider of Madara is a sculpture featuring a man on a horse, driving a spear into a lion. Carved into a large rock in NE Bulgaria, near the village of Madara, it is believed to have been carved sometime during the late 7th/early 8th centuries CE. It is not known what the meaning of the large relief sculpture is, however several plausible explanations are hypothesized based on the culture of the times.

Scott 423-425 (1942)

50 stotinki - The Christening of Boris I is featured on this stamp. Boris I was the ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire from 852-889 CE. He is credited with aiding in the conversion of the region to Christianity, and also promoted the development and use of Cyrillic script, now widely used across Slavic languages.

1 lev - St. Naum (830-910 CE) was a Bulgarian writer and missionary amongst the Slavs who also worked to create and distribute the Cyrillic script. The script was created in the Pliska Literary School, of which Naum was one of the founders.

2 leva - The Crowning of Tsar Simeon by Boris occurred in 893 CE. Simeon ruled until 927. He was the first ruler of the Bulgarian Empire to begin ruling it as a Christian kingdom, and he also oversaw the expansion of Bulgarian territory to its greatest extent, making it the dominant empire in Eastern/Southeastern Europe of the time.

Scott 426-428 (1942)

3 leva - Golden era of Bulgarian Literature (Without more specific information I’m not going to write anything - there are a lot of sources regarding Bulgarian literature, but from what I can tell there is not a single, standard usage of the term “Golden Age” in regards to literature. There is, however, a “Golden Age” of the Bulgarian Empire, usually associated with the reign of Simeon, but I’m not going to assume they are one and the same.)

4 leva - Basil the Bogomil was sentenced to death for Heresy by Constantinople. Basil was a member of a growing sect of Christianity, the Bogomils (founded by a priest of the same name), which rejected the extreme heirarchy of the churches at the time such as the Eastern Orthodox church. The leadership in Constantinopble believed that ordering Basil to appear before the emperor would convince him to recant his beliefs. After several attempts, he refused to recant, and was later burnt at the stake in Constantinople.

5 leva - “Proclamation of Second Bulgarian Empire” - The First Bulgarian Empire was conquered by the Byzantines, and the Bulgarians eventually rebelled in 1185, leading to the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire. The Second Bulgarian Empire was later conquered by the Ottomans, culminating in the end of the empire in 1422.

Scott 429-431 (1942)

7 leva - Ivan Assen II was Tsar of Bulgaria (1218-1241) during the Second Bulgarian Empire. His father, Ivan Assen I was one of the founders of the empire. This stamp depics him at Trebizond, then part of the Byzantine Empire, at the time under Crusader rule. Ivan Assen II was offered regency of the empire in exchange for ceding parts of occupied territories in what is now Macedonia and Albania.

10 leva - This stamp depicts the deportation of Eftimi (also Euthymius, Evtimiy, Евтимий) in 1393. Tarnovo was the Bulgarian capital at the time, the defense of which was entrusted to Eftimi at the time. The Ottomans attacked the city, which fell after a 3-month siege. Eftimi was exiled and spent the rest of his life in Thrace. As the capital fell, this was the beginning of the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

14 leva - Wandering Minstrel

Scott 432-433 (1942)

20 leva - Monk Paisii (Paisius of Hilendar) was a monk in the 1700s. He is famous for writing one of the first major histories of Bulgaria. Because of this, he is credited with being a major figure in kicking off the Bulgarian National Revivial, which is a period of increased cohesion and national identity of Bulgarians under Ottoman rule.

30 leva - The Shipka Pass Monument is atop Shipka Peak, and it was completed and dedicated in 1934. It commemorates the Liberation of Bulgaria as a whole, but especially the Battle of Shipka Pass, which was a major victory for the Bulgarians (fighting with and for the Russian Empire) against Ottomans for control of the nearby mountain pass - vital for trade and transportation - in 1877-1878.

Airmails

Scott C19-C20 (1940)

The next several groups of stamps are all part of a larger series, C19-C30. Photograveure, perf 13

1 lev - Mail Plane

2 leva - Plane over Tsar Assen’s Tower, a mountain fortress used by Tsar Assen II (see above) as a defense against raiders in the 1200s

Scott C21-C22 (1940)

4 leva - This stamp features a plane over Bachkovo Monastery. Established in the 11th century, it also served as a school, teaching subjects like math, history, and music - in addition to the religious instruction one would expect. It was looted and destroyed by the Ottomans in the 15th century, but rebuilt.

6 leva - The Bojurishte Airport, near the capital Sofia, used to be the main airport of Sofia. It then become a military airfield. It is now defunct.

Scott C23-C24 (1940)

10 leva - Plane, train, and motorcycle

12 leva- I’m not completely sure based on the description of this stamp and comparing the design to pictures - but I believe this to be the National Art Gallery in Bulgaria. The Gallery occupies the former royal palace, and was initially turned into the National Art Gallery at the onset of communist rule, when the monarchy was abolished.

Scott C25-C26 (1940)

16 leva - This plane is over the Pirin Mountains, a small range of mountains south of Sofia. The highest peak is Vihren, at 9,564 feet (2,915 m) above sea level. The fertile and easily-defended areas in the foothills beneath these mountains have been inhabited since prehistoric times.

19 leva - The Rila Monastery, established in the tenth century, is featured on this stamp. Much like the Bachkovo Monaestery featured above, it was an early culktural and educational center in Bulgaria, and is considered an important piece of the creation of the Bulgarian national and cultural identity.

Scott C27-C28 (1940)

30 leva - This stamp features a plane and a swallow. In Bulgaria, many people believe that swallows bring happiness and good luck. A white swallow, being especially rare, are believed to indicate especially good fortune.

45 leva - The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia was built from 1882-1912, and is the largest cathedral in the Balkan region. Materials used in construction come from all over Europe. It was designed to be reminiscent of Byzantine architecture.

Scott C29-C30 (1940)

70 leva - Plane over Shipka Monument (see above)

100 leva - Plane and royal cipher

Scott C31-C32 (1945)

Overprinted on Scott 368 and 370 (typography, perf 13)

These stamps, and the next sets, all feature overprints from the Bulgarian Fatherland Front (Отечествен фронт, abbreviated ОФ - Otechestven Front). During WWII, several pro-communist groups merged to become the Fatherland Front, with the goal of opposing the (then) pro-German dictatorship in Bulgaria. After the USSR declared war on Bulgaria in 1944, the ОФ carried out a coup and declared war on the Axis powers. Communism took hold in Bulgaria at this time - and the ОФ existed until it’s eventual dissolution in 1990 when communism in Eastern Europe fell. These overprints represent some of the last issues before the communist propaganda types that were issued for many years thereafter.

Scott C37-C38 (1945)

These and the next pair of stamps are all part of a larger series, C37-C40. Overprinted in various colors on Parcel Post stamps from 1944 (Q29 - 100l), lithography, imperforate.

Scott C39-C40 (1945)

Many thanks to Mike at Feature Philately for this wonderful exercise!

Thanks Mike! I’ve had a blast learning about these stamps as well as Bulgarian history and culture…a subject I had not yet had a reason to learn about.

If you’ve found an inaccuracy in any of this - please drop me a line and I’ll be sure to update it. Bulgaria isn’t an area (geographically or philatelically) that I’m super familiar with, so I’ve pieced this together via a variety of sources.

Come Join Philately's Corner of the Fediverse

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 21:36:59 GMT

As a few of you might have noticed, I haven’t updated the Turngren Philately Twitter account in a while, and that’s because I’ve been spending a lot of time on Mastodon. I’ll probably be locking or deleting the Twitter account soon.

Twitter seems to be on the decline - both in terms of actual site reliability as well as content and moderation - so it was a perfect time to start to really invest time into Mastodon. I’ve had a personal account for a few years as I’m an open-source enthusiast…so the idea of there being an open source and decentralized alternative has always been intriguing to me, but there was not (at that point) a critical mass of users to make it really “stick” for me. Events of the past 6 months or so have brought millions of people to Mastodon however, and it’s pretty amazing to watch it grow.

For anyone that has not heard of or looked into Mastodon, it’s a micro-blogging system that behaves - on the surface - somewhat similarly to Twitter. Short bits of text and images are submitted, similar to tweets (they’re called “toots” on Mastodon which I am immature enough to absolutely love). But there are a few key differences.

No one single entity can own it - the software itself is open-source, and there is no single central site - there is the “Fediverse” which is the name for a federated system of many, many servers that can all talk to each other. Each server is generally referred to as an “instance,” and any user on any instance can follow any user on any other instance.

Every instance has three main feeds. The home feed only shows you the accounts that you follow (no algorithm, and no ads which is fantastic). The local feed only shows posts made by people on the same instance as you, and federated shows everything posted by every account known to the current instance. On several of the larger servers - with over 50,000 users for instance - the federated feed is somewhat of a fire hose of information that goes by too quickly to digest.

Many instances are geared toward certain hobbies or interests…instances centered around art, journalism, board games, etc. I couldn’t find an instance centered around philately, so after a brief exchange with Ted Talks Stamps and Bob Collects Stamps I made it a goal to eventually start one.

At the time, there were not many hosting options that were affordable, and I knew I didn’t want to deal with self-hosting it on my own hardware or a VPS like Linode, so I put it off for a little while. As more and more people came over to Mastodon, I started to see there were more and more hosting options, so I finally started with mastohost and set up an account.

Thus, philately.social was born. I hadn’t really advertised it - I wanted to have just a few users to see how well it would work, starting with Bob and Ted. User accounts required approval from me. There were a few requests…then a few more…and now there’s dozens of us.

So, now I’m advertising it…come join us and let’s see if our little corner of the Fediverse can grow. As of right now, the demands on the server are minimal - so I’m on the cheapest tier of hosting, which is at a cost that I’m comfortable with maintaining more or less indefinitely (less than ten dollars per month) and I think there’s plenty of room before I would need to try to come up with some kind of funding arrangement. If we need to start moving up tiers - then I suppose we’ll go from there.

Accounts are still approved on an individual basis, but I’m usually able to get to approving accounts in a matter of hours (usually minutes while I’m awake, and hours if an account is created when I am asleep). The only reason I’ve left this in place is because I wanted to require at least just a few words from registrants as to why they want to join (reasons can be very short, like “I collect stamps”) to prevent accounts being created needlessly and repetetively.

So come join us at philately.social!

Looking for Help - Unidentified Postmark or Overprint

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 23:23:57 GMT

Here’s an interesting pair of stamps that I found while sorting through some unfiled Austrian stuff. My first thought was “that’s an interesting color for a cancel,” but upon closer examination this isn’t something I’ve ever seen.

After closer inspection, I realized the cancel/overprint (I don’t know which it is) actually says “Deutsch Österreich” as opposed to the name of a town. This is why I can’t tell if it might be some kind of overprint that was used during the transition after the end of WWI.

I used an amazing site - Postmark Reveal - to extract the postmark/overprint. See below:

That site is amazing…it generated a series of images that were of varying shades, some with black backgrounds almost like a negative (like the above) and others that were with white backgrounds. Some of the images made the stamp stand out, others made the overprint/postmark stand out. I chose the above because it was the clearest example.

I then “traced” over it in image editing software - and I’ve arrived at the below. This is what the actual stamp design is.

I am unable to find any information about this. I’ve looked through postmark catalogs and I’ve spent hours searching online. Since I don’t know for sure what it is, I am not sure if there’s a search term that would be better for me to use. A friend on Discord told me it might be a fiscal cancel - but even searching that term doesn’t yield anything similar. I’ve tried feeding this image into Google lens as well.

Please reach out if you recognize this and have any information about it!

A Wonderful Packet from Foxridge Philately

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 21:21:50 GMT

Once again, life has gotten in the way — and it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I didn’t want to let this one wait any longer. Jeff at Fox Ridge Philately sent me a wonderful packet of goodies! I’ve gone through and identified almost all of it (note there are no catalog numbers on the Netherlands pile above) and gotten them into 102 cards for assimilation into my collection. Check out Fox Ridge on their Facebook page or their Instagram. Thank you SO MUCH for the stamps, Jeff!

Random packets of stamps are fun — it prods me into learning a little bit about an area I wouldn’t normally collect. I’ve gotten plenty of large lots of worldwide stuff before, but the sheer volume of material to sort puts me in the frame of mind of just “finishing the damn thing,” so I don’t end up really getting a chance to take a close look at each individual item. A packet this size is perfect, because it is large enough to have variety — but small enough to digest in a meaningful way.

The two largest groupings of stamps were Canada and the Netherlands, with smaller subsets of USSR and Isle of Man stamps. I’ve pulled out a handful of my favorites — the ones that really caught my eye — and took a few minutes to learn a little more about them, which I’ve laid out below. Many thanks to Foxridge Philately for this packet of fun! I will whip something up to send in return that I hope will be enjoyed just as much.

Canada 248 — 1939

This stamp features King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England and is part of a beautiful 3 stamp series — the other two are a green one cent stamp with Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, as well as a brown two cent stamp depicting the War Memorial in Ottawa. This stamp (and the rest of the series) is line engraved and in two colors — which is an arrangement that always catches my eye. Something about a frame of color around a black and white subject is classy. This series commemorates the royal visit by the king and queen to the US and Canada.

Canada 208 — 1934

Another beautiful engraved stamp depicting the 400th anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s arrival at Quebec. Cartier was the first European explorer (he was French) to map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. He is very important to the history of Quebec, and is even credited by some for naming the region “Canada” (which obviously stuck). There is a bridge in Montreal named after him today.

Canada 847 — 1980

This stamp is a map of Canada which features the arctic islands. I enjoy maps in general, but especially maps with uncommon points of view. Polar maps aren’t what we would normally see. There are over 35 *thousand *islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and as of 2021 a population of under 25 thousand across all of them — an area over a half million square miles. The largest settlement in this region has less than ten thousand inhabitants.

Canada 385 — 1959

This stamp features a woman tending a tree, and it commemorates the Associated Country Women of the World. I enjoy the simplicity of this design. The ACWW is a global organization for both rural and urban women (despite the name). They have several missions they promote, some of them being literacy, nutrition, and sanitation. They promote the independence of women globally. There are over nine million members across 70 countries.

Canada 383 — 1959

This stamp commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first Canadian powered flight in 1909, piloted by J. A. D. McCurdy. The backdrop shows non-specific modern delta-winged jets, and the foreground features the AEA Silver Dart — similar in design to the Wright Flyer that flew in Kitty Hawk the year before. The Silver Dart flew roughly a half mile on its first flight, but that record was quickly shattered — it flew over 22 miles on another flight the following month. The juxtaposition of the old plane and the new jets make this an interesting issue to me.

Russia (USSR) 3175 — 1965

This stamp commemorates the Constituent Assembly of the All-Union Society of Philatelists in 1966. The organization was founded in the same year, created by the merger of multiple other, smaller organizations within the Soviet Union. I like this stamp because of the futuristic propaganda style that was common in so many of the USSR stamps from the era. The organization later became known as the Union of Philatelists of the USSR until the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Russia (USSR) 2883 — 1964

This stamp is from a series of stamps depicting Soviet space achievements and famous figures. The first stamp and lowest value features Sputniks 1–3. Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 2 carried the dog Laika (don’t read about her if you don’t want to be sad), and Sputnik 3 carried an array of different instruments to take measurements to aid in the creation of subsequent satellites. By the time this stamp was issued, there had already been probes to land on the moon, weather satellites in orbit, and the US’ Gemini program was already well underway in preparation for travel to and from the moon.

The [Mostly] Foolproof Guide to Soaking [Most] Stamps

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 20:44:31 GMT

There are plenty of instructions online for soaking stamps — and it doesn’t take a lot of research or any kind of special products to sort them. Some people use newsprint for drying and pressing, others use a range of plenty of other methods. My goal is not to write the “definitive” guide to soaking stamps, but rather the method and products that I’ve found work best for me in hopes that they might help someone else make their soaking experience easier. Some of this is pretty specific and minute, but helpful (to me at least) and not information I’ve seen elsewhere.

The Trimming

If I have a lot of stamps to soak, the first thing I tend to do is to trim the pieces of envelope or paper that they’re on. Be careful, but trim them fairly close to the perfs — this will lessen the amounts of soggy paper you’ll be pulling out of your soaking container, and will also give you time to find things like self-adhesives to set aside. (I have heard that some countries’ self-adhesives will in fact soak off due to a water soluble layer, but I don’t know off hand which ones do…I know for a fact it doesn’t work with US stamps.) This way, you won’t end up figuring out you have a self-adhesive the hard way, trying to pull it off a soggy piece of paper. I’ll let you determine what to do with the self-adhesives…many of us have differing opinions on them ranging from “I’ve found a way to separate them” to “they aren’t worth the time.”

These Machins are all now trimmed and ready for soaking — one of the benefits of trimming is that even if you don’t soak them until a later time, they take up a lot less space. These originally filled a large shoebox, and I reduced their volume by roughly half.

I recently soaked through a giant pile of Machins (which is where the photos in this article will come from) and my hands started to hurt after a while of trimming — especially my thumb where it is used to open the scissors between cuts. I decided to order some spring-loaded scissors. If you’re ever doing some long-endurance scissor work, they will help immensely. I got two pairs, a small pair for precise work, and a larger pair for larger pieces, or things like cutting apart damaged envelopes that I won’t be saving as a cover. They seem to be great scissors overall, and I’ll be using them for general…scissor things…in the future.

The Soaking

I use a generic small plastic bin for soaking. I prefer to use tap water as hot as it will go (but not hot water from a kettle or the stove), and I throw in a handful of stamps. If any stamps are on particularly green or red (or any other very visible color) paper, I’ll leave those out and soak them separately in hopes to avoid the color from the paper bleeding onto the stamps. I then use my tongs to move them around and make sure they are all submerged.

Let’s get soakin!

At this point, you can just use your tongs to move them around a bit — you’ll see some stamps just start to float off the paper almost immediately. When I see those, I pull them out and place them on my towel (more on that later). When I see a piece of paper with no stamp on it, I’ll pull that out too — it goes into the trash. When I don’t see any more easily-spotted separate stamps or paper, I move them around a little more with my tongs — sure enough some more will fall off. I generally don’t need to wait for these to soak for long, because even if a piece needs to soak a little bit more than the rest, chances are the time it takes to pull the others out will be sufficient

As you can see, these separated pretty quickly and can be removed.

Ready for extraction!

Optional: The Second Soaking

If the paper is particularly dirty, or the stamps have an excess of gum, you can put them directly into another bowl of clean water — but I find if you do this in small batches and change the water between batches, that is not often necessary. If you get overzealous and put too large of a handful into the bin, that might be a time when you want a second bowl because the water will get cloudy and dirty quickly.

The Toweling

Next to my soaking bin, I have a barber’s towel laid out. It’s a thin, cotton towel, which doesn’t get too soggy and dries quickly. I have a stack of them because I use them for shaving and washing my face, but they are pretty inexpensive so it wouldn’t be terrible to order them just for soaking stamps. I find they work a lot better than paper towels or newspaper — there is no ink to transfer, and if the gum on the edge of a stamp adheres slightly, it is much easier to remove than from another type of paper. I try to lay the stamps out in rows to save space.

Lay the stamps face down to minimize contact between any excess gum and the towel itself.

I let the stamps partially dry here — but not dry all the way. If you let them dry completely on this towel, it won’t hurt the stamps, but you may have to flatten them later (depending on the stamp and type of paper) because they have the tendency to curl when this happens. You want them to be slightly damp when they go into the drying book. The first time I tried a drying book, I didn’t know this — I put them in soaking wet and it made the blotter paper in the drying book super warped and wavy and very hard to use. More on the drying book in the next step — just know the towel is much easier to use than any kind of paper in my experience, and this part of the process is pretty forgiving…so don’t sweat it.

The Drying

I’m a fan of the Showgard Desert Magic II

I’ve tried several drying books from several brands, and I keep coming back to the Desert Magic II by Showgard. It’s pretty inexpensive, and you can get them shipped fairly quickly (in the US at least) from eBay sellers. You can find them many other sites as well, just don’t buy them on Amazon because they’re very overpriced there. (In fact as a general rule, most philatelic stuff is overpriced on Amazon, so that site should be avoided in this regard.) You can usually get them for around $13 each, although at the time of writing they are on sale at Wizard Coin Supply for under $10, which is fantastic.

The books have alternating pages of a thick, absorbent, blotter paper and a waxy non-stick card stock. The stamps go face up on the card stock side, and the blotter paper goes on top of them to wick them dry.

It might be hard to see in an image, but the left side is a fibrous, absorbent material whereas the right side is sort of a glossy, waxed-paper-like card.

Start taking the face down stamps from your barber’s towel, and transition them to the waxy pages, face up. It is easiest to start at the back of the book instead of the front, because you can turn the next blotter page down on top of the stamps, then the following card stock page to add more stamps without having to try to turn the page of stamps you just filled. When you go through the book backwards you can basically just add layers and layers of stamps without risking disturbing the stamps you’ve already arranged.

Fit as many stamps on the page as you can without overlapping them. If you soak a lot of stamps, you’ll quickly find the benefit in having several of these books handy.

The Pressing

So, you’ve just filled the book. If you want, you can just set the book on a shelf or counter somewhere overnight — but you’ll be much happier if you put a large book on top of it. Something like the Stanley Gibbons commonwealth catalog. Or maybe your grandfather’s copy of the 1,000+ plus page handbook of electrical engineering. Or some bibles. Or a piece of wood. Anything that is relatively heavy and reasonably flat. Leave it overnight. This will give your stamps time to dry, and since they’ll be drying while also being pressed flat, your dry stamps the next day will be nice and straight.

But if you don’t do this, either because you forgot to weigh them down, or because you’ve fallen asleep and forgotten to take them off the towel in the first place, don’t fret. Not every stamp will curl, and if they have, you can still use the drying book to flatten them (even if they’re completely dry when going *into *the drying book).

The Peeling

So you’ve had a good night’s sleep — or maybe you’ve tossed and turned, it’s none of my business — your stamps have dried and you’re ready to lift the weights off and crack open your drying book. It is finally time to see the fruits of your labor. Be careful when moving your drying book, it’s easy for stamps to fall out — but put it on your table and open it up. You can go page by page and remove the stamps into a pile. Sometimes a stamp will stick a little bit to the waxy page — this is because there was a little bit of gum still on the stamp when you placed it — that’s OK. That’s the reason the pages are waxy. Bend the page slightly and the stamp will pop off the page. Sometimes a stamp will be slightly stuck to the blotter side — that’s OK too — bend it gently to free one side of the stamp, and you can easily grab it with your tongs. I have not had a stamp stick firmly to the blotter side, but I suppose there is a first time for everything.

Slide your stamps off the waxy page, go to the next page, and repeat.

Now you’re done — you should have a nice pile of stamps that are dry, flat, completely free of paper, and ready to be sorted!

Conclusion

That’s my method. There are plenty of other ways to do it. You don’t need to have special towels or drying books, you can use things like newsprint or printer paper, and put the stamps in a large book — these are all perfectly acceptable. But these tools and methods are what, in my experience, moves the process from “adequate” to “efficient.” I have four drying books, and these Machins took up all four of them in two rounds…so this method helped me greatly. I could let some stamps soak while I was moving one towel to a drying book, fill up the towel, put in more stamps to soak, move that batch from the towel to the book, and so on. You can go back and forth between the steps and create somewhat of an assembly line.

If you have a favorite product or method that makes this process especially easy to you, please comment or reach out because I’m always willing to try a new way and I’d love to hear about yours.

Austrian Cover Featuring Reich Obliteration Series (Stampex Purchase)

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 10:00:00 GMT

Letter from Dr. Josef Kohn Rechtsanwalt (Lawyer) to Bezirksgericht Wien (Vienna Disctrict Court)

The above cover is the first post-war obliterated Reich stamp cover I’ve ever purchased (I did get another at Stampex as well). This series of stamps were issued immediately after WWII — the postal authority used the existing stock of Reich stamps and obliterated Hitler’s face (as well as a few other contemporary designs) with lines and other overprints. There are a variety of designs (see ANK 660–696) of varying levels of complexity and obliteration, as well as local issues.

Before getting into the stamp itself, I’ll go a little into what I’ve found about the sender and recipient. I haven’t been able to find any information on Dr. Josef Kohn specifically, but I am assuming he was a lawyer — “Rechtsanwalt” translates to Lawyer, according to Google Translate. I’ve found Porzellangasse 45 below in Google Maps.

It also makes sense that this person would be a lawyer, because it is addressed to “Bezirksgericht Wien” (District Court Vienna). The address only specifies Riemergasse — but after doing a little bit of searching I found this page from the Vienna Courts wiki which listed the address as Riemergasse 1–3. I was able to quickly find it (below) by finding the street and matching it to the facade of the building, which is still there.

The Stamp

Close-up of the stamp itself / What I was able to decipher from the cancellation / An examination of the lines in the overprint

The stamp is an ANK 670, which was issued on 6/21/1945. The usage here is only 5 days after (6/26/1945) — so close to a first day cover! I have a lot more to learn about these circle-bridge postmarks, but for now I’ve highlighted what I was able to decipher. It is my understanding that the numbers on either side of the city name (in this case Wien) refer to the numbered post office, and the number at the bottom might reference the counter at said post office — but I have yet to find a definitive source on this and welcome any suggestions. The denomination is in line with local rates — the ANK lists the domestic local letter rate during this time to be 8 Rpf (Reichspfennig) as it was still in use for a short time after the war.

If you’ve seen the Reich overprint stamps, you might recognize that this is the second major issue of overprints on Reich stamps. The preceding design only had the diagonal “Österreich” overprint but the authorities at the time (Soviet occupiers) did not believe it obscured enough of Hitler’s face, so they redesigned the overprint with all of the vertical bars (per a note in the ANK).

The most interesting part of this stamp to me, however, is the broken 5th line of the lower section of the overprint. I can’t find anything specifically about this in the ANK, so I don’t know if it is a true plate flaw or a coincidence of the printing, something stuck to the plate, etc — but it’s nothing like any of the mint or used examples already in my collection. This is another piece of the puzzle I would love to hear from someone about if you can point me to a source.

ANK lists this stamp on cover with a catalog value of 50 EUR, given the beautiful condition as well as the broken bar, I didn’t have any issues paying roughly 60% of that for this cover. Even the inky fingerprints are interesting…was that from the sender? The person at the mail counter when the Dr Kohn or his assistant dropped the letter off? We’ll never know.

London Stampex 2022 and the Postal Museum

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 09:30:00 GMT

View of the Stampex floor on Saturday, 1 October 2022

I just got back from London — and what a whirlwind it was. I was able to time a trip with my wife to coincide with Stampex, and thankfully she was willing to spend the better part of a day by herself in London.

I arrived at the Business Design Centre around 11:30 AM and retrieved my wrist band and Stampex Bug after checking in. Once I was inside, I met up with Jack Preuveneers whom I was meeting in person for the first time. He’s the creator/administrator of the International Philatelic Promoters Discord server which I’ve been a member of for about a year. (I can’t recommend any more enthusiastically what a terrific group it is, so click the link and join!)

The Stampex Bug!

I also met a few other members from the server, as well as YouTuber Richard Philatelist, and spent some time milling around the stalls looking at items. At 1PM it was time for Graham Beck’s presentation, so we filed into the eBay Auditorium.

Graham during his presentation to a packed out auditorium

The focus of his presentation was the online philatelic community and it was very interesting. He touched on subjects like social media and how philatelists of all ages, levels and interests can interact with each other digitally without depending on a club or an in-person interaction. It was especially appropriate given the discussions that are being had right now about the direction of the hobby.

After the presentation, there were some interesting questions and answers. I also was able to meet with Graham and he was gracious enough to take a picture with me!

Graham and I after his presentation

After the presentation I went back to checking out the dealers. I ended up walking away with almost 20 interesting covers. I was originally planning on laying out all of the scans of my new items in this Stampex article, but I’ve decided it would be better to write about them individually over the coming weeks in a more detailed fashion, as I have plenty of research to do on each of them. Finally, it was off to the pub for a few drinks with the Discord folks.

The Postal Museum and Mail Rail

That wasn’t the only postally-relevant portion of our trip, however. The day prior we went to the Postal Museum in London. What a wonderful museum. We arrived in the afternoon after just getting off the train from Canterbury — we went straight to the museum from St. Pancras station because we knew it would be closing soon.

When we got there, we were told that we were lucky enough to catch the last running of the Mail Rail. The Mail Rail was a system that ran underground between major sorting facilities in London, which greatly sped up the local mail getting from one part of the city to another. The cars were squat and short as the tunnels are small and it was originally designed as an automated system. The train was retrofitted with small two-seater cars.

The train stopped at various points along the loop before eventually making its way back down to the starting point. These stopping places would have short movies that were projected against the walls of the tunnel explaining the various areas and their functions. I had originally assumed the Mail Rail was a separate price from regular entry to the museum, and didn’t want to devote any time to it. However, it turns out it was included in the ticket price and I’m really glad we took the ride because it was very interesting. Even my wife, who has no interest in stamps (nobody is perfect and I still manage to love her despite this fact), thoroughly enjoyed the ride and the information it provided.

A view of the Mail Rail from our car before we set off on our journey through the tunnels.

After the Mail Rail, we went through the main exhibit area of the museum. There were various post boxes, information about historical stamp issues, the historical role of the postal service, and many more topics and artifiacts. There was even an exhibit devoted to Freddie Mercury’s childhood stamp album!

A sheet of Penny Blacks!

The final plaster cast of Arnold Machin’s relief sculpture of Queen Elizabeth II used on the long-running British definitive stamps

The gift shop has some wonderful things in it (some of which came home with me) and the courtyard is beautiful. If you make it to London, I highly suggest adding this museum to your list — even if you aren’t interested in philately it’s a fascinating museum.

The courtyard, complete with a beautiful post box wall

I don’t know that I will be able to make Stampex and the Postal Museum an annual event for me, but I definitely want to come back for it at some point, and whenever I am able. It was a wonderful experience. If you are able to attend Stampex and/or visit the museum on a trip to London, I highly suggest making time for them.

More to come on my purchases as time allows.

Forgery? Reprint? Other? The Bosnian Oddity

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 10:00:00 GMT

I have been going through and cataloguing my Bosnia-Herzegovina material lately. This mostly isn’t material that I’ve gone out of my way to get, but rather stuff that would be in the back of other Austria collections that I’ve broken down. I think there’s a single series — the 1906 series (29–44 in the Bosnia-Herzegovina section of the ANK) — that I actually sought out at a club auction (with some beautiful examples in it — but that’s not the subject of this post). But for the most part, I’ve sort of accidentally built up a collection of Bosnia-Herzegovina during Austrian rule.

I first sorted them out by series, which isn’t that hard — then I put the glassines of each series in roughly the same order as the catalog. I skipped the first series — I knew it would take a little more digging, between the plate types and paper types…an amount of effort that would warrant its own day. I just wanted to get the bulk of the stamps catalogued. So I started with the second series, numbers 10–20, from 1900.

This set isn’t nearly as specialized as the first set, based on what I can tell from the catalog. The currency of the area was changed to the Heller/Krone, necessitating a new issue of stamps. Each stamp was issued perforated at 12 1/2 or 10 1/2. The catalog divides these two perforations into A and B. A and B can also be divided into regular paper and ribbed paper. I only found one ribbed example, and I almost missed it because the ribs are very fine. (I haven’t dealt much with ribbed paper, I can only compare it to an Austrian newspaper stamp I have that is also on ribbed paper — the ribbing is not as fine.) So, if number 10 is perforated 12 1/2 and ribbed, it would be number 12 A y. If number 13 is perforate 10 1/2, and on regular paper, it would be 13 B x, and so on. The catalog also references cardboard paper and thin paper in the same table, but it is unclear to me where it falls in the categorization, because it is outside of the A/B and x/y delineations.

Then I found this stamp:

This stamp is perforated 11. I used several different gauges to double check — no matter what I come up with 11. The printing is different as well, it’s almost somewhat…muddled. The perforations are fuzzier and more fibrous than the rest of the stamps. My first thought was that perhaps I found a forgery! How exciting! But then I looked at the value of the stamp. If it’s not on ribbed paper, it’s worth very little. Certainly nothing worth forging. Here’s an image of the reverse — you can see it is not on ribbed paper:

One additional clue is the catalog references unissued “test” perforations — my translation skills aren’t the best, I mainly use Google Translate (on account of my non-fluency in German) so I could be misunderstanding. But the note references “perforations from 6 1/2 *to *12 1/2 or compound perforations” in the test set, for numbers 10–15, 17 and 20–28. (The 2 Heller is number 11, so it falls within that listing.)

I also consulted this article on Big Blue, a source that I have found great info on many times. It does not reference other perforations.

I’d love to hear from any of you with additional information or experience on this series, because as of now I’m leaning toward this being a set perforation — but I’m not particularly confident in it. Does the translation really mean 6 1/2 *to *12 1/2, meaning any number in between is fair game? If perforations were tested at different scales, would they not use the same or similar equipment as the prior perforations? If so, that doesn’t explain the relative crudeness of these perforations. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and learning something new from an expert.

State of the Collection - September 2022

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 19:23:58 GMT

It’s already been 5 months! Time flies, and it keeps getting faster. I’ve been busy with life in general, but I’ve also been busy with my stamps. I’ll round out the highlights below.

Worldwide Material

Probably the biggest accomplishment over the last several months was finally finishing the 14+ pounds of worldwide mixed material. At the time of my last update, I had a bunch of sandwich bags of stamps by continent which needed to be sorted out, and I had already pulled the countries I either collect or plan to collect out of the mix (Austria, Belgium, Germany, et al). This time around, I went one sandwich bag at a time and sorted by country. So after a few months, everything I have was at the very least separated out by country.

Then came the next step…I went country by country, glassine by glassine, and took out what looked to be old or especially interesting, even for countries that I don’t collect, and set them aside. For instance, a lot of the early South American stuff looked interesting to me, they commonly have beautiful engraved designs. So I set a bunch of those aside. I didn’t have my catalog open when I did this, I just went by gut feeling since these are countries I don’t actively collect. Some countries I didn’t have anything interesting (to me at least) in glassines, so those glassines went straight into the “sell” boxes. Other areas, upon a second look, are relevant to things I *do *collect, and I was able to file them appropriately. For instance a lot of French, British, and Italian areas and colonies that I didn’t know anything about a year or two ago when they originally went into glassines are now in the box with their “parent” area.

When it was all said and done, I got the material I’m keeping down to two boxes. Seven boxes are material to sell — I plan on making 1 oz packets and selling them either on eBay or to members on the IPP Discord server. (These “only two boxes,” of course, exclude the boxes and boxes of material from countries/areas I’m actively collecting…this is just what I got the “other worldwide” stuff down to.)

Here are my 2 “keep” and 7 “sell” boxes after many hours of work.

The only exceptions to this are an entire tub of African stamps (I don’t collect any Africa so it didn’t seem worth sorting for me) and several sandwich bags of Brazil and Philippine material. There was so much of each that glassines didn’t make sense. I still pulled out and kept early and interesting material from both countries, but it is far outweighed by the stuff I don’t want to keep. It was a huge milestone for me to be able to say that everything I have is sorted at the very least by country (well, except the Africa box, and now that I think about it, the “unidentified” box that I need to get around to eventually…).

Austria

Once I finished all the worldwide stuff, I’ve started to go through and re-catalog my Austria collection by the ANK (Austria Netto Katalog) numbers, instead of the Scott numbers. You can see in one of my previous articles why I’m largely abandoning the Scott Catalog for non-US material. I’ve gotten everything through the 1908 jubilee issue newly rearranged into VARIO stock pages/binders. I’ve used a lot more stock pages, however, because the ANK has semipostals and airmail stamps blended in with the rest of the regular stamps, which I like overall. So I had to add in those, newspaper stamps, etc. I also spaced my stamps out a little more evenly now that I have largely stopped acquiring them in bulk. Previously I had them spaced evenly, but after another year and a half of ending up with collections and albums that I broke down, new examples would just sort of get shoved into the mix. Now they are all laid out so I can see the cancellations, etc. clearly.

I did my best to arrange things in such a way that when I go through it again and look for more variations, etc. I won’t have to redo a bunch of pages, I can just go one issue at a time. I’ve also just used handwritten placeholders for my placards — once I get things even more specialized I will type up some better signs/notes. My long term goal is to write up custom album pages, similar in format to an exhibit. I’m still not getting rid of what are presently duplicates because I know there is more and more variation I haven’t explored yet. It will be a long time before I part ways with any Austrian material.

Here’s an example of a handwritten placeholder, which is coincidentally also an example of me putting my foot down when it comes to printing types on the 1867 issue. See Big Blue’s article here for an idea as to why I abandoned separating this issue, at least for now.

I’ve continued past that issue in glassines and 102 cards, getting them reordered by ANK number while also pulling in previously unsorted stuff that also came out of the worldwide stuff. I would have it all in stock pages already, but I had to order some more 7‑row pages since I rearranged.

The box on the left was originally my “back of book” box which included semipostals, airmails, etc. which is getting slowly emptied into my main box as it is mixed in. The box on the right is stuff from the worldwide lots sorted by issue that I’m pulling into the mix as I go.

In another week or two I hope to have all of my Austria stuff arranged by ANK number, and I will take an inventory so I can start looking in earnest for what I am still missing.

New Material

While I’ve made myself a rule that I will never again buy mixed, unsorted worldwide lots…I have acquired a few things here and there. My Ukraine material has grown, and I’ve spent a little time working on learning how to distinguish the trident overprints. That will be a huge project when I fully get around to it.

I also recently broke down a two-volume Scott Specialty Series Central Europe album that had some Austria (thankfully I was able to easily work it into what I’ve already sorted), Bosnia-Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. I pulled everything except modern Hungary and Czech material. I have a friend in my local club who collects Austria and Czechoslovakia, and I hope to pass the albums and pages on to him, since I don’t really use albums presently.

I also got a nice album full of Yugoslavia material. The early stuff is of interest to me, especially the period of time where it was the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. There are some beautiful stamps from that time. I snagged an album of classic Bulgaria at auction too. For now they’re all just on the shelf in waiting — I have plenty on my plate to get to before them.

The first page of my new Yugoslavia album. It will remain intact for now but my plan is to eventually mix it with my existing material and place it in stock pages similar to my Austria stuff.

United States Material

I don’t think I’ve touched a single US stamp (with the exception of the few that wound up in the worldwide bins, as well as the stamps used on mail that I’ve sent) since my last update. It’s sort of on the back burner for now.

Germany

I did spend some time sorting out all of the envelopes labeled “Reich” into their general issues (Germanias, Hindenburgs, inflation stamps, etc.) to prepare for when I get around to it. I wanted a little bit of a change in pace. I also have a few folks I know hoping to swap duplicates, and of course I can’t get rid of anything until it’s fully catalogued. I haven’t touched post-WWII German material yet.

Conclusion and Stampex Note

Things are moving along. I’m looking forward to continuing to specialize and get go of material I don’t need. It’s an ongoing process that from what I understand will never end as long as I’m participating in this hobby.

I also am excited to say that I have made plans to spend a day at London Autumn Stampex at the end of the month. I’m looking forward to seeing my first large, international stamp show, as well as meeting up with some of the folks I talk to on a daily basis on the Discord server. I also am hoping I will get a chance to meet and talk with Graham Beck from Exploring Stamps, one of my favorite YouTube channels.

As always, leave a comment or get in touch with me via Twitter (@turngren_phila) if you have anything you’d like to say, or if you are going to be in London for Stampex.

CHARPEX! Also, How to Lose Customers as a Dealer

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 22:49:13 GMT

CHARPEX was this weekend!

I enjoyed roaming around and visiting the dealers, several of which I bought from. All but one were exceptionally nice and helpful (more on that below), and it’s always fun to view material in person as opposed to on a computer screen.

I will, of course, continue to buy more philatelic material than I should from online sources. 🙂

I meant to take several pictures, but I got so involved with everything that I forgot — except for this picture showing a row of exhibit frames.

I got some wonderful and interesting stuff, and even walked out under budget! In total I think I was there for 3–4 hours. If I were looking for US material, I would have been there longer — most of the dealers (understandably so) had primarily US material.

But enough about that! I’ll share some of the goodies that I was able to find.

First up are these Mariachi FDCs. There was a lady at the show that makes these by hand — including making the envelopes themselves. While the Mariachi stamps aren’t my favorite, I thought these covers were really neat. It’s hard to see in the picture, but the instruments are three-dimensional, sort of raised off of the paper.

I also snagged some postal cards from Sweden. I don’t know anything about these at all — but I do collect Sweden, so I thought they would be a good thing to grab. They were very cheap so I didn’t feel bad buying something I didn’t know anything about.

Of course I also can’t resist early Austria-Hungary postal history. These will go into binders with the rest of mine. I snagged the Bulgarian card for a friend.

I overpaid for these a little bit, I think, but I was glad to find them. The top is from the 1858 Austrian issue, and it is “type I” which is the less common type with broken bow loops behind the head. I may write a separate article on this series later…it’s one of my absolute favorites. The bottom stamp is a high-denomination stamp from Ukraine, issued in 1919. Due to the high denomination they were mostly used on documents and receipts, but this appears to be a postally used example which is less common.

Lastly, these postcards from Austria and Germany. The upper left card has some of my favorite German Empire stamps on it. I haven’t yet sat down to figure out what the card means and was used for — but it was part of a bargain that I got (lumped in with the postal cards above from Sweden, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria) so it was an easy decision. The other three are from Austria, the bottom two are particularly interesting, they are from the era of and feature many of the stamps from the definitive issue of 1908 commemorating 60 years on the throne for Emperor Franz Josef.

The only negative experience I had was from one particular dealer. I don’t know his name, so I can’t really call him out (and I don’t know if I would have anyway). I had been asking several dealers about their Austrian stock, specifically about the 1936 10 Schilling Dolfuss issue, which is one of the glaring holes in my Austrian collection, mainly because it’s a pricy stamp.

Looking at ebay sales, I’ve seen mint hinged examples being sold as low as $250, for decent examples with good centering. I’ve been mulling it over for a long time…it’s one of the few that I’m missing but it’s also one that is a commitment because of the cost. I was hoping that seeing a good one at the show for a good price might tip me over the edge, and I even got sufficient cash out of the ATM in order to get one. So imagine my delight when this dealer said that he had both mint never hinged and ming hinged! He asked me which I wanted to see, so I asked to see the mint hinged example knowing it would be the cheaper of the two.

He brought it out — and the price on the dealer card was $525. I didn’t hand it back immediately because I know that a lot of the dealers sell below their own listed prices, or they sell stuff they have bought in large lots that had existing proces listed on them from who knows when…so it wasn’t an immediate red flag.

He offered to let me take the stamp out of the card, so I took the tweezers he handed me and did so. It was beautiful — the hinge mark was barely there, the perfs looked good, and the centering was good. I asked him if the price on the card was what he wanted to sell it for, and he asked if I was paying cash or credit. Since I had the cash, I figured there would be a discount — so I told him cash and he said the price was $490.

Since this price was *roughly double the best price I have seen online for the same stamp in similar condition, *I politely declined and thanked him for his time and handed the card with the stamp back to him. He said “well at what price would you have said yes?” I replied “well I’ve seen several of them online sell for $250–300.”

It was at this point that I think he could’ve done several things. He could’ve asked me about their condition and explained why he thought his offering was worth a higher price. He could have tried to talk me up to a price closer to what he wanted (I might have paid $350 for it, I know dealers have to make money for all the work they put in to acquire, catalog and list material for sale). He could have simply said “I’m sorry we couldn’t agree to a price, have a good day” or something similar.

But that’s not what he did — he flat out said (to the best of my recollection) “Well then you’re going to buy garbage. Take a hike.” He immediately turned around.

I said “thanks for your time, have a nice day” and decided if I ever saw him again I wouldn’t buy a single thing from him.

Philately has a bit of a reputation as a dying hobby enjoyed only by old people (and I guess it’s partly deserved, but an incomplete picture in my opinion). Treating people this way will do nothing to further the hobby. Even if it didn’t lead to a sale, it could’ve been a productive conversation. He could have showed me other things he had for sale (it’s not like I had to fight other purchasers for his attention), or talked me into buying the stamp at his price by explaining to me why it was worth it. Nobody needs gatekeeping and a poor attitude.

So, all in all, CHARPEX was a blast and I’m already looking forward to next year! I didn’t let one rude dealer ruin the day, but I did want to share my experience.

There’s another show coming up in Columbia, SC and I’m looking forward to hopefully going. I wonder if Mr. Take a Hike will be there?

The Intriguing Covers of Hideaki Nakano

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 23:30:55 GMT

Hideaki Nakano is (was? — keep reading to see why that’s a question) a cachet cover artist that has done some really interesting and different covers. I’ve been struggling to find more detailed information on him via a few cursory searches, but I will continue to search…I’ve found a few forum posts from 2015 indicating that at that time he was still active in the Detroit area. His covers range from political to satire to historical to just plain…weird. But I’ve found a ton of them super interesting.

Not too long ago I was able to get a bunch of them (45 of them in fact) and I’ve been enjoying looking at them — I finally took some time to scan a bunch of them and wanted to share them here. They vary in size — some are standard letter envelope sizes, some are large envelopes (which create large and attractive cachets) and some aren’t even envelopes at all! Almost all feature his custom personal perfin, showing “H.N” which you can spot on the pictures below if you look closely. (Open the pictures in a new tab in order to view them in higher resolution.)

The first that I will show are space covers. My favorite of these is the “cover” made with a USPS Philatelic catalog from 1989. And it’s not just the cover — it’s the entire catalog! I enjoyed flipping through it.

There is also a wonderful cover featuring foreign stamps as well as the Apollo-Soyuz pair. (I’m not a topical collector, but the Apollo-Soyuz stamps almost make me want to dive into astrophilately.)

Similar is this cover made from the holographic postal stationery issued in 1989 and includes a souvenir sheet from Ras al Khaima (which I would normally dislike due to not being postally valid but it really rounds out the cover).

This one is particularly interesting — he used a chocolate wrapper which had a stamp-related design itself. The back of the envelope has a poem printed on it — I scanned that as well.

This cover is from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s inauguration as the Governor of California.

This cover is from the Obama inauguration — it took me longer than I care to admit to notice that the official stamps spell out “O‑B-A-M‑A,” at first glance they just looked sort of jumbled.

Computer-vended stamps are featured on this cover, which has details on the back — the competing “first day of issue” cancels are especially interesting — at first I thought one was an error until I looked closer and saw the slight difference making the bottom 29-cent stamp a different issue entirely.

The IPSA (Independent Postal System of America) existed for a brief period of time to compete with the USPS (then the USPO) for 3rd- and 4th-class mail. This cover is interesting to me because it has an IPSA first day cancel as well as a USPS first day cancel.

This cover features the very first self-adhesive US stamp! The Peace on Earth stamp wasn’t particularly loved by collectors at the time as the adhesive often stained covers. Surrounding it are other self-adhesives.

This cover also features early self-adhesives dating back to the time when they first were being issued widely (the Peace on Earth stamp on the above cover is considered by some to be somewhat of a failed experiment). The advertising on the left is particularly interesting.

If anyone has any more specific information about Nakano, I would appreciate if you comment or reach out to me…it is hard to find information online, surprisingly so given how relatively easy it is to find his covers for sale! I don’t know if he’s still active, *or still alive, *or what his latest creations are. I would love to know more. For now I will continue to acquire covers of his that interest me. This will be a fun little side collection to maintain.

An Austrian FDC That Doesn't Make Sense

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 22:47:22 GMT

I received some unexpected advertising and an order form from the folks at Active Intermedia (the folks who publish the wonderful Austria Netto Katalog) and it arrived on the below cover — which is puzzling.

On the back, there is some more information in three languages:

But back to the front. In the upper left corner is the “Ersttag” (first day) logo usually used on first day covers by Austria Post. And the special cancellation was dated June 27 2022 (which makes sense given I received this not to long ago). But the stamps themselves are from 2007 and 2010.

Perhaps the sender just used a first day cachet envelope they had on hand? That crossed my mind — but then they went through the effort to get the special cancel. The cancel is from Judendorf-Straßengel which (according to Wikipedia) is the name of an area of Graz. Active Intermedia’s address is listed in Vienna, so that’s also interesting. The cancel reads “Briefmarkenschau St Gabriel” (St. Gabriel Stamp Show) and that’s where things started to make a little bit of sense. According to their site, the St. Gabriel association is a stamp club — here is how they describe themselves:

The Austrian Philatelist Association St. Gabriel is named after the patron saint of post and philately, Archangel Gabriel. The association unites collectors of Christian postage stamps and is represented in all Austrian federal states. All St. Gabriel guilds in Europe and overseas are united by the World Association of St. Gabriel.

The upper left portion of the cancel is hard to read — but when I looked up the organization, I was able to find the exact cancel.

This image is directly from the organization’s site — please see the link above.

From what I can tell, this cover was postmarked at the Pilgrimage Church of Judendorf-Straßengel at a stamp show that occurred on June 24. The cachet and envelope seem to be unrelated.

It is unexpectedly interesting to find this — and now (based on poking around Google Maps) I have a new place to add to my list of places to visit in Austria. I would’ve never looked into any of this had I not noticed I received a “first day cover.”

Muddy Waters? This Stamp Lacks the Blue(s)

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 22:54:26 GMT

There are 4 distinct shades of the Map imperfs — lavender, grey, pale blue and deep
blue; 600 pairs are thought to exist. The so-called muddy water variety is a colour
changeling caused by oxidation and is NOT a printing variety.

This is a note in the Unitrade Canada specialized catalog about number 85, a stamp from 1898, released in time for the Christmas season. The 2‑cent stamp features a view of the entire world, with the areas of the British Empire in red, and the phrase “We hold a vaster empire than has been.” The ocean is printed on this stamp as a blue background.

I don’t remember the first time I heard about this stamp, perhaps it was on Graham Beck’s youtube channel, or one of the other stamp-related blogs I’ve been on here and there. I don’t remember and it’s not worth looking up, but I do know that ever since I saw it I knew I liked this stamp. I don’t really collect Canada (although I still sort it out of my worldwide bins in to its own pile in hopes I will get around to it eventually) so it is one of very few that I know about and keep my eyes open for.

The last several days I have been sorting through more of my worldwide bins…I’ve been hoping to be disciplined enough to finally finish it, and get them off my list. Today I happened to find this stamp! But it looked different. The ocean is black.

Here you can see the black ocean

Time to pull the Unitrade off the shelf! That’s where I found the quote at the beginning of this post:

There are 4 distinct shades of the Map imperfs — lavender, grey, pale blue and deep
blue; 600 pairs are thought to exist. The so-called muddy water variety is a colour
changeling caused by oxidation and is NOT a printing variety.

I looked up “muddy water” in relation to this stamp, and it’s much more of a pale brown. The catalog doesn’t reference any other varieties or printing errors. What I have, I think, doesn’t look anything like the “muddy” color that I’ve found online. I do know that the chances of my finding a color error of some kind in a random worldwide assortment is *very low* in general, much less to find one not listed in the catalog, so I started to consider if this has been fabricated. Below are two more pictures of the stamp — one from the front and one from the back — you can see that there is no ink bleed through to the back of the stamp (which rules out my initial theory that someone took a sharpie to this stamp and colored it in).

The printed black ink also seems to be offset equally across the entire stamp (printed slightly lower than the outlines of the countries), so if this was colored in by hand in some way it was done very well.

I’d be curious to know if anyone else has discovered something like this. Perhaps this is just an “extra muddy” variant of the same color change. I am unsure. If you know more than me about this please leave a comment or shoot me a message.

Woe Be Unto the Scott Catalog

Wed, 18 May 2022 19:44:02 GMT

The more I deal with catalogs (especially specialized catalogs) from other countries, the more I get frustrated with the Scott Catalog. I think my biggest source of frustration are the pictures, or lack thereof.

I understand that there’s not room to print a picture of every single type of stamp — especially for something like a definitive issue with a lot of denominations that look virtually the same. In this case, Scott uses a single illustration (denoted with its own number) and that illustration number is subsequently listed on all of the relevant issues below it. Here’s an example that makes sense to me:

Most of these stamps refer to illustration A5, which is above. The design of all of these stamps are substantially the same, with the majority of them only differing in color and denomination, and the several highest denominations having a different design, matching illustration A6. This makes sense.

Then you have this:

Stamps 248–262 each have their own illustration number. That makes sense, right? While the design is similar, the subject of each stamp is different — so a different illustration makes sense. The user of the catalog can quickly match the design of their stamp to one of the pictures to get a starting point on determining which stamp it is. (I only say starting point because I’m not super familiar with this issue, so I don’t know if there are varieties that aren’t on this page, etc.)

Now for the Problems…

The first major issue I’ve had with the Scott Catalog is when new stamps that are part of (or similar to) an existing issue are issued after the original issue. Here’s a listing for the Nobel Prize Winners series in Sweden:

Numbers 603–605 all have a similar design, but there is only one picture. Easy so far. Then there’s the bottom: “See Nos. 617–619, 637–639, 673–676, 689–692, 710–713, 769–772, 804–807.” That’s a lot of other numbers to look at. And here’s what one of those subsequent sections looks like:

No illustration. It refers back to illustration A137 which you have to search for (not visually!) in order to see if the stamp you’re looking for is similar.

I get that for someone who is well-versed in stamps from a certain country, this gets easier over time. The Austrian “Monasteries and Abbeys type of 1984” is a particularly egregious example, being spread out over many pages — but they get easier the longer you work with Austrian stamps. But for someone first sorting out stamps from a given country, it’s a particular challenge. I remember struggling with them when I was first starting with Austria, just as how I was struggling with some of the above when first starting with Sweden.

To make things worse, sometimes the illustrations flat out don’t seem to represent the subject matter. Take the below stamp for instance — I had to use an app to identify it.

This app is fantastic by the way, it’s called Stamp Identifier, made by the people over at Colnect, and along with Google Lens you can identify almost anything. I usually stick with this one, however, as it has been a goal of mine for several years to disconnect from Google as completely as I can.

The app identified this stamp as Scott number 740 under Sweden. Let’s look in the catalog for that stamp. Below are two pictures (from the same page) showing both some of the illustrations from this issue as well as the relevant catalog numbers.

There it is! Number 740! The denomination matches, the color matches, the illustration…number A174. Doesn’t even come close. This stamp is far different from A174 than *any *of the stamps in the series above with all the different illustrations. How would anyone who didn’t have a prior knowledge of Swedish stamps ever find this before there was an app?

Conclusion

I understand that Scott is already working with 6 volumes (in 12 books) that take up a lot of space. And every year postal services around the world are issuing even more stamps, which is even more pressure on space. There is no way that Scott could reasonably put a picture of every single stamp in their catalog. But if they could remove some of the useless duplication (like the 1936 series above) maybe they could’ve given number 740 it’s own illustration. Maybe they could put another picture on the subsequent Nobel Winner issues (or Monasteries and Abbeys!!) to help people who are delving into a new area.

Every catalog publisher, I’m sure, deals with this to a certain degree, but from what I’ve seen of the catalogs from a few other countries (Stanley Gibbons, Michel, etc.) they seem to have struck this balance a little better — or at least more consistently. And it’s not just because the worldwide Scott set is a general catalog — there are similar issues in the US Specialized catalog, in my opinion.

Striking a better balance with illustrations in the printed books could make these a lot easier to use for collectors, especially collectors that are venturing into a new area. And while it makes sense to not have an illustration of every single stamp for the printed catalog, the digital version definitely should — but as you can see there are some gripes about the digital version as well, see what Ted the Talking Stamp Collector has to say about it — and he makes very good points.

I do appreciate the catalog. I appreciate what Scott has done for many years, I appreciate that they have challenges and I also understand that they need to be profitable to continue to be able to provide information for collectors. But the examples above are the frustrations that cause me to recommend pretty much any other catalog for non-US material.

Using a Watermark Detector

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 23:31:31 GMT

My Experience with the Stanley Gibbons Spectrum Watermark Detector

For someone who isn’t a big fan of dealing with watermarks, this detector — while imperfect — is a nice tool to have on hand. I got this about a year ago, and it is my go-to when I’m dealing with watermarks. I’ve used lighter fluid once or twice, and I have read about other, more inert fluids that are available…I’d still like to try those as well.

The detector consists of a housing with multicolored LEDs, a thick pane of transparent acrylic, and a thumbscrew with a piston that acts as a vice. The stamp goes under the acrylic, and the thumbscrew is tightened — compressing the stamp between the acrylic and the piston. The light is then passed through the acrylic which makes watermarks evident.

The SG Spectrum Watermark Detector

From the front you can see two dials. The top dial controls the intensity of the light (sort of like a dimmer switch) and the bottom turns the lighting on and cycles through a few different colors. In my experience so far, the green light works the best.

The side and back views of the detector

From the side you can see the thick acrylic, which is compressed against the piston moved by the large thumbscrew on the back. The acrylic slides out like a drawer to allow the user to slide a stamp or two under the acrylic before sliding it back into the device, and subsequently tightening the thumbscrew. Then you can view the watermark (or lack thereof) via the different colors and intensity of light.

Examples

Below are two stamps from Finland (just because that was the country I happened to be working with when I pulled out this detector and considered writing about it). One is watermarked, and one is not. If you hold the watermarked stamp up to the light just perfectly, you can sort of see one, but it is not clearly evident.

Which is the watermarked example?

Here are both stamps under the acrylic with the green light — you can see the stamp on the right was made during a period when Finland was using a swastika as a logo for their military, so there is a swastika watermark. (This is actually a really interesting little bit of history that I had never known about prior.) The stamp on the left has no watermark evident under the light.

Limitations

I’ve noticed a few limitations with this device. It without a doubt works best on mint never hinged items. Hinge remnants, for instance, add some thickness to the stamp and prevent it from compressing the stamp enough to show a watermark. Disturbances in the gum also can obscure a watermark. This is more likely if the watermark is small (as opposed to a repeating pattern like the above) because it doesn’t need to be a large gum disturbance to obscure it. In these instances, watermark fluid might still be a better option.

Curious to hear anyone else’s thoughts and experiences with this.

You can get one from Wizard Coin Supply.

Austrian Parcel Post Receipts - Istanbul or Constantinople?

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 12:37:06 GMT

These are some of my favorite pieces. These vary in date, but display several stamps from late in the Franz Joseph reign. All three are to Istanbul, but it is curious that some of them have both “Istanbul” and “Constantinople” written on them. I’m not sure exactly when the terminology changed, but I am guessing it is around this time. The name was formally changed in 1930, but these would indicate that some usage began prior to that date as these three are all from 1917. The three examples below all indicate different usages.

Nov 17, 1917 sent to Constantinople — date received is unclear. Rate of 2 kronen 95 heller.

Nov 20, 1917 sent to Constantinople (with “Istanbul” listed below) — date received is unclear. Rate of 2 kronen 95 heller.

Nov 1, 1917 send to “Constantinople-Stanbul” — date received is unclear. Rate of 2 kronen 95 heller.

State of the Collection - April 2022

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 19:49:30 GMT

So I have a ton of work on my hands. I’ve been scooping up material that I find interesting as well as bulk items that I feel like I’m getting a good deal on… I should really set a moratorium on new purchases until everything I have is catalogued and identified. But I won’t! I’ll still see things that catch my eye from time to time. But in the meantime I’m chipping away at organizing what I already have. I’ll break it down by country/category and add a few pictures here and there:

Worldwide Stamps

I’ve been trying to keep this at the top of my list of efforts — because it is taking up the most space. Due to a good deal I found on unsorted WW off-paper material, I currently am down to 6 (6‑quart, roughly shoebox-sized) bins. And that’s after I’ve already sorted through 4 or 5 bins’ worth. To save time, I’ve been breaking out the ten or so countries that I either collect or plan to collect, and the rest are sorted into piles by continent. I think that’s the only way I’ll get through all of this material. It keeps me from wasting time sorting countries I don’t collect at all (although if I want to come back and sort later, it will be easier to sort one continent at a time). These are taking the longest, but once I get through these…I won’t be buying bulk worldwide stuff ever again.

The continent bags will sit for a little while — but I do still have a bunch of worldwide stuff sorted out from previous lots — countries I don’t presently collect are arranged by glassine alphabetically in long boxes. The countries I *do *collect are in a combination of long boxes and Vario stock pages — I’ll address them individually below.

Austria

Austria is my main focus. The very first time I purchased a large lot of worldwide material, I sorted it by country and Austria had the tallest pile, so it was the first that I started to catalog. I fell in love with Austrian stamps.

My Austria collection from 1850–1937 are mostly in Vario pages in a large binder. The Scott catalog lists semipostals as back-of-book stamps in their own category, but I’m in the process of switching to the ANK (Austria Netto Katalog) which is far superior for Austrian material. Once I finish that, the semipostals will be mixed in with the rest of the general issue stamps by date — and re-done by ANK number. I also have some work to do with varieties on some of the older stuff, the ANK lists a lot more varieties than Scott does, and the Ferchenbauer Handbook lists even more — so the first several issues from Austria will get a lot more information put along with the stamps. But I haven’t gotten there yet.

The rest of the material — back-of-book stuff as well as issues between 1945–2020 — are in glassines in long boxes as well. I have another album of mint sheets, and I have a large bag filled with blocks and panes that I plan to put next to the singles that are going into stock pages. I also have two binders filled with postal history, as well as a box full of semi-modern first day covers that I need to arrange by date and label with the catalog numbers of the stamps on them. But that’s a secondary goal — getting the main collection catalogued and outlined with more detailed information is a higher priority.

United States

I have pounds and pounds of US material — bins full of off paper examples, bins full of on paper examples, and as of now 11 long boxes of glassines sorted by catalog number. I also have several long boxes filled with glassines and 102 cards that need to be identified and filed accordingly. I have a few odds and ends that I have purchased with a little more intent, but I know a lot less about US material — so I tend to only pick stuff up when something catches my eye, as opposed to working through a running list of wanted items.

I also have two binders filled with postal history, one being general postal history and the other being a combination of Charlotte NC first flight covers as well as covers from towns I’ve lived in. There are also three large bins of covers, two of which are first day covers, the third being general used postal history. My US material is currently 3rd on my list of things that need attention and sorting, beneath finishing up the worldwide material, and redoing my Austria collection. I sort of bounce between the three, doing a little here and there on one when I get bored with another, so it does allow me to have some variety between bins of worldwide stuff.

Germany

My German stuff is in several long boxes — one glassine is German Empire sorted by catalog number, the other boxes are simply separated by Empire / West / East / Unified Germany. I also have some German postal history, most of which are inflation covers (another interest of mine). I’m enjoying picking up a few old German States items here and there if I think I’m getting a deal — so this is also on my “to-do” list but isn’t a huge focus at the moment.

Other Countries I Collect or Plan to Collect

Most of these items are in long boxes filled with glassines simply labeled by country — these are the glassines that I’ve sorted out of the larger worldwide lots. I have 8 or 10 long boxes, for Sweden, Ukraine, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and Great Britain/Commonwealth (including Canada and Australia, as well as former colonies/territories). I haven’t really done anything with these aside from have them in boxes by country — but when I get bored I’ll start cataloguing. The only thing I’ve really catalogued in these so far are the Belgian railway/parcel post stamps that I’ve acquired.

Books

I’ve always loved to have books around — so stamp catalogs fit nicely into that desire. I try to get a specialized catalog for each of the countries I’m interested in — but that often results in needing to translate. I also try to scan books whenever I can, so that I can have a copy on my devices when I’m on the go or watching TV while casually browsing eBay listings, etc. It’s nice to have the best of both worlds.

Conclusion

So there’s the rundown of where things stand, and what my next steps with the collection will probably be. I have more material than time — but I also get a lot of joy from researching and acquiring new material — so I don’t see that ratio shifting any time soon. I’ll try to update from time to time to document my progress for myself as well as for anyone else that might find this interesting.

My Family in Philately

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 22:03:51 GMT

I never knew my grandfather was a stamp collector.

Ok, so maybe that isn’t totally accurate. I vaguely remember him giving me a bunch of stamps and some tongs as a young kid…but I had no interest. I was too busy playing DOOM and playing around with Windows 95. Stamps were far from anything I was interested in.

It wasn’t until I had to clean out his cottage at an “active adult community” that I found a stamp album, that apparently *his *grandfather had started. I thought it must be worth at least a few bucks, right? I didn’t know anything about stamps other than the fact that I thought “stamp collecting” was basically shorthand for “boring.”

George Ralph Wolfgang — My great-grandfather — was a member of the APS

I found my great-grandfather’s APS card — how cool is that? But even then I didn’t think it was super interesting. It was only when I started to try to figure out what I had that I became interested.

Stamps have reinforced my belief that when you get to a sufficiently granular level — anything can be interesting. Once I started learning about perforations, watermarks, and printing types — things I still have a lot to learn about — I quickly realized that there was a lot more to this hobby than I had ever imagined. Philately — a word that for most of my life was synonymous with “boring” — took on a whole new meaning for me. What began as learning the bare minimum it would take to sell a collection for a few dollars became an obsession. (I still haven’t sold a thing in the collection my grandfather passed down, in fact I plan on keeping it separate from the rest of my material going forward.)

Site Launch

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 01:46:18 GMT

This is a new experience for me.

But I thought it might be worthwhile. This will be (hopefully) a documentation of my journey with stamps, and — hopefully — will be useful to others.

I am not an expert. I am not trying to use this site to make money. I am just someone who has really been enjoying getting into philately and hope that some of what I have seen/learned/experienced will help others.