Sunday, February 27, 2011

International Blue-per #7: Denmark Caravals

As Jim is doing such a thorough job in his "Big Blue 1840-1940" blog going through Volume 1 country by country, I'm going to stop listing "minor" problems with the album. But in adding some stamps to Denmark, I came across a type of Blue-per that I hadn't seen before, namely a stamp cut that is completely wrong.


It is clear from the dates and descriptions that what is intended for these spaces is the 1933-40 Caravel ship definitives. But the cut is from one of the 19th century "Numeral" issues and doesn't belong here at all. And now that we are looking at this more closely, why are there spaces for the Type II Caravels from 1933-40 (Scott 283A-238J) and the 1927 Caravals on the previous page but not the Type I Caravals from 1933-34 (Scott 232-238)? I don't know that spaces for both of the types are needed, but the descriptions could have been worded so that either Type I or Type II stamps would fit.

Curiouser and curiouser is that this entire page is missing from my 1943 reference volume which stops with the 1937 series for the 25th anniversary of King Christian X's accession (i.e., the previous page in all subsequent editions). So it appears that the 1943 and 1947 editions of the Blue Volume 1 are not identical.

10 comments:

Jim said...

Bob-Interesting discoveries!

I looked at the image cut,and it is a Scott 26 4o "ore" slate & blue from the 1875-79 numerals. Now Blue has a description of this stamp, but no image there. They do have an image of a "Skilling" valuation (2sk), but have no image of any "Ore" image valuation. Perhaps the 4 ore image was intended to be used there, never was, and somehow ended up later in the 1933-40 Engraved Caravels? Who knows, and clearly as you say, a blue-per!

Neither my 1941 "Junior" edition nor my 1947 edition has the missing page. (If you do have the missing page in your 1947, perhaps there were several 1947 iterations?). There is a "clue" though. Both my 1941 and 1947 Blues have a descriptive stamp space for the 1937 Scott 229 10o "ore" light brown "wavy lines and numeral of value" stamp. The stamp space disappeared in the 1969 edition, but is included in the next page with the 1933-40 "wavy line" series - that is on the page that is missing in the 1941 and 1947 Blues. Clearly, 1941 edition has an earlier layout design ,and the layout was not changed in my 1947 edition. Finally the "extra" page was included in the 1969 edition (or earlier?) to bring the Denmark section truly up to 1940.

Big Blue's spaces for the 1933-40 engraved Caravels is a mess, as you point out. Looks like Blue, in a clumsy and incomplete way, tried to combine the spaces for the 1933-34 Type 1's and the 1933-40 type 11's.
The "clue" is the descriptive space for the Scott 233 "25o blue": a color only issued in Type 1. By the way, the Scott 233 is catalogued at $27+! So if we admit one type 1 stamp among the type 2's, we will need to consider other type 2's that meet the color description. But as you note, some of the color descriptions only agree with type 2 issues, and therefore some of the type 1's are homeless.

15o deep red ( 238A)
Note: This is where Big Blue put the 19th century numeral image.

15o yellow green (238B)

20o gray black (238C)
Note: The 20o gray (232) is excluded.

20o red (238D)

25o deep brown (238E)
Note: The 25o brown (234) is excluded.

25o blue (233)

30o blue (236 or 238F)

30o orange (238G)
Note: The 30o orange yellow (235) is excluded

35o violet (237 or 238H)

40o yellow green (238 or 238I)

40o blue (238J)

I have to admit, Big Blue is frustrating at times. But I do like dealing with only a couple of big binders (by the time one gives Big Blue room to breathe), rather than fourteen!

Jim said...

Edit: should say

So if we admit one type 1 stamp among the type 2's, we will need to consider other type 1's that meet the color description.

Bob said...

Thanks for going the extra mile on this. Unfortunately, I no longer own a 1947 edition so I was going from memory. It is interesting that my 1941 Scott Catalog doesn't have anything later than 1938 for Denmark, even in the Addenda. By 1943, the listings are current.

Jim, is your 1947 loose-leaf or bound? Does anyone else reading this have a 1947 edition and can check to see if there is anything past 1937 for Denmark?

Jim said...

Bob

My 1947 edition is loose-leaf, and has exactly the same page layout for Denmark as my 1941 "Junior" edition.

John said...

Denmark was updated through 1940 in the 1955 edition, which was one of the few major changes from the '47 edition.

Bob said...

John, thanks for checking this. You are the only one I know with the 1955 edition so it is always good to hear from you.

James said...

This 'blue-per', like some other odd features of the old Scott albums, could be there because of copyright: publishers often include a few obvious errors in order to catch anyone who attempts to reproduce large parts of a reference work with only minor changes. Given the surrounding mess of this Danish case, it could just be a simple mixup; but the inclusion of Syria 106a (dealt with in your fascinating post of Oct. 31, 2008) does look like an attempt to catch the pirates.

Bob said...

James, I must admit this possibility never occurred to me. I have heard that map makers would include streets that never existed for the same purpose but it never occurred me to suspect stamp album editors of such deviousness!

Unknown said...

Bob,
My 1955 edition as John said is updated to 1940. What He did not mention is that the cut for the 1933-40 caraveles is still the 4 ore numeral. The 1927 -33 caraveles previous page also fit your description.
keith

fredbee said...

My Jr's last printing date is 1969 and it still has the 4o image in the 1933-1940 section.