Thirty Thousand Stamp Blue Volume One for Sale

If you are having second thoughts about ponying up $2.9 million for the 99% complete worldwide collection mentioned earlier, perhaps this will appeal. Thanks to reader Jim for alerting me about a Blue 1840-1940 with 30,000 stamps which is being offered whole by Apfelbaum until Monday, August 20, after which it will split it up. Selling price is $9500. There is a companion US collection which could mean that the worldwide volume doesn't include the US. You can read more about both sets on Apfelbaum's Corner. John Apfelbaum makes an interesting general comment about the Blue Volume 1 and similar collections:

Before 1940 everyone who collected stamps had a World Wide collection. They may have specialized in US or Great Britain but they maintained a general foreign collection that had been their starter collection and which, for most collectors, was still the major appeal that philately had for them.

More on Just How Many Stamps Are There?

Before I did my count of worldwide stamps 1840-1940 awhile back, I tried to ascertain whether anyone else had made such a count. I assumed naturally that at least in the early days someone might have taken the trouble to count the number of stamps issued between 1840 and 1850 say. But I couldn't initially find anything. But it dawned on me that I never really tried searching Google Books. This time I came up with a citation to the article "Philately's Ninetieth Birthday" by Kent B. Stiles (Scott's Monthly Journal, May 1930, pp 74-76). Thanks to the APS Library, I now have a photocopy.

Below is the table prepared by Mr. Stiles of stamp types by decade from 1840-1930. As the author explains, the rows total correctly across, but the Grand Totals at the bottom don't because there can be overlap between types (i.e., you could have an airmail stamp that was also overprinted and thus is counted in both categories). Mr. Stiles' total of 79,500 at first seemed high to me but he then I remembered he is counting minor as well as major varieties which I certainly didn't do.

>

	1840-49	1850-59	1860-69	1870-79	1880-89
Overprints	0	25	606	1219	3062
Air	0	0	0	0	0
Bisects	5	59	111	70	99
Commemorative	0	0	1	4	33
Inverts	0	13	58	233	458
Military	0	0	0	0	0
Newspaper	0	30	44	142	53
Occupation	0	0	0	161	43
Official	34	59	74	379	561
Parcel Post	0	0	0	0	23
Pebiscite	0	0	0	7	7
Postage Due	2	3	82	230	376
Semi-Postal	0	0	0	0	0
Spec'l Deliv'y	0	0	0	0	2
Tete beche	8	29	57	53	51
Registration	0	4	10	12	9
War Tax	0	0	0	33	0
Grand Total	181	1830	4211	5010	6980
	1890-99	1900-09	1910-19	1920-30	Totals
Overprints	4541	6390	10362	10611	36,816
Air	0	0	27	965	992
Bisects	52	19	84	6	505
Commemorative	530	396	803	2680	4,447
Inverts	608	729	1065	595	3,759
Military	5	96	204	17	322
Newspaper	206	62	195	111	843
Occupation	4	155	1847	633	2,843
Official	1035	915	908	1300	5,265
Parcel Post	32	109	129	292	585
Pebiscite	0	22	0	453	489
Postage Due	657	819	1164	1808	5,141
Semi-Postal	16	35	1017	1418	2,486
Spec'l Deliv'y	7	34	78	135	256
Tete beche	41	31	39	72	381
Registration	46	59	32	31	203
War Tax	16	14	198	2	263
Grand Total	10342	13438	16470	20915	79,377

Why stop with the Blues when you can complete the Browns, too?

Harmer-Schau is offering by private treaty a collection they say is 99.9% complete for the world from 1840-2010. Accord to Harmer-Schau "The collection is meticulously housed in black mounts in over 200 Minkus albums. Also, there are numerous albums, stockbooks and file folders with extra material, such as booklet panes and sheetlets. All countries are represented, Afghanistan (nearly complete tiger heads, mostly in full plating) through Zululand." Asking price is $2.9 million USD.

Now before you stop reading and reach for your checkbook, I should note that there is no U.S. (which I assume also means no Confederate States, Hawaii, et al). And there are at least 600 empty spaces, ranging from expensive rarities to at least a handful of cheap stamps. (What's up with those?)

So I have a few questions. Who is the collector? How many stamps are included (using Keijo's count of worldwide stamps, I assume close to 600,000)? Are there really Minkus albums covering the world in depth? (If I had to guess, I would assume this is some combination of Minkus Specialty albums with their Global/Supreme Global supplements.)

There has been a nice discussion about this on Stampboards.

You can find more information on the collection at the Harmer-Schau website.

If anyone reading this blog buys this collection, please let me know! My guess is that it won't sell whole, but that offering it as such is the first step before breaking it up by country. Maybe if that happens we'll see some photos and learn more.

P.S. I hope to find time to work through the list of the 600 missing stamps and report back here.

Update 8/11/12: I converted the wantlist to Excel so I could more easily play with it and have posted the results in the StampBoard thread linked above. If anyone wants a copy of the Spreadsheet, let me know. Bottom line is that there are more like 1200 stamps missing with a total 2007 catalog value in excess of $5 million USD. Fortunately, there are a couple at 20 cents that I could afford.