Sunday, June 9, 2019

Guest Post: On Completing a Big Blue Volume One

Last April Fools' Day, I did a silly post on completing a Big Blue Volume One. Long time reader Bud was inspired by my post to ponder more seriously the implications of just what completion means in the context of the Intentional. With his permission, I am posting his thoughts which I hope you will enjoy as much as I have.

Congrats to the as yet unnamed 1000 collectors who this year completed a Scott International Volume One (Big Blue, or BB for short), and especially to Philip Tellick. It’s a milestone, and a cause for deep reflection.

Imagine 1000 completed BB V1s! Each would have to be housed in at least six binders, and the binders are exactly one foot long. That means, if the 1000 collectors were to lay their albums end to end. the blue streak would be over a mile long. What’s more, each album has 34,706 stamps (+ or -, depending on the edition) and the average size of a stamp is about 1.25 inches. So, if the stamps were laid end to end, they would stretch Montgomery AL to Baltimore MD. Still further, if the 1000 collectors have an average age of 70 (I guess they would probably be older), and if the years of their lives were in sequence or, so to speak, laid end to end, they would go back 70,000 years to the time of the Toba volcanic catastrophe when humans almost vanished from the earth. Maybe they had stamps back then, too, but all of those who collected them perished in the conflagration and their collections with them. Enough statistical nonsense.

Your news does, however, make me wonder under what conditions we can judge a Scott International Volume One as being “complete.” Did the album publishers give us the gold standard for what “complete” means? (Obviously not. You have repeatedly pointed out BB’s glitches and mistakes in your blog.) Does “complete” mean there is some stamp or other in every space provided? (That’s complete, yes, but not a very satisfying notion.) Does “complete” mean a collector, having done the best she can, is finished with collecting and declares that, in so far as she’s concerned, "it’s complete”? (Well. maybe. Many of the collections sold on ebay are said to be “complete” in this way.)

What we need, before judging any particular album as being “complete”, is not some precisely given definition of completeness for all BBs, but is a notion of what constitutes sufficient grounds for judging any particular album as being complete. I’m helped in making such a claim by a new philosophy book I just finished reading. I’ve listed the book’s title at the end of this post in case you’re of a philosophical bent and want to burn some brain dust. It’s short, but may take you weeks to read.
So then, what constitutes sufficient grounds for judging when a BB V1 becomes “complete”? Jim is providing the best notion of what this might look like in his blog (http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/). His sufficient grounds are uncomplicated, and in summary are (my wording):

•    Each stamp should be placed in the album space that corresponds to the Scott Catalog number for that stamp. The album provides color, value, and date clues for this task, but they’re not always reliable.
•    In many instances, multiple stamps are eligible candidates for single space. Any one of them will do. Likewise, both mint and used stamps will do.
•    Blank spaces should be filled, in so far as possible, with any stamps, of any value/variation, selected from the same series that do not already have a designated album space.
•    When the above guidelines cannot be followed because of album inconsistencies, select stamps that approximate the date specifications.
•    Damaged stamps qualify. Condition is not a consideration for determining completeness of the album.
•    Avoid fakes and forgeries.
•    Fill all spaces.

That’s about it. These are the sufficient grounds for judging an album as being “complete”. And there’s nothing more authoritative out there. The idea that Scott editors defined, once and for all, what makes the album “complete” is a myth. They didn’t do that, nor could they if they had tried.

I’ve been putting the word “complete” in quotation marks because any particular album that conforms to the above criteria is still in many ways incomplete. The notion “completeness” has embedded within it the reality of incompleteness. Take my own album as an example (it’s being serialized in Jim’s blog). When I had filled all spaces, friends ask me what I was going to collect next. I said that I was going to continue completing my “completed” album. And that’s what I’m doing and will continue doing.

If someday there actually are 1000 “complete” BBs, all qualifying on sufficient grounds as being “complete”, no two of them will be alike. That’s 1000 different definitions of what “complete” means. And they all -- at one and the same time -- are not perfectly final definitions and are final definitions that are perfectly good. That’s the charm of stamp albums. Confusing? Ask Sebastian.

The above-mentioned book: Sebastian Rödl, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: An Introduction to Absolute Idealism, Harvard University Press, 2018. It’s not about judging album completeness, exactly. It’s about all judgments.

11 comments:

albumfilling said...

I don't think there is any chance that there could be 1,000 completed Big Blue Volume 1's, even twenty is hard to imagine. It would even be interesting to see completed examples of small Scott Imperial albums from the 1900's through the 1950's of just the pictured stamps much less any add-ons to fill the empty spaces. Of course, finding them all mint in VF or better would make it even nicer. And I would dearly love to see a completed Lavallier or Moens album from the 1800's. I have seen many essentially complete country collections but almost no even close to complete world collections regardless of the chosen albums.

My current mild obsession (to me but not according to my wife) is the Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country Album which despite some flaws and a few tremendous challenges, Poland Scott #1 and Basel stamps not to mention a plethora of Indian States, Italian States, and German States issues plus modern countries' issues dating from 2010, provides a fascinating introduction to the world of stamp issuing entities. It has definitely opened my world from my long-time USA collection and brought me full circle back to my first forays into stamp collecting trying to find stamps for every country in my first serious stamp album, a two-volume H. E. Harris Standard album from around 1970.

Bob said...

I too am intrigued with the Smithsonian album and the series of posts on Stamporama which relate. Has anyone completed one of those yet, I wonder. I'll have to back and look at the relevant threads.

albumfilling said...

So far the only person who has completed one seems to be William "Bill" Gross since the album is based on an exhibit from his collection. :)

Use of some selected stamp on stamp issues makes the collection possible whereas finding a real Basel stamp probably makes it impossible for most of us without at least one substitution. There are quite a few challenges in the album in finding any suitable issue for some entries but it has been really fun looking for them.

Bud said...

I wonder how many stamps included in BB fall short of 1000 extant examples. Most likely the celebrated Syria 106c does. There must be others, too.

Bob said...

Bud, you would think as obsessed as I am with the Syria error that I would have chosen '100' rather than '1000.' The one hundred assumes that only one sheet of the error was made and every stamp from that sheet survives. Well, why not!

albumfilling said...

I successfully completed the Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country album as all mint stamps excepting three stamps as used (India - East India Company, Vancouver Island, and Italian States - Tuscany) and four stamps as stamp on stamp entries (Poland - Russian Domination which is Poland Scott #1 plus the Switzerland Canton issues for Geneva, Zurich, and Basel). Each of the four stamp on stamp substituted issues catalogs for over $2,000 in mint condition, only the Poland stamp is significantly cheaper used, as real stamps so a stamp on stamp issue seemed like a reasonable choice. From starting the collection on July 7, 2018 to completion on October 7, 2019 took 15 months and easily 600 to 900 hours looking for candidate stamps! The last stamp located was for the Indian State - Kashmir and the second to last was the Romania - Moldavia stamp. The most expensive was the New Zealand stamp with the King George VII Land overprint with a $900 catalog value as a mint stamp.

It was great fun and provided an interesting introduction to the entire world of stamp issuing entities!

Bob said...

albumfilling, sorry it took me so long to "approve" your comment. Enjoyed reading it and then promptly forgot. Although they aren't mutually exclusive, I sometimes think that I would enjoy filling the Smithsonian more than than the Big Blue. Fortunately I prefer used stamps, so it would be a little easier on the pocketbook for me.

Bud said...

Quite an accomplishment, albumfilling. Congrats! BTW, what is the New Zealand stamp with the King George VII Land overprint?

albumfilling said...

It is New Zealand Scott # 121a.

Bud said...

Oh. Edward VII, not George. That's quite a stamp!

albumfilling said...

Oops, you are definitely right. It is Edward VII. I have had George V on my mind as I have been re-reading Nicholas Courtney's The Queens Stamps and Sir John Wilson's The Royal Philatelic Collection especially the sections on George V recently.