Incidentally, two stamps he has been searching for over the last many years are Cape Juby, Scott #48-49 (Edifil #64-65). I'm certain Mr. Limaye would be very happy to hear from anyone who can help him locate these two stamps.
The famous stamp collector Josiah Lilly said that there were 100,000 postage stamps he wanted for his collection and he succeeded in acquiring 77,000. My considerably easier target is 35,000 of the more common stamps from 1840-1940 contained in the Scott Blue International Album Volume 1. This blog will record my progress, provide general information about Classic era philately and hopefully encourage other "Blue" collectors.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Another complete (almost) Scott Volume I
My thank to fellow blogger Jim Jackson for alerting me to a collector whose Blue Volume One is only a few stamps from being complete. The collection is the property of Dilip R. Limaye who has been building it over the past 25 years. Mr. Limaye has just begun a thread on the Stamp Community forum, "Collecting the First 100 Years - Scott Intl. Junior Album." He seems very willing to share information about putting together a Volume One collection and this thread has the potential to provide Blue collectors with much to think about.
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6 comments:
Apparently he has been working on this for 25 years! The fact he has been trying to find two stamps from Cape Juby for some time shows that many stamps with spaces in Big Blue can be a REAL challenge to acquire.
Thanks, Jim for your comment. To clarify,I have been building this collection (off and on among my other stamp collections) for 25 years. The search for the two Cape Juby (Scott 48 and 49)stamps has been over the last five years, and I was outbid on eBay a couple of years ago on a large set that included these two stamps (the final bid was US$400).
Over the years, it has come down to these two Cape Juby stamps needed to fill the album (although I have to admit that there may be some spaces such as Syria 106a that may have the wrong stamp - I purchased collection that was about 30-40% full and did not check to verify whether all of the filled spaces had the correct stamps)
What I've been curious about is the probability that the last stamps you need for your album will be ones that take you years to find versus the possibility that it will be just a random empty space that you've never gotten around to specifically searching for. That's my impression of the last stamp that Stan Cornyn and Murray Geller acquired, Malaya Kelantan Scott 10.
My guess is that this is a random occurrence. if I had focused earlier on completing Cape Juby and perhaps purchased a collection of Spanish colonies (which I did not do), I may have been able to get a complete set to fill the BB spaces. but if I remember correctly, I picked up the Cape Juby stamps initially from a couple of dealers and then acquired some from eBay. The BB has spaces for Scott #s 40 through 48 and then a blank space. I was able to get 40 through 47 from a dealer but not 48. So I need 48 and one other horizontal stamp.
I imagine every collection comes down at some point, eventually, to the "last few stamps I just can't find." Otherwise, filling an album with the world's stamps would be a yawner and no one would make the effort. That these last few are hard to find must be a function of accident, bad luck, the lack of sales or interest in Cape Juby or other unpredictable factors. Meaning the last unfound stamps could just as easily have been from any number of other places.
What I'm wondering, though, is how does someone feel after 25 years of filling an enormous stamp album when they have every single space filled? What next? Do you go lie down for a while? Do you pour yourself a glass of champagne? Do you start looking for an even bigger album? Honestly, I'm not sure I want to be in that position. It's like arriving after a long, interesting road trip. It's good to get there, but the real adventure is over.
I think I know what I'd do. I'd start remounting all the stamps -- oh dear -- in an even larger and more complete album like the Steiner pages. Or I'd start adding blank pages to try to begin finishing off sets which Scott has left incomplete. Or maybe I'd just take up another hobby? No, I wouldn't do that.
Drew, I must admit to never having given much thought to what I would do if I actually completed the Volume 1. I'm pretty sure, though, if I were going to remount the collecton into a more comprehensive album that I would do it sooner rather than later. But it would be a nice problem to have!
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