Big Blue Checklist

I've been faithfully following Jim's progress on documenting the stamps in the Blue. I can't emphasize enough how helpful his blog is. Even if you don't plan to use the checklists, his blog is worth reading not only for his comments about the stamps of the individual countries, but also for his more overreaching posts on topics such as the most expensive stamps in the album.

I use Jim's blog for two purposes beyond learning more about the countries and stamps in the Big Blue: 1) notating those stamps I own or need on a copy of his checklist I've printed; and 2) using his checklists to pencil into my album the catalog numbers for stamps I still need.

I've played around with a couple of ways of printing his information to use as a checklist. I finally settled on putting the information into a MS Word document, 3 columns, using the Arial Narrow 10.5 pt font. What I was trying to do is to find a compromise format that would reduce the total number of pages to as few as possible but would still be easily readable and allow room for notes, such as the specific catalog number of the stamp in my album if there is more than one choice, or a reminder I need to return and carefully check such and such a stamp to make certain I've got the one in my album identified correctly. I also note if I own the stamp but need to replace with a better copy.

What I recommend if you are experimenting with your own formatting is not to chose one that obscures Jim's arrangement of stamps by the row they occur. That is, most of the time Jim's checklist makes clear which stamps are on a particular row in the album. I've found this very helpful in efficiently penciling in the catalog numbers for the stamps I don't own yet directly in the album.

I've also experimented with how to mark which stamps I own and which I need. After a couple of trials, I settled on marking X's through those I have and circling the numbers for those stamps I still need. When I acquire one of the circled stamps, I put an X through it. I had originally started by circling the stamps I owned and leaving the ones needed without any marking, but I was having trouble spotting the lacuna among all of Jim's helpful verbiage. Of course, your mileage may vary. I know that many collectors would want to be more thorough, indicating if their stamps were used or unused, and perhaps other details.

In addition to the penciling in the catalog numbers of missing stamps, I also make a note of the catalog value for stamps over $20 or so as a way of helping me watch out for these in collections for sale on eBay.

So to conclude, I can only hope Jim is not reading this because I need him to devote all his time to the checklist :)

UPDATE: I played around with bolding the Scott numbers so that they would stand out more and I think this worked nicely; eliminates the need for circling the stamps I still need. Although not necessary, I also underlined the year/description headings while I was at it.

Dansco Binders

I think of Dansco as a producer of coin albums, but a couple of current eBay auctions reminds me that they also sold stamp-related materials. According to Thomas Moll's Guide to Vintage Coin Folders and Albums (and why hasn't someone written a similar guide for stamp albums, he asks innocently?), Dansco stands for the Daniel Stamp Company now of Venice, California. It was started in 1937 and was still making stamp supplies until at least the 1970s.

In any event, on eBay are two separate listings with binders labeled "Dansco International Junior Stamp Album." I say binders because the contents are still the Scott Blue pages with no mention of Dansco on the title pages. From the photos, Dansco at least made binders for Volumes 1 and 2. I assume there wasn't any particular arrangement with Scott Publishing. Dansco was simply manufacturing a cheaper alternative to the Scott-branded binders, much as G&K does today with its line of binders, blank pages and other accessories for the International.

Stamp Wallpaper

I know that this is off-topic, but I'm sure we are all familiar with the story about the beginnings of stamp collecting, specifically the London lady who in the early 1840's took a classified ad in the London Times for stamps to paper her dressing room:

"POSTAGE STAMPS.--A young lady, being desirous of covering her dressing room with cancelled POSTAGE STAMPS, has been so far encouraged in her wish by private friends as to have succeeded in collecting 16,000: these, however, being insufficient, she will be greatly obliged if any good natured person who may have these (otherwise useless) little articles at their disposal would assist her in her whimsical project. Address to E. D., Mr. Butt's, glover, Leadenhall street: or Mr. Marshall's, jeweler. Hackney." (If you want to read more about this, there is a thread on StampChat.)

I was reminded of this from a recent thread on the Stamp Community forum concerning a British company's line of wallpaper which includes several stamp designs. So if you are thinking about refurbishing your stamp den, this might be the look you are after.

Scott Catalog coming to the iPad?

Amos Publishing is scheduled to make an announcement on 4 June 2011 at NAPEX. According to posts on Richard Frajola's PhilaMercury message board, Amos will announce that the 2012 Scott catalogs will be made available as an iPad app. Hopefully, this will include the Scott Classics Catalogue but I've not read anything that suggests this is the case. And I certainly have no reason to be believe it will be an online catalog along the lines of Stanley Gibbons "My Collection," but wouldn't that be wonderful?

In April, Amos Publishing released a CoinWorld app for the iPad which seems to suggest a similar version for Linn's Stamp News could be in the offering sometime in the future.

UPDATES: The big announcement at NAPEX centered on the appointment of Charles Snee as editor. Mr. Snee seems eager to make himself accessible on a variety of social networks, most notably Twitter and Richard Frajola's discussion board. A recent post on the Virtual Stamp Club reports that the roll out of an online version of the Scott catalogs may take three years and that the intention is to keep it continuously updated--i.e., no one annual wait for changes in catalog values or editorial emendations. Still no mention to my knowledge of being able to use the catalog as a tool to inventory one's collection.

You can contact Mr. Snee directly at csnee@scottonline.com . You can see his tweets at http://twitter.com/#!/CharlesSnee .

Mr. Snee is also contributing to StampChat. In a recent message he lists the editorial staff: "My editorial team comprises your humble editor; Dave Akin and Donna Houseman, a dynamic duo of associate editors; Marty Frankevicz, indefatigable assistant editor for all new issues of the world (yes, one person handles all the new-issue listings at Scott); Steve Myers, the best valuing analyst Scott has ever had; and, of course, Jim Kloetzel, now editor emeritus of the Scott catalogs. That, my friends, is just six people."

The July 2011 special monthly issue of Linn's has an article by Charles Snee on social media. In this article he notes that this year (i.e., 2011) there will "an iPad application for the six-volume Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue." He writes that the catalog will be formatted to accommodate the iPad's display, "but the look of the listings will be the same as in print, including the images of the illustrated stamps."

To Hinge or Not To Hinge

This is a subject that comes up with some frequency on stamp bulletin boards. One problem though with such threads in general venues is that most people weighing in have single country or specialized collections with emphasis on MNH or expensive stamps. Things might look different if they were trying to cope with 35,000 mostly inexpensive stamps. Or maybe not! So, for the record, here are some pros and cons of hinges and mounts for the Blue collector.

Cost. Hinges, of course, win hands-down here. I can buy a package of 1000 Prinz Stamp Hinges for around $3 which comes to a little over $100 for enough hinges to mount every stamp provided for in the Blue Volume 1. As for mounts, I've seen an estimate of 6-10 cents each for individual stamp mounts. That multiples out to $2100-$3500 for sufficient mounts to handle the entire album. A lot of money, but one way of looking at this is if you are building a Blue collection over 10 or 20 years, you're spreading this cost out quite a bit.

Protection. Clearly, mounts are the big winner here. Those little bits of glassine on the back of stamps do nothing to protect their fronts, not to mention what hinges do to any gum that has survived. And, if you are using hinges, you definitely need interleaving to keep stamps on facing pages from rubbing against each other. Even then it is not difficult to accidentally dislodge a hinged stamp when turning pages. I should note, vis-a-vis mounts, that at least one well known dealer cautions against any mount type that might leave a vertical or horizontal line down the middle of a stamp. The alternative he suggests is to use mounts that are closed on the bottom but open on the other sides.

But aside from interleaving, how much additional protection do most stamps really need? My Blue is half full and the average cost per stamp is still only 13 cents. Perhaps a compromise solution is to use hinges for most stamps and reserve mounts for your more expensive treasures. Although I'm not completely consistent, my "rules" are to use hinges unless:

1) replacement cost of the stamp is greater than $25 or so (retail, not catalog);
2) the stamp is delicate and likely to be damaged (what comes to mind are some se-tenant pairs that might detach); and
3) the stamps are Mint Never Hinged.

Although the issue of stamp gum borders on the religious, I will confess that for me the backs of stamps are unimportant except to the extent that they reveal grills, watermarks or other interesting features. I practically rub my hands in glee when I come across a note from a seller along the lines of "No gum, priced as used" next to a $100 stamp selling for $10. I recognize though that many, if not most, collectors would disagree and so I begrudgingly use mounts if a stamp appears to be MNH, even if of minimum catalog value. That way I'm not spoiling any stamps for future collectors. Nor am I doing myself any real inconvenience as my preference for used stamps means the choice rarely comes up. Even so, I can't resist a parting shot that there are those who believe that the chances of finding original, undisturbed gum on more expensive classic era stamps is much less than most collectors would like to believe--i.e., there are a lot of regummed stamps out there. Nevertheless, if it looks MNH, I use a mount.

Weight. Perhaps the most serious barrier to using mounts in the Scott International is that mounts weigh down the pages. This is exacerbated because the Blue Internationals, unlike most if not all single country albums, are printed on both sides of a page. But also, to a lesser extent, because the Internationals tend to squeeze more stamps on a page than specialty albums, which means more mounts per page. This is especially an issue for the pre-1997 editions of the Blue which are printed on thinner paper.

Aesthetics. Obviously, this is the most personal of criteria. I like the appearance of both hinged and mounted albums, although the number of stamps per page in the Blue can make using mounts more difficult.

While I like the look of the black mounts in albums in which every stamp is mounted, I do not care for black mounts intermixed with unmounted stamps. So I use clear mounts which I think blend in better with hinged stamps. From looking at many albums sold on eBay, I'm obviously in the minority on this one.

Practical matters: If you've taken up stamp collecting after a hiatus, you probably are trying to remember who marketed those great peelable hinges and where can you buy them? The hinges you are thinking of where made by Dennison and, unfortunately, are no longer manufactured although packets do show up on eBay at very inflated prices. (Note that the similarly named Dennisen hinges are not the same thing.) I personally use Prinz hinges which are not peelable in any way--but they do seem to do a good job of staying adhered to the page. Other people have other preferences but I've never come across a consensus.

The mounts I use are made by Showgard. Since I knew I wouldn't need a lot of mounts, I started out with a starter pack containing precut mounts of varying sizes. However, these packs are made for common US stamp sizes so several of the included choices aren't particularly useful. A nice alternative is the strip set. I just purchased one on eBay containing 75 clear mount strips measuring between 22mm and 52 mm. But now I am wondering if there are any stamps in the Blue that won't fit into one of these strips?

Or to ask it another way: What are the largest and smallest stamps in the album? To go right to the obvious, the largest "stamps" to be accommodated are a couple of US Souvenir Sheets (thank goodness, the White Plains is too expensive for the Blue). Scott didn't include Souvenir Sheets for other countries so these are the only trouble makers, mount-wise. Not quite so obvious, some US cut squares could have a descent vertical height depending upon how they were removed from their entires. But since cut squares don't have gum, does the MNH crowd still use mounts for them? Perhaps just to protect the expensive ones. Among actual stamps, I was first diverted by obviously large stamps such as those issued by China in 1939 (Scott 364-367) which measure 39cm high. But in leafing through my album, I settled upon the triangular Brazil 1936 Carlos Gomes stamps which measure in at about 48 cm. This might actually be too large for my 52 cm mount strips as you have to add 5 cm overhead for the mount edge seams.

As to smallest, my first thought was the bottom part of stamps of Belgium with their do not deliver on Sunday labels. But then I decided that even though I have a couple of these without the "mother" stamp, I wouldn't put the bottom part by itself in a mount that couldn't accommodate the full stamp.

What is usually advanced as the smallest stamp ever issued is the Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1856 measuring 10mm x 10mm, but this stamp, indeed the entire country, isn't in the Blue. Neither is the other contender, the 1863 Colombian state of Bolivar. So for smallest (i.e., least tall) I'm going with the 1940 Colombia Postal Tax stamps which are 14 cm in height.

If anyone knows of smaller or larger stamps that are in the Blue, please let me know.

I can't leave this topic without shedding a tear for our poor Brown colleagues. Not only must they budget millions for stamps like the Swedish 1855 Treskilling Yellow, there are a number of items that will cost a pretty penny just to mount in their albums. I'm thinking of the British 1840 Mulready Envelopes, US 1865 Newspaper Stamps, Afghanistan 1920 Parcel Post Stamps, Madagascar 1884 British Vice-Consulate Stamps, and the China 1913-14 Special Delivery stamps, to name a few. (The Brown, incidentally, deigns to only provide a blank page for the Chinese SD stamps that reportedly measure 247mm by 65mm.) But then look at all the money these collectors saved when they mounted the Mecklenburg-Schwerin stamp.

Filling spaces (just not the right spaces)

When you spend a lot of time looking at Blue Volume Ones, either in person or on the Internet, certain trends become apparent, such as which countries will usually have the most stamps and which are likely to be barren. It is also hard not to notice that certain countries and issues are frequently misidentified by collectors. Here is a look at some of the more common problems (most of which I've perpetrated myself at one time or another).

ANTIGUA & MOST BRITISH COLONIES
Most British Colonies used key types with the head of the reigning monarch. The Queen Victorias are reasonably identifiable, but collectors who aren't paying attention are likely to mistake King Edward VII for George VI or vice versa, especially where the colors and denominations are identical. On the surface of it, the "baldies" as the Edward VIIs are affectionately known should be easy to distinguish, but, of course, you often are dealing with stamps cancelled over the obvious identifying bits.

And, by the way, regular/commemorative stamps overprinted to make them function as Officials, etc. don't belong in the spaces "up front" (unless, of course, you've made the decision to let design trump use).

AFGHANISTAN
Some collectors throw up their hands at the first sight of non-Western alphabets or non-Arabic numerals. In my experience, if the collector has mis-mounted a lot of Afghanistan stamps then they probably can't be trusted with Armenia, China, the French Offices in China, the Indian Convention States, Saudi Arabia, et al.

AUSTRIA
The various profile heads of Emperor Franz Josef between 1890 (Scott 51) and 1907 present challenges depending upon whether the numerals are black, white or colored, whether the numerals are surrounded by ovals, squares or hexagons, the currency used, etc. You've got 49 spaces to get it right, wrong, or as probably in my case, somewhere in between.

BELGIUM
For the past several years I've been blithely completing a page in the Blue of Belgian Parcel Post/Railway stamps, congratulating myself as the page rapidly filled up. Imagine my chagrin to discover that many of my stamps were in the wrong place. In my last eBay purchase something or the other sent me to the Catalog to verify a stamp only to discover that practically every stamp I had mounted in the 1916-1920 spaces was wrong. So I went from having virtually every space filled for these to having only two. I'm sure there were stamps in previous album purchases that I ignored because I thought I already had them.
The top row in the album is straight forward for the stamps from 1912-14. But things go downhill for the remainder of the page. My take on this is the first two rows are intended for Q61-80 from 1916 which have the values at the bottom only. The next two rows are for Q82-102 from 1920. These have numerals at the bottom and top. They can be distinguished from the following set because their winged wheels are filled/shaded. Then the last row is for the stamps Q103-Q131 from 1920-21. These also have values at the top and bottom but have no fill in the winged wheel. (Distinguishing between the stamps with the train in all these issues is much easier than the winged wheel. As is often the case, the Minkus Global albums offer collectors more help via useful notes like "Shading on wheel-spokes" or "One head-lamp in Engine.")

An interesting survey of these stamps can be found here.

CAPE JUBY
The Blue contains several colonies like Cape Juby, Dahomey and Martinique where there are multiple pages with zero illustrations, only descriptions like "Stamps of Spanish Morocco, 1935 overprinted." Well, I suppose Scott has to sell its catalogs somehow. Anyway, the lack of illustrations is an invitation for collectors to make mistakes.

FINLAND/RUSSIA
I left this out of my original post because until now I've never taken the time to verify my own holdings. I knew there was the potential for mistakes because Finland and Russia used similar stamp types between 1891 and 1918. Turns out that I had erroneously mounted one of the Russian Ring stamps in Finland, and the original owner of my album had hinged a similar Finnish stamp underneath the correct stamp in Russia. So all in all, not too bad. It also makes me feel better because in looking for suitable illustrations, I found some misidentified stamps on other web sites.

For Finland, here is the breakdown for the stamps in the Blue Volume One:

1891-92 Scott #46-52
Denominations are in Kopecks so that doesn't help to differentiate from the Russian issues. Look for the circled dots along both sides of the ring or in the corners.

1901-03 Scott 64-68
Finnish stamps will be denominated in Pennia, not Kopecks, or, in the case of #68, 1 Markka (which, as we all remember from Elementary School, equals 100 Pennia).

1911 Scott #77-81
Finnish stamps will be denominated in Pennia, not Kopecks.

There are more examples in this Stamp Identifier.

For Russia, just look for stamps without the circled dots or denominated in Pennia, Markka.

FRANCE/FRANCE COLONIES
The second space for France is intended for the 25 centime blue from 1849-50, Scott #6. However, what is usually in the space is the rather more common French Colonies #12. A number of early French stamps are difficult to distinguish from those intended for the French Colonies which didn't have their own stamps. While this isn't the fault of the Blue's editors, it would be nice in this and similar cases if there was some sort of caution in the album to send collectors to the Catalog. Minkus did this for France in their Master and Supreme Global albums: "For other stamps with the following designs see French Colonies--General Issues."

GREAT BRITAIN
No one reading this column is going to make this mistake, but you'd think that the Penny Black is sufficiently iconic for all collectors that the space for it would either contain the right stamp or be blank. So I'm surprised how often the wrong stamp is in the space--usually one of the Penny Reds, on occasion even perforated! If someone wanted to fill the space while waiting for the Penny Black fairy to come through, there are always the many stamp-on-stamps of the Penny Black, such as the 1990 Great Britain miniature sheet issued on its 150th anniversary.

ITALY
I've yet to see a Volume 1 that had the correct stamp for Italy in the space described as "Type of 1862, Imperforate." Assuming that it isn't blank, the stamp in the space is invariably #23 or #23a, not #22 with the head embossed from 1863. Although the description in the current Blue is technically correct, it was a little more obvious in earlier editions which had 3 earlier stamps similar to the stamp that belongs in the space. These three 1862 stamps are missing from later editions.

LATIN AMERICA
I have made no attempt in my own collection to try to weed out "the Seebecks" and probably won't until I get to the point of needing to make more expensive purchases. If you are unfamiliar with this topic, check out Keijo's blog post: http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/seebeck-reprints.php

PERSIA
The Blue I first purchased was probably 90% complete for Persia. However, I have read many times that much of the Classic Era Iran typically found in collections are counterfeits/reprints/forgeries. So I'm saving until some future date (if ever) trying to make sense out of what I have.

UNITED STATES
I'm not going to talk about the USA even though grills, secret marks, and watermarks offer much opportunity for, shall we save, creatively filling spaces. Just watch out for albums with Blue 5c "1847" Franklins!

Half way there

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to fill my Scott Volume 1 to the 50% point this year or 17,500 stamps. I knew that setting such a goal was going to take me out on a limb as I was about 2000 stamps short, but an unexpected album purchase yielded an even more unexpected 1889 stamps for my collection; that put me just over the half way point when added to some smaller purchases. I intend to blog later about the purchase that made this possible because I think it has some implications for other collectors, but for the moment, I thought I would make a few observations about what a half completed Blue Volume One album "feels" like.

When I started my collection was under 10,000 stamps. In the first 200 pages there were 35 pages with no stamps on them. Now there are seven. In general, there aren't a lot of pages that feel sparse.

And some of the larger countries are approaching completion--at least aside from those pesky semi-postals and "offices." From the first part of the alphabet, Argentina, Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, and Germany are down to no more than a dozen or so missing regular issues/commems.

In spite of being at the halfway point there are still a bunch of countries for which I haven't a single stamp. I had blogged in May 2010 that out of 408 countries/political entities in the Blue, there were a surprising 76 staring back at me with only empty spaces. Now with the album half full, I am lacking stamps from 53 countries. I'm still not clear as to why there should be so many. For example, although my holdings of Italy were good, I was able to score 66 additional Italian stamps from my latest eBay purchase. But even though the original owner of this album obviously had a good collection of Italy, he or she didn't have a single example of Italian Occupation stamps from Calchi, Calino, Caso, et al, in spite of the fact that there are many of these that catalog under one dollar each. A similar story could be told for plenty of other countries. So this reinforces my impression that there are dozens of countries that elude most Blue collectors for reasons other that cost.

The next major milestone I guess will be 20,000, but who's counting :)