APS Circuits

I started receiving APS Circuit books in May 2010. While I always knew I would eventually want to do this, the immediate motivation was the scarcity of large worldwide albums on eBay, a situation that has gotten even worse this year. (The albums housing even ten thousand stamps are few, and the only larger albums I've seen lately have borne ridiculously high price tags--there is one now on eBay with an ask price of $29,999 which might have 15,000 stamps, probably fewer.)

Now after examining some 300 sales books, I thought it was appropriate to report whether these are a useful way for the Volume One collector to build his or her collection. (I originally posted some of this on stampcommunity.org.)

In case you aren't familiar with the circuits, the American Philatelic Society operates a Sales Division for its members which, according to the APS website, circulates some 42,000 sales books with close to $2 million in sales each year. A typical sales book contains 16 pages with 12 spaces per page. Members of the APS purchase blank sales books in which to mount the stamps they wish to sell. Cost of each stamp is set by the individual seller and can range from a few pennies to a $1,000. The APS encourages sellers to price their stamps reasonably for quick sale (but see below!).

The stamps mounted in each book are supposed to correspond to one of 165 or so categories, categories being countries, areas, or topicals. The greatest specialization is, of course, within U.S. stamps: for example, there are separate circuits for U.S. General, U.S. Fancy Cancels, U.S. Revenues, etc. Because of the popularity of the British Empire, there are also a fair amount of categories here, such as British Atlantic Islands and Australia States. In addition to individual countries, there are also more generic categories, such as Southeast Asia and Southern Europe.

APS members who wish to buy inform the Society which categories they wish to receive. The APS keeps track of who wants what and assembles circuits of ten or so books from different sellers which are sent round robin to up to 10 members who live in roughly the same geographical region. Each member has one week to decide what they want before forwarding the circuit to the next member on the list. Once the last person on the circuit returns the books to the APS mothership, another circuit is sent out and the process starts all over again.

So, to begin with, are there any categories specifically tailored to 1840-1940 collectors? Yes, a few: US 19th Century, British Empire-Victorian Era, British Pre-Elizabethan, Great Britain 19th Century, Europe (1840-1940), France 19th-Century, Germany Pre-1945, and Global (1840-1940). But, of course, there are many other single country and area choices that will contain stamps from the first 100 years of philately.

Because I collect the world 1840-1940, there are far more circuits of potential interest than I can cope with. So I tend to subscribe to some circuits for a year or two and then switch to something else for awhile. So far, at least, the APS staff have been very accommodating.

I have received 31 circuits in the past 15 months or 300+ individual books. From these I've purchased a total of 857 stamps at a cost of $692.88 which works out to about 81 cents a stamp. What is missing, of course, is how that compares to the catalog value. The majority of what I am currently buying are inexpensive stamps, i.e., under $5, and these probably average out to 40% of Scott catalog. (It usually works out a little better than this as the seller may be using a Scott catalog that is a couple of years old.)

But I have bought some more expensive stamps--perhaps a hundred--and these have typically been at a fraction of catalog value because of defects invisible from the front, usually small thins or, my favorite, "no gum, priced as used." I only kept a record of the catalog value of the first four circuits I received, but these worked out to almost $600 catalog value for a little over $100 or 17%.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages of the circuits (the fact that there are more disadvantages doesn't mean I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages--the opposite is the case):

Advantages:
--Prices are generally pretty good, certainly better than most dealer's prices for individual stamps. Fine to Very Fine appearing expensive stamps with defects invisible from the front can be real bargains.

--You can verify the condition of stamps on the spot.

--Most stamps are priced individually allowing one to fill in short sets (although, of course, you will find complete sets offered which are either bargains or frustrations depending upon whether you already own some of the stamps).

--You can drool at your leisure over rare or expensive stamps that you might not otherwise see in person, even if you can't afford to buy them.

Disadvantages:

--If you subscribe to many circuits, especially those that have only a few other members on the circuit, you will simultaneously receive multiple mailings on occasion. My record is 5 within 3 weeks. Contrarily, the more popular the circuit, the longer it takes to make the rounds. I tend to receive circuits more often as there are only 4 or 5 of us on several of my circuits. By the way, if you know you are going on vacation, the APS can arrange for you to be skipped.

--Because I receive a lot of "general" circuits with multiple countries, I too often encounter sellers who make little effort to mount countries in alphabetical order or stamps within a country in order by catalog number. For a worldwide collector, this can be really irritating and I've cancelled two circuits that just were more trouble than they were worth. I don't mean this to be a tirade against a few mistakes but I saw one book where literally every page was random.

--It typically costs $5-$7 to mail circuits to the next recipient plus a 5% buyer fee. I still think I come out ahead as I would in any case be paying postage and perhaps tax when purchasing a similar quantity of stamps by other means.

--While most sellers price their stamps at no more than 50% or so of catalog, you will find a few books priced at less and sometimes rather more. You have to wonder why the latter bothered to take the time.

The APS has started sending a single mailing of selected circuits to members. I have requested these on a couple of occasions for countries that I don't normally see in my other circuits. So if you are "on the fence," watch the APS Journal for what is available. The APS has also started offering the possibility of purchasing complete "clearance" books, but I haven't tried this yet.

For more expensive stamps that look to be a bargain, I suggest checking out the same stamps in the APS store. For example, I was considering buying one of the Cape of Good Hope triangles recently from a sales book only to find a slightly better copy of the same stamp for $10 less on the APS store site.

The bottom line is I really think this is one of the best services offered by the APS.

A Cheatsheet for Problematic Classic Era Stamps

The American Philatelic Society has a handy-dandy overview of countries whose stamps are frequently misidentified, forged, reprinted, etc., as part of its advice to sellers using their circuit books. I've known about the document for a while, and have been meaning to post a link to this three page pdf.

A few examples:

Australia, 1-76, 113-129, Misidentifications, because watermarks are not noted.

Bolivia, 1–59, Forgeries and fake overprints (40–46 oval cancels with heavy bars are suspect).

United States, Washington/Franklins, Misidentifications, perf. alterations, and regumming.

While a lot of the document is too general to be of much use by itself (for example, watch out for forgeries on the early issues of Trinidad), I still think the list is worth checking out by other general collectors.

The Evolution of the Scott Classic Catalogue Part 2

Continuing on from Part 1:

2000 (sixth edition). Another 45 countries received cover listings for the first time bringing the total to 131 countries. Some other countries with cover listings in earlier editions were expanded, such as Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Monaco, Philippines and Spain. Eleven countries received listings for bisects. Canada gained 14 additional pages, largely because of the O.H.M.S. Officials, but also plate blocks, coil pairs, line pairs, and paste-up pairs, not to mention die types, etc. First or early issues of many countries received extra attention in this edition. Many of these are what could be termed Forerunners, such as those of Angra, Ascension, Cayman Islands, Cyprus and Egypt, Horta, Kiauchau, Madeira and Porta Delgada, New Zealand, Seychelles, and Strait Settlements. Fifty-five countries were given new minor listings for shades which, Scott notes, "usually reflect[s] new printings of definitive stamps."

2001 (seventh edition). The seventh edition boasted 46 more pages than the sixth. Australia and its North West Pacific Islands were one of the principal beneficiaries, both with expanded coverage of the Roos and the Perf OS Officials of Australia. In Europe, the France Occupation Stamps were beefed up and a page was added for the Balloon Montes covers. Danzig, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Netherlands also received attention. (I like the phrase that Mr. Morrissey used to describe the nearly doubling of coverage for Danzig, terming it "one of the liveliest 'dead' countries.") Germany, very much alive and issuing, received 1/3 more coverage. Fourteen countries had cover listings for the first time. Postage dues on covers were added for seven countries, and eight countries received more listings. Continuing with the addition of forerunner issues that began in 2000 were listings for "the stamps of a parent, or other country, used in a colony or other country," e.g., the stamps of Great Britain used in Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil.

2002 (eighth edition). This edition was the first with James E Koetzel writing the "Letter from the Editor." There were new or reinstated major numbers for Barbados, Bermuda, Egypt, and Somaliland Protectorate. There were additional Forerunner listings for Bangkok, British East Africa, Brunei, Cape Verdi, and South Africa. Twenty-two countries had either expanded listings or joined the Catalogue for the first time. This brought the total of countries with cover listings to more than 150. There were new valuations for never hinged stamps for 16 countries plus listings for multiples for 18 countries. Specimen stamps are included for 13 countries. There were more listings for plate and printing varieties plus many minor listings for color shades, overprint/surcharge varieties, etc. Perhaps most noticeable was the additional of high quality digitally scanned images replacing the velox prints used in earlier catalogs. These scans were from the stamps kindly loaned to Scott by an unnamed Ohio collector who we now know was Dr. Hsien-ming Meng.

2003 (ninth edition). With this edition, the percentage of color stamp images hits the ninety percent mark. More than 2300 new basic listings were added to the Catalogue, including massive new coverage of the China Treaty Ports. Coverage for the Ukraine was "revamped and expanded," including all of the early issues. World War I Occupation issues for the British Operations in German East Africa were added. Coverage for Saar was, in Kloetzel's words, "dramatically expanded," to the tune of 201 varieties. This was the first year in a multi-year project to expand Portuguese Colonies including more than a 100 new varieties. More forerunner stamps, 246 in all, were added. I should note that some (all?) of the Classic Catalogues have an Additions, Deltions and Changes page which drills down to specifics even more than the editor's letters.

To be continued....

The First Edition of the Scott International Junior

I recently purchased a copy of the first edition of the Blue for dirt cheap because it was missing around 10% of its pages. Still, I thought it would be interesting to do some comparisons to see what has changed and what has stayed the same.

As a reminder, the first edition of the Blue was published in 1914. The latest stamps I saw were from the 1913 but not even through the end of that year.

First thing you notice is how much thinner the original edition was than today's Volume 1, even allowing for the missing pages in my copy. I can see that this album wouldn't have appeared terribly daunting to a beginning collector, "Hey, this is something I can fill up!"

A surprise was that the maps in the front are the same color maps with Alphonse Mucha styled titles found in the Browns. Another surprise was that many countries did not have spaces for flags, rulers or arms. I say surprise because the title page brags that these are present for all countries, and, in fact, there is a tipped in advertisement selling the labels for a buck.

Those of us with earlier editions of the Blue before 1997 regularly complain about the order the countries appear and it was interesting to note that originally the album was largely in alphabetical order. Unlike the Browns, not completely, because Scott would try to cram two or three countries on a page when there were only a few rows of stamps involved.

The illustrated cuts match up well between the 1914 and the current editions. As a general rule, I would say that there are more spaces with descriptions in the later editions and consequently more blank spaces in the 1914.

As you will see below, there are many cases where there are more stamps in the 1914 edition than on the equivalent pages in the 1943/47 editions, the most comprehensive of the Blue Volume Ones. There are a few exceptions, and these are generally for popular countries, such as Canada, where the later editions added some more expensive stamps that had originally been omitted.

Because of the pages missing from my copy of the 1914, I didn't do a lot of comparisons between the 1943/47 edition (referred to as '43 below) and the 1914, but here are some notes:
--US: my copy of the 1914 is missing most of the US pages but I see that, as in the Brown albums, Scott has placed the US envelopes, Revenues, and Telegraph stamps at the back of the album. These had moved up to the front by the '43/47 edition but the Revenues and Telegraph stamps have now been dropped from the Blue.
--US Confederate States: 8 spaces in the 1914 vs 7 in '43.
--Abyssinia: the 1914 has a row for the 1901-05 stamps missing in the '43 plus 3 additional stamps for 1909.
--Afghanistan: the 1914 allotted half a blank page (unlike the Brown which had a full blank page; early Afghanistan obviously flummoxed both the Blue and Brown editors).
--Albania: missing from the 1914 as its first stamps were't issued until December 1913.
--Angra: 13 spaces in 1914 vs 7 in '43.
--Anjoun: 8 spaces in 1914 vs 3 in '43.
--Annam & Tonkin: in 1914, missing in '43.
--Antigua: 17 spaces in 1914 vs 11 in '43.
--Austria: 41 spaces on the 1914's first page vs 38 in the '43; 1914 includes the Austrian Offices in Liechtenstein missing in the '43.
--Austria Lombardy-Venetia: 11 spaces in 1914 vs 7 in the '43.
--Azores: 1914 has 16 nineteenth century stamps that are missing the the '43. This is one of my pet peeves about the Blue: many inexpensive earlier stamps for Portuguese Colonies are missing from some colonies but not all. Also the '43 is missing Newspaper stamps present in the 1914.
--Baden: 18 spaces in the 1914 vs 7 in the '43. You may remember than in the earlier editions of the Blue, Baden, Bergdorf, Bremen and Brunswick (sounds like a law firm!) were all on the same page. In the 1914 edition, Brunswick had its own page.
--Bolivia: 59 stamps in 1914 vs 48 in '43.
--British Guiana: 35 stamps in 1914 vs 14 in the '43, the biggest percentage loss I saw between the 1914 and the '43.
--Canada: unusually, the 1914 edition only has spaces for 5 of the earliest stamps (i.e., through the Large Queens) compared to 11 in the '43.
--Cape Verde Islands: 58 spaces in 1914 vs. 35 in '43.
--China: the 1914 has a blank page for Issues of the Treaty Ports.

So, bottom line, if the state of coverage found in the first edition could have been maintained, the current Blue Volume 1 would be an improved album.

The Evolution of the Scott Classic Catalogue Part 1

With the release of the 2012 Scott Classic Catalogue approaching (November), I thought it might be interesting to look at the evolution of the catalog from the 1995 first edition through the 2011 edition. As Scott has striven to improve the catalog annually, this is going to occupy some space and consequently I will be posting the overview in multiple parts. Even so, I'm leaving out smaller details and you are welcome to ask for me to check to see if there is additional information.

Unless otherwise stated, all of the information is extracted from the Editor/Publisher pages that appeared at the front of each catalog. From 1995 to 2001, the author of the "Letter" was the publisher Stuart Morrissey; from 2006 through 2011 it was the editor, James E. Kloetzel.

1995 (first edition). The Scott Classics Catalog began in 1995 and the first publisher's letter documents its genesis: Gerald Bodily, a specialist British Empire Collector, was talking to Scott Publishing Company Executive Stuart Morrisey at Philanippon, the International Stamp show held that year in Tokyo. He suggested that a catalog containing only older stamps would be very useful. My understanding is that this first edition was a repackaging of the information in the regular catalogs. Sergio and Liane Sismondo of the Classic Collector lent the stamps for the cover of the first edition and would be increasingly involved with future editions.

1996 (second edition). Even this early Scott was already planning improvements, as it would continue to make every year. To begin with, the work was renamed the Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps & Covers. The improved listings for the 1996 edition centered around 19th century cover listings, a popular specialty for Classics collectors. These included coverage for the United States and Possessions; Confederate States; Canada and Provinces; France; German States; Germany, including Offices Abroad and Colonies; Great Britain, including Offices in Morocco and the Turkish Empire; Italian States; Italy and Offices Abroad; Eritrea; San Marino; and Lombardy-Venetia. If there were changes in the 1996 listings for off-cover stamps beyond price changes, they weren't indicated.

1997 (third edition). Additional listings for covers were added for the following countries: Austria, Belgian Congo, Belgium, Brazil, France, German Colonies, German States, Germany, Germany Offices Abroad, Italian Colonies, Italian States, Italy, Italian Offices Abroad, Portugal, Portuguese Colonies, Spain, and Switzerland. 1997 was also the year that Scott switched to pricing both on- and off-cover stamps in very fine condition

1998 (fourth edition). With the 1998 edition came a surprise: coverage for British Commonwealth countries extended through the end of the reign of King George VI--i.e., 1952. Coverage of covers continued to expand with 13 additional countries appearing for the first time: Argentina (Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Corrientes), Cuba, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Iceland, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Sweden. With this edition, we started to see listings for off-cover stamps that went beyond what was in the regular catalog and appear only here. The examples cited in the Letter were Forerunner cancellations (Antigua), Shade varieties, Paper varieties, Separate listings for die types, retouches, inverted frames, quality of impression, Expanded explanatory footnotes, Overprint and surcharge varieties, Printing varieties, and Bisect/trisect cover listings.

1999 (fifth edition). There were now nearly 100 countries with cover listings, including for the first time French Colonies, Greece, Malta, and Somalia. Speaking of covers, there were new listings for bisects and/or quadrisects (no trisects?) for five countries. With this edition, Scott adopts for the first time the concept of "full margins" developed by Edwin Mueller in his Catalog of the Imperforate Classic Postal Stamps of Europe. That is, "a measurement of one half the average distance between stamps in their settings on the plate both horizontally and vertically is given for all the countries…" For example, with France Scott #1-9, full margins equals 3/4mm. This edition added British Crowned Circle postmarks on covers for more than twenty British America colonies. New grading standards were adopted for the rouletted stamps of classic Finland and Ireland. For the first time the "Letter from the Publisher" drills down to mentioning major varieties for individual stamps. (I won't go into most of these in my posts, but if anyone is curious, please ask.) A number of stamps were added representing perforation varieties, shades, surcharge and overprint varieties.

To be continued....

Pick the Cover for the 2012 Scott Classic Catalogue

It's another year and another opportunity for me not to win the "pick the cover" contest Amos has been sponsoring since 2010. According to the July 2011 special monthly issue of Linn's, the three choices this year are "the 1932 Australia 5/- Sydney Harbor Bridge stamp (Scott 132), the 1929 Canadian 12¢ Quebec Bridge stamp (156), and the 1932 French Andorra 10-centime Bridge of St. Anthony stamp (27). To enter the contest, follow this link, but with the understanding, of course, that if you win, you'll let me have your prize :). This year as an added enticement, the winner's Catalog will be autographed by the Scott Editorial Staff.

Unlike previous years, all three stamps already grace my Blue so perhaps this is a good omen!

UPDATE: The winner was announced in the 17 October 2011 Linn's, the Australia Sydney Harbor Bridge stamp.

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.