Counting Spaces

Thanks to reader Joe for making available his count of the number of stamps in the current version of the Blue--i.e., the four part 1997 edition. Even if earlier editions will vary in both number of countries and number of stamps, Joe's data gives us access to additional interesting facts about this series.

To start with the big question: How many stamps are in the Blue Volume 1? Scott/Amos is no longer willing to say. The title page used to state "more than 35,000" spaces but now is silent on the topic. But we know that Scott has been dropping more stamps than adding in recent revisions, so it is not surprising that, according to Joe, the number is currently 34,475. Another way of looking at this, I come up with 58 countries/stamp-issuing-entities that were in the 1943/47 edition but are missing in the 1997 edition. Sounds like a lot, but if you assume each of these averages 10 stamps, then that would only mean a reduction of ~600 (58x10) stamps. I haven't counted, but I would guess the 600 is low (and see the comment below about the US). We should also remember that there are stamps in the post 1947 edition that weren't in the 1943/47. Not a lot, but some.

Now Joe's 34,475 probably doesn't include the free form "blank" pages that Scott includes for certain issues, each of which could hold 50 or so stamps. But there were dedicated "blank" pages in the earlier versions, too, so this shouldn't skew the results too much. Incidentally, I don't think I have ever broken out the "blank" pages in the Blue, so here they are:

US Souvenir Sheets (missing in later editions)
India Convention States
India Feudatory States (missing in later editions)
Italy Offices in the Turkish Empire
Italy Aegean Islands Occupation Stamps (in the 1943/47 edition these were split between two pages; later versions have combined this into one page)

The biggest surprise in the data was which countries were allotted the most spaces. If you had asked me before I saw Joe's spreadsheet, I would have confidently said the US was first. Second would probably have been Germany, and then some combination of France, Austria and, oh, probably Hungary. But I would have been wrong: the US comes in fourth. The top ten countries in order in the 1997 edition are:

1. France    948
2. Germany    801
3. Austria    755
4. United States    729
5. Hungary    620
6. Italy    617
7. Russia    617
8. Salvador    582
9. Nicaragua    569
10. Spain    567

(I should note that the US would have ranked first had Joe used the 1943/47 edition which included more than 300 Revenues, Newspaper stamps, and other issues no longer in the album. This also is a big factor in explaining why the 1997 edition contains under 35,000 stamps.)

Now its interesting to compare the top ten above with the top ten countries ranked by the number of regular issues/commemoratives that are in the Scott Catalog for 1840-1940:

1. United States (#5 in the Blue album's coverage)
2. Iran (Persia) (#15 in the Blue)
3. Turkey (#16 in the Blue)
4. Russia (#7 in the Blue)
5. Mexico (#17 in the Blue)
6. Spain (#11 in the Blue)
7. Nicaragua (#9 in the Blue)
8. Portugal (#14 in the Blue)
9. El Salvador (#8 in the Blue)
10. Hungary (#6 in the Blue)

That is, Iran has the second highest number of regular issues/commems in the Scott catalog but comes in only 15th in terms of the number of spaces provided in the Blue. Since a lot of what we find in old albums for Persia are likely reprints or forgeries, Scott may have done us a favor by providing fewer opportunities to go awry.

I made a rather feeble attempt to look at the comprehensiveness of coverage in the Blue for all countries using my count from the 2007 Scott Classic, but for reasons not worth going into, the following really are only ballpark. Fortunately, Jim is doing this measure accurately in his Blog. Anyway, until he finishes, it looks like two countries in the Blue are complete for every major number: Allenstein and Kionga. A total of 17 countries come in at 75 plus percent completion. At 50% comprehensiveness we are looking at 85 countries. That means that something like 176 countries come in at less than 50% coverage.

I don't know that there is any purpose listing the bottom ten except to answer the trivia question: The country with the fewest spaces is Tahiti with three. Tahiti is also at the bottom in terms of number of possible stamps included in the album: five percent. So apparently pretty scenery and exotic locale were not an influence on the album's editors.

As I have to remind myself whenever I think about comprehensiveness, the Blue is supposed to emphasize affordable stamps. So ideally, if a country in the Blue had spaces for only 1/3 of the stamps in the Catalog, but included every stamp cataloging under $10, then I would think the editors did a good job. So I revisited Michel Bégin's Affordable Classic Stamp website that I blogged about awhile back and imported his information into a database along with Joe's data. This was primarily helpful in that it reminded me how to build relational tables in FileMaker rather than giving much in the way of useful philatelic insights. Nevertheless, 23 countries in the Blue also fall in the Most Affordable Countries category. (Actually, there are more than that but some are Indian Convention States and Italy Aegean Island issues that don't have dedicated spaces in the Blue.) Of the 23 countries with dedicated spaces, Niger comes in at the top. The album is 85% complete for this country which, at the time Bégin compiled his list, had no stamp cataloging more than $3. The other Affordable countries with 50% plus representation were, in order of completeness, Middle Congo, Chad, Italian Colonies, Algeria, Georgia, Mauritania, Eastern Silesia, Ivory Coast, and Haiti. The countries with the fewest spaces, in spite of their being on the Affordable list, were Lebanon, Ethiopia, Memel, Far Eastern Republic, and Azerbaijan, the latter providing spaces for only 9% of the major numbers in the Scott Catalog. This is ironic because anecdotally I think that all of the Blue albums I've seen of any size have most if not all of the spaces filled for Azerbaijan. I've read that this is because they were commonly available in approvals marketed to beginning collectors for many decades.

Paradigm shift?

There have been several threads relating to worldwide collecting on two stamp discussion groups lately. One is on Stamp Boards and is now on its fourth page. The other is on Stamp Community and related specifically to the deficiencies with the Blue Volume 1. This is something that is much on my mind, and I thought I would repost here what I wrote on that thread:

Even after having grappled with this for some years, I still blow hot and cold about the Scott Blue International Volume 1. I'm currently running on the chilly side as I just finished penciling in the last of the Scott numbers for the stamps I am missing, and this has only served to remind me of how capricious the editing of the album has been. But based on past experience, I will warm back up, if for no other reason that I doubt there will ever be anything better.

One thing that would help collectors come to terms with the Volume 1 is to embrace a different mindset. Most collectors who move beyond the beginners stage but still like to use printed albums are collecting "to the catalog." I.e., the albums they use, such as the Scott Green Specialty albums, largely mirror the general catalogs in the stamps they include. If the catalog gives it a major number, it gets a space in the album. Should the collector decide to specialize in varieties that are minor numbers or missing entirely from the general catalogs, then he or she has likely moved beyond the utility of printed albums.

The Volume One International Collector who tries to collect by the catalog, though, is in for frustration. Sixty percent of the major numbers in the Scott catalog will not be in the album. This includes literally thousands of stamps that cost under $1.

So consider this approach. What if you collect "to the album" itself, not to the catalog? Then the challenge becomes to fill the spaces that are there. And it is a challenge. Whether intentional or not, the editors have filled Volume One with thousands of stamps that are not easily found. And as your holdings grow, you will be building a "representative" collection of the world. This doesn't mean that you can't add stamps that aren't in the album, perhaps in the margins or on blank pages. But it is about embracing the chase and letting the album provide you a structure for a more or less affordable journey through the first hundred years of philately.

Now if Stanley Gibbons were to reprint their Ideal Album series in loose leaf form, then I would be seriously conflicted.

Blue International Realizes $21,240 in Kelleher Auction

Stealing a page from Dave Barry's playbook, many thanks to alert reader Jim for alerting me to a Scott Blue 1840-1940 Collection housed in 3 volumes that realized an alert-worthy $21,240. The collection was offered as Lot 2144 by Daniel F. Kelleher in his Sale 628 held January 25-27, 2012.

What is as amazing as the stamps is how they are mounted. I like Jim's description on the Stamp Community list: "Never have I seen an album so encrusted with stamps like barnacles on a hull." While I have seen album pages completely covered in stamps, they have invariably been ones where the stamps bore no relationship to what was intended by the editor to reside on the page. You can check out the images on Kelleher's website for a fraction of what was in the albums.

Here's the description from Kelleher's auction catalog (I corrected a few typos):

"Worldwide, Absolutely Extraordinary 3 Volume International Collection, 1840-1940. Forget what you have ever thought about International collections, as this magnificent, old-time collection is absolutely astounding in its breath of coverage. If there was no space allotted the owner just went ahead and created one. Duplicates or parallel mint and used coverage? Definitely not a problem, as the owner simply overlapped premium stamps one over another, often with a better mint example buried beneath. To list the endless quantities of premium individual stamps would be fruitless, though we will provide scans on the internet to give an overall flavor of the lot...About the only slight negative we can associate with this valuable lot is the time necessary to properly evaluate it. Turn each page and add it up; we've handled scores of International collections, but few like this one! Estimate $10,000 - 15,000."

While I would never mount a collection this way, you've got to admit that is unique.

"The Most Affordable Classic Stamps to Collect"

When I was first researching the collecting of classic era stamps, I came across the website by Michel Bégin of Quebec with the above title. His site is no longer online but can be accessed through the Internet Archive WayBackMachine. I tried emailing M. Bégin several years ago but had no response. But as I once again came across the archived pages a few days ago, I decided I should mention the website here.

Bégin's purpose was to show which were the least expensive classic era countries to collect. As the website is still copyrighted I can't reproduce the data, but here are some highlights. Bégin calculated there were 436 countries that issued stamps during this time (not counting Offices). During the 19th Century alone, there were 276 stamp issuing entities. During the classic era, there were 13 countries with more than 500 issues. The US had the dubious distinction of having issued the most stamps: 902.

 Bégin calculated that 148 countries could be considered the most affordable to collect and provided several tables summarizing this information. For example, he notes that the Ivory Coast issued 166 stamps starting in 1892 with no stamps cataloging over $100 (based on 1997 catalog values). So, definitely still worth checking for Bégin's interesting statistics and comments, especially if you are considering starting an affordable single country collection.

April 1st Breaking News: Slabbed International on eBay

In what may be a first, an eBay seller, Bob's House of Stamps, has listed a slabbed Blue International Volume 1. According to the description, before slabbing the album was completely filled with all 35,000 stamps graded GEM100 or above. The eBay description also states that each stamp was MNH when it was hinged into the album. Furthermore, every stamp is guaranteed and the album comes with 35,000 certificates from Bob's House of Expertising. All the certs read: "We beg to inform you that is our opinion that this stamp is what it appears to be."

Opening bid is 99 cents. Bob's House of Stamps has 10,000+ all private feedback of 100% and he is a member of all major organizations including the APS (Amalgamated Peripatetic Stampers) and the ASDA (Albanian Stamp Doctorers Anonymous). Note that Bob has only twelve of these slabbed albums available so this is definitely first come, first served. The seller appears to be located in Antarctica but offers discounted shipping if you select the "Buy It Now" option for $199,999.99. The album may be returned within 24 hours for partial refund but only if the slab is unopened and the seal is intact.

Linns/Scott Catalog Survey

Here is the link to a survey that you can take to share your opinions on Linns and the Scott Catalogs. There are prizes! The survey is being conducted by Amos Publishing and closes April 14, 2012.

Odds & Ends

I was able to spend a couple of hours at the Wineburgh Philatelic Library at UT Dallas last week and found some further information to add to earlier posts. Specifically,

1) I was missing the Editor's Letter for the 2005 Scott Specialized Catalogue. I now have a copy of this and have added a summary of what was new in the 2005 edition.

2) I found a couple of pieces of information on the publishing history of the Stanley Gibbons Ideal/New Ideal albums.

3) I have added counts for the Minkus Supreme Global's coverage of 19th century Austria, Bavaria, Germany, and Hungary to the comparison of the Ideal, Brown, and Blue albums.

A couple of tidbits on the Scott Blue and Brown Internationals. I saw an ad in the April 1941 Scott Monthly for the following Annual Albums: 1934-35, 35-36, 36-37, 37-38, 38-39, and 39-40 with the dates matching the corresponding catalog coverage. As you may know, there is a question as to whether Scott ever issued a final volume in the Brown International series that covered mid-1938 through 1940. I have never seen anything to so indicate and therefore believe it was the Annual Album that provided collectors these final months. (Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen any of the Annual Albums offered on eBay. Has anyone reading this seen one?)

The August 1941 Scott Monthly has an ad indicating that Scott had just published a Supplement that could be used to bring the 1939 edition of the Blue Junior Album up to date through 1940. Other ads promised supplements to the Blue Volume One every two years.