New AFA Catalogues from Denmark

I received an early Christmas "present" today.

As a specialist collector, I depend on fairly specialized literature to help me better understand and identify the stamps in my collections. Today, I received the new 2012 AFA Denmark catalogue. Along with it, I also got a copy of the 2008 AFA specialized catalogue-- the last time this catalogue (typically released every 6-7 years) was published.

As I perused the new books, it struck me as interesting how there is much talk about how the stamp collecting hobby is "shrinking," and yet... these two catalogues are both about twice the size they were in my early days of collecting, when I was a kid.

The AFA catalogues are a must, if you're a serious collector of Denmark. The Swedish Facit catalogue will get you a long way-- AFA gets into more detail. Although they are published in Danish, and the pricing is listed in Danish kroner, they are well illustrated and easy to use. The specialized catalogue-- now in color and over 900 pages thick-- offers one of the most thorough listings of constant varieties on Danish stamps. The Faroe Islands, Greenland and the Danish West Indies are also covered.

Of course, at a little over US$200.00 (including postage from Denmark) for the two books, these are not for the faint of heart. Which is also why I only invest in new editions every 4-5 years.

Since the catalogues are Danish, I feel that they also offer a more accurate reflection of the current pricing of Danish stamps. Of course-- like all catalogues-- "full catalogue price" is a rarity for any stamp, however, the AFA catalogues offer a fairly accurate picture of the "relative" rarity of different stamps, and is especially useful when it comes to newer stamps. For example, the 2012 Denmark catalogue now includes pricing for stamps on cover up until 1995, and some of the prices accurately reflect that finding certain higher values genuinely used on cover can be extremely difficult. For example, some of the high value painting stamps-- postally used on cover-- might set you back $25-30, even though the stamps are barely 20 years old. Don't believe me? Try finding a NON-first day cover!

Anyway, I was happy to see these new additions to my philatelic library.

Moving... and Overwhelm

We are-- more or less-- moved into the new house.

Some people deal really well with stress-- in fact, they tend to be at their best when their backs are against the wall. I'm not one of those people.

The last couple of weeks have been very hectic-- and included having a houseguest for a week. Of course, that arrangement had been made a long time ago, back when we thought we would be moved in by mid-September.

The stamp area, as seen from my desk.

I have barely had time to set up (or organize) my new office space-- but things are slowly beginning to take shape. No matter what we do in life, it seems like we always have "more than expected."

As we were packing to leave our old house, I became very aware that I have accumulated far more "unsorted" stamps than I thought. Now that I am unpacking-- for what will hopefully be the last time-- I have grown even more aware of the sheer number of boxes marked "stamp related" that also could be placed into a general category of "to sort later."

Occasionally, I come across programs on cable TV about people who are "hoarders." My wife and I watch (with some fascination) and then grow more determined to control our hoarding tendencies.

It makes me wonder if stamp collectors are all "hoarders," to some degree, except we keep it under some semblance of control by only hoarding one "thing." I am yet to meet a collector who's always "caught up" with his or her collection. For most of us, there are 47 million "projects" and "sub-projects" and piles of things set aside to "deal with later." On the surface, it looks pretty neat and tidy... but stamps are little and light, and the "under control" looking shelf that houses 23 shoeboxes and a bunch of stockbooks may actually be home to a giant mess of items that number in the 100's of thousands.

Not that I am getting down on stamp collectors. Or myself, for that matter.

For the moment, it's just a little daunting... there is so much (now that everything is finally in one place) and "where do I start?" I keep reminding myself of an old truism: "The way to eat an elephant is... one bite at a time..."

The upheaval of moving...

We are moving.

In a few days, the movers-- in the form of two guys and a truck from a local furniture company who moonlight as moving services-- will be here to pick up our stuff and move it to our new house. Well, the house is new to us, not new in the age-of-the-building sense.

A few years back, using part of a bookshelf as "office"

Moving tends to be very stressful and typically a hassle. This time, though, I am somewhat looking forward to it. For the first time, I will have an actual "dedicated" office space for my stamps and other home businesses. Even though I have been "working from home" for years and years, I have never had an actual office to call my own-- typically, I have had a corner of a living room, half a bedroom, a walk-in closet, or something similar. This time, we converted what was the previous owner's fairly large workshop into a light and spacious office for yours truly.

It has been a long time since I have actually had all my stamp boxes unpacked in one place. It will be interesting to see what's in some of these boxes that have not seen the light of day in maybe 15 years.

We are planning to make this our "last" move. Maybe those sound like "famous last words," but we spent a long time very carefully planning what we needed in a home, and then taking our sweet time until just the right thing came onto the market. The relative luxury of being able to wait and buy what we wanted, when we wanted is something we worked a long time towards. My wife and I are both veterans of many, many moves, and tumultuous childhoods that involved frequently moving... so the idea of a "firm" home base is very appealing to both of us.

So, for the moment, I need to shut things down for a while, and pack my stuff. I'll be back with new musings when we get to "the other side."

[Written 2011-10-28; refined and published 2011-12-01]

Stamp Collecting and Building Community

I often talk about "community," on these pages.

One of the things the Internet has given us-- as stamp collectors, as hobbyists, as human beings-- is the opportunity to connect with others and develop more of a sense of community.

In days of old, "community" was pretty much a local phenomenon. You belonged to a local "interest" group-- be it a stamp club, or professional, or political organization-- in your village, your town, your city. That was your "community."

Denmark Scott 737/AFA 768, from 1983

In some interpretation of the world, stamp collectors-- and letter writers-- were among the first who reached out to the precursors of the "Internet," through the fairly common practice of "pen pals," during the Victorian age. "Penny Postage" allowed people in the UK-- and subsequently in other parts of the world-- to reach each other through "Pen Pal Clubs." In many ways, these were the pioneering days of becoming "friends" with someone you'd never actually met in person.

With the arrival of the Internet the idea of "communities formed around a common interest" has grown enormously. Suddenly, we were no longer "geographically dependent," which expanded our opportunities tremendously. Although many philatelists may pooh-pooh the idea of email and the www as a tool to save stamp collecting, fact remains that it's through the Internet we're now able to so easily connect with thousands of collectors around the world whom we'd never have had the opportunity to know, otherwise. Not only that, but we're able to find colleagues and friends, no matter how specialized our field of interest.

I am not unaware of the fact that stamp collecting historically has been a pretty "solitary" hobby... and I also recognize and honor that part of the appeal has been that stamp collecting was something you could "do alone." As such, I would expect a general "personality profile" of philatelists to include disproportionately many introverts and "loners," if compared to the general population... many of whom would simply not be interested in sitting alone in their study for hours, looking at little pieces of paper.

That said, we humans are ultimately "social" creatures... and no matter how introverted we may be, at least some measure of our collecting enjoyment comes from "swapping fish stories" with our peers; comparing and sharing what we have in our collections, and trading with others.

It's up to us, however, to reach out... rather than allow ourselves to grow isolated behind our computer screens. It's up to us to use these new types of media as tools to connect; rather than as an excuse to not have to leave the house, at all. It's up to us to re-create stamp collecting as a 21st century "community," as well as simply an interesting hobby we love.

As I have written before, stamp collecting will not survive-- and even thrive-- if our main effort goes towards trying to bring more "retirees" into the hobby, using the "old ways." It won't work-- especially not in the long run. The people we need to bring into stamp collecting are from "Generation Internet;" the first young people who grew up as "technology natives" with computers and social media.

"Occupy Wall Street" protest in Port Townsend, WA

Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours in the company of several hundred people staging a peaceful protest outside the local offices of a large national banking corporation, as part of the now globe-spanning "Occupy Wall Street" movement. One of the things I "took away" from this event is the notion that the old idea that "the youth of the world will change society" may be an increasingly outmoded concept.

Why?

Most members of "Generation Internet" are mired down in escalating student loans, the struggle to merely survive in a hostile and uncertain economy and a certain degree of hopelessness as greater and greater numbers resort to "moving back in with the parents." It is actually the 50-somethings and 60-somethings who have the experience, wisdom... and (usually) the time and financial resources to make a difference. Interestingly enough, the activist/protesters of the 1960s-- for a while "absent" to pursue the almightly dollar and material success-- now find themselves as the most qualified to be "world shapers and changers" in the 2010's. They are not merely (to use "Occupy Wall Street" terminology) "in the 99%," they are typically in the  80th to 99th percentile who have the most to lose.

The thing that saddens me a lot is that such large numbers of people who belong to this subgroup of "former activists" are deeply apathetic and indifferent-- complaining endlessly about the "decline" of the world, but then choosing to sit at home on the couch with excuses like "I can't make a difference, so why bother?" and "it's up to the YOUNG people, not up to ME."

Nonsense!

Getting back to stamp collecting, in order to appeal to "Generation Internet," we-- the "elders"-- must be willing to step outside our comfort zones to make room for them. That means not only being willing and open to using twitter, facebook, tumblr and online forums to talk about stamp collecting-- but embracing that "interesting stamps in 2011" may be what we (secretly, or not) would consider "useless wallpaper."

The future is now. Are we ready to embrace it and help create a new paradigm for stamp collecting? Or are going to passively stand by and allow our resistance to change to slowly kill the hobby love, and from which we've gained so much?

The next move is yours....

Classic Denmark and Swedish Cancels on eBay

With fall around the corner, and the weather outside not as friendly as it has been, I have been working more on organizing stamps and sorting through old lots.

As a result, I have been adding new items to my eBay stamp store. As always, I focus on listing good quality and desirable material. It continues to sadden me how many stamp sellers use eBay to "dump their junk." I definitely do not choose to be part of that philosophy... and to the degree I sell "junk" stamps, I usually lump them into one large "floor sweepings" lot, clearly marked as "stamps with problems."

So, what's new?

Denmark 4RBS Chestnut Brown

Right now, I am in the process of adding Danish stamps, most of them pre-1930. There are quite a few from the "Bicoloured" issue, although I have not spent time plating most of these... however, the scans are large and clear enough that collectors should easily be able to determine printings and positions from the scans. I have also been listing a number of better varieties and plate flaws... although I am not going to get into specifics about these, as it seems like they sell almost immediately.

Among the better items going up for auction later today (start Sunday, October 9th, end Sunday, October 16th) is a very presentable copy of Denmark's 4RBS brown (Scott #2b/AFA no. 1IIIe) in the rare chestnut brown shade. Although not listed in US catalogues, this shade is valued at US$300.00+ by European catalogues. As with all my auctions, I start bidding at 99 cents, and no reserve.

Meanwhile, I have been sorting and cataloguing a large lot of Sweden Officials and Postage Dues, bought at auction earlier this year. This has turned out to be a very interesting lot, containing not only some nice varieties, but a large number of really nice town cancels. The lot has an interesting "history," in that it contains all Swedish stamps, but was assembled by a collector in Canada, then sent to Denmark to be auctioned, and now has ended up with me in the USA. An excellent example of how stamp collecting truly is a Global hobby!

Normally, when I sort "messy lots" like these, I end up with a lot of defective and uninteresting stamps. This group, however, has been "cleaner" than most with a surprising number of good cancels. After picking out many stamps for my own collection, there has still been a lot left over to sell as duplicates... or as simply not fitting in with my areas of interest.

Current new listings include this copy of a 20 öre red "long" official with a nice strike of the fairly rare "VESTRA KARABY" town cancel. Valued at 500:- SEK (about US$72.50) in the Swedish Facit Postal cancel catalogue, this is one of the rarest cancels I've had on eBay in several years. Although stamp collecting may not be thriving in a worldwide sense, the collecting of postal history and regional town cancels in Sweden is going strong. Known to many as "Hembygsfilateli" (literally: home area philately), this is a highly specialized area of Swedish philately, where collectors focus on postal history from their county or region. This may sound relatively simple-- on the surface-- but it can be surprisingly challenging, as many small towns and places of the 1800s are no longer active postal places, and some were in use for very short period of time.

I hope you'll take a moment to check out my eBay stamp store, today!

Stamporama

The Internet is a funny place.

I must also confess that I have a short little span of attention, and often get sidetracked by "shiny objects." In the case of the Internet, the shiny obejcts just happen to be web sites I end up at... as no particular part of what I was just doing, just a few minutes earlier.

A few days ago, I ended up on a web site called "Stamp-O-Rama."

Denmark Scott B5

Seemed like a very interesting site, and a bit of a departure from most stamp sites-- combining "forum," "stamp club" and "auction" features on one site. So I decided to apply for membership. The membership application process was also appealing, with the final notice that a "real live human" would review my application and approve my membership. Part of why that was appealing is that so many (stamp) sites are plagued by huge numbers of random spammers that ruin it for the legitimate collector and hobbyist. On an actual monitored site, I feel, there's a greater chance that only collectors will be present.

So, I sent off my application, and started checking my email box for my membership approval. The final web site note stated that "it could take several days," which seemed OK since the site is run by volunteers.

And so, the days passed. I patiently waited till October 2nd (12 days later), but did not heard anything back-- and I even checked my email spam filters, since unknown mail sometimes finds its way there. That made me a bit sad, so I'm wrote a note back to the email address on the initial "please wait for approval" letter to see if there was a problem-- and if anyone was still even there.

It's a sad truth of the Internet that many sites (of all kinds) are started with great enthusiasm, and then the founders of those sites lose interest when not as much activity as they expected happens on their sites. It's difficult and time consuming to run a web site-- still more difficult to get it to become a well trafficked "success" that many people use.

In this case, I was relieved that there was a fairly quick response. There had been some kind of mix-up, and I'd somehow been assigned the ID of a different member-- but the error was quickly taken care of. Since Stamporama is run by volunteers, it's understandable that sometimes things slide through the cracks-- I run enough web sites of my own to appreciate that. The Stamporama club/site secretary was very friendly and helpful.

Now I just look forward to exploring the site... and based ion what I've seen so far, I'd like to encourage others to do so, as well. Not only does this appear to be a friendly and fun community for stamp collectors, it also serves as part of the overall effort to help build stamp collecting communities online. Visit and join Stamporama today!

Finding "Treasures"

For me, a large part of the joy of stamp collecting comes from finding "unexpected treasures" in a lot of stamps.

Sure, we can go out and find a stamp dealer, or go to an online stamp store, and buy precisely the one stamp we need to fill a very specific space in the album. And I won't deny that this may be the most appropriate way to collect, for many people.

For me? Not so much.

Most of my collection has been built through buying fairly large lots, collections or accumulations... and slowly sifting through the "mess" to find the few "gold nuggets" I wanted to include in my collections. Sure, I do end up with quite a bit of duplicate material... but there are ways of trading or selling that to other collectors who may need what I don't need.

Recently, I splurged and bought a fairly large lot of classic used back-of-the-book issues from Sweden. Well, for me it was fairly large outlay-- about US $375.00, from a stamp auction firm in Denmark.

Sweden Scott O10, XF-S with rare FRÖSKOG cancel

Buying these classic issues-- most from the period 1874 to about 1900-- is always a bit risky, especially if you can't be present to check the condition. The Swedish "Long" officials (Scott O1-25, Facit TJ1-24) are especially notorious for poor condition-- thins and tears are common, and most stamps are somewhat to extremely off-center. Often the cancels-- especially on the higher values, which were used on parcel cards-- are heavy and unattractive, and will have bled through to the back of the stamp. Collecting a set in VF+ sound condition can be quite challenging... and many collectors just give up on such a proposition, settling for a "reasonable" in Fine or better condition.

As expected, condition was somewhat "mixed." That's typically "dealer speak" for "all the better values are damaged, the cheap stamps are mostly OK." After sorting through the lot, almost 50% of the stamps ended up in my "junk pile" because they were damaged/faulty to some degree. However, there were also some very nice stamps-- with very attractive cancels, one of my specialties-- in the lot.

The "upside surprise," however was that the very best stamp in the lot was also the one with the highest catalogue value:

The pictured stamp is a near-flawless copy of the Sweden 50 öre "long" official, perfed 14, from 1874, Scott no. O10. Not only does it have almost perfect centering, it is very fresh and bright, it has full perfs and no back faults, and a lovely upright town cancel from the village of Fröskog-- a smaller, hard-to-find place. There is a faint hint of a pencil line in the upper right corner, but otherwise it's as close to perfect as they get. This is a difficult stamp to find in merely "sound" condition... but in "gem" condition like this, it an extreme rarity. If I were to try to purchase this stamp individually at a stamp auction, in this condition, chances are I would have to pay well in excess of the $125.00 stated catalogue value.

Needless to say, I was very pleased with the outcome of this purchase, and I am still left with lots of trading and approval book material. Which just goes to show that it's not always the highest value stamps that are in the most "mixed" condition!

I Stopped Collecting Stamps in 1985...

Whoa.

Wait a minute.

This probably sounds a little strange for someone who's often going on and on about how we must try to bring new collectors into the hobby. Well, let me assure you that the title is not what it seems. So, let me explain what brought those words to mind.

I collect postally used stamps. My personal philosophy is that I like to have a collection of stamps that have "done" what stamps were designed to do: Carry the mail. For me, there is a certain charm and interest added by being able to look at a stamp and know that it carried some letter-- anything from a wedding invitation to a payment for a credit card bill-- from "Point A" to "Point B."

In fact, this part of philately/stamp collecting is so important to me that several of my collections are centered not just around the stamps, themselves, but around the postmarks on the stamps.

The collection I currently consider my "primary" is of town cancels on classic Sweden-- only on the issues of Scott/Facit nr. 1-51.

My broader Denmark specialized collection does consist of "one of each" but is also supplemented not merely with varieties and plate flaws, but also with what I think of as "luxury" cancels on all issues. In the US, collectors typically called them "Socked-on-the-nose" (S.O.N.).

So what's the issue?

As mail service-- and the way we communicate-- has entered the technological age, not only are we seeing fewer and fewer letters with stamps, but the way "snail" mail is being processed is increasingly automated.

From the perspective of my Denmark collection, hand cancels (like the one from Horsens, at right) pretty much became a thing of the past, during the mid- to late 1980's. But that's not all. Even nice machine cancels (like the one from the town of Års, upper right) started to fall by the wayside as more centralized mail processing became a fact of life.

What does that mean, in a practical sense? Well, local post offices stopped "handling" mail, and would simply bag incoming mail and send it-- by van or by train-- to central sorting facilities, where the postmarks would be applied. However, instead of 100's (or even 1000's) of different towns, Denmark ended up with just a handful of the postmarks of central sorting facilities.

The photo to the left shows a typical "modern" Danish cancel. It is certainly a "nice" one, and would fit my old qualifications for a "luxury" town cancel... except for the small detail that there is no longer a town involved. The cancel-- from 2010--reads (translated) "Central Sjælland's Postal Center." There is now just one standard postal marking for a region with 100's of towns and villages, and a population of some 300,000 people.

To me, that's just not very interesting. And that's why I realized that I "stopped collecting" around 1985, when town cancels started to go away.

Of course, I haven't actually stopped collecting. 1985 just became my "cutoff point," after which I no longer look for luxury cancels on newer issues.

Of course, this particular "issue" is not unique to Denmark. Other countries around the world are increasingly automating their mail delivery systems, and town cancels everywhere are becoming a thing of the past. In some places, cancels (as applied by a canceling device) have completely gone away, to be replaced by rather unattractive ink-jet "spray on" cancels.

Of course, many postal administrations still allow collectors to bring in their stamps to be hand cancelled by a postal worker at the post office. But whereas I can certainly appreciate the "extra effort" to keep stamp collectors happy, I must confess that I am a bit of a "purist:" Such cancellations-- while certainly "genuine" in all respects-- just do not fit my idea of "postally used."

Ultimately, I can't say that I blame the postal services of the world for "getting with the times." Everyone has to carefully watch where the money goes-- and in saving money, speed and technological advances often becomes a very important factor.

That said, it still makes me sad to realize that my stamp collections have become somewhat "finite;" that is, the possibility of ongoing expansion has gone away.