Lately I’ve been re-organizing my collection of German stamps, and decided to share something not so common with You once again. This is 110 pfennig commemorative stamp from 1998 series displaying German State Parliaments. I’ts a pretty unimpressive looking stamp on the first view with some short perfs and machine cancellation. But if you  Read More →

This is very likely one of the most bizarre back-of-book items in my Swiss stamp collection – some sort of local revenue stamp from Rebublic of Canton Ticino. If you haven’t heard of Ticino, don’t worry, I’m sure You are not alone, LOL. Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Interestingly it is  Read More →

To continue display of some recent additions to my collection, here are three different booklet panes from London 2010 Accession of KGV prestige stamp booklet. I got these from a parcel that brought me a second hand set of specialized stamp catalogs of Greece (Karamitsos/Hellas 2008 to be more precise) from UK. I  Read More →

Just to display a stamp set I finally managed to complete: Switzerland, 1939 National exposition of Zurich, 1st series. Personally I find these stamps attractive in all senses, as they feature nice design and plenty of small variations to keep hawk-eyed stamp collector alert. The stamps are available in 3 different inscriptions (French, German,  Read More →

I’m a general worldwide collector, but I do love to dig in deeper too. My current approach in building “slightly specialized” country collections, as I pick up any easy-to-spot differences I happen to come across. And then I randomly do dig in a lot deeper (like with the Hungarian Castle-definitives or GRD 5-year plan definitives). Anyway…  Read More →

I think nearly all passioned collectors give plenty of time and devotion to their beloved hobby. I confess that I spend about 2-3 hours daily for stamps. A large part of it goes doing stamp exchanges or browsing online stamp discussion/articles; the weekends I usually spend mostly offline (and sort my stamps) …I know,  Read More →

I’m doing some cleaning at my stamp room (again), and would like to try something new to make a better use of some obscure, seriously outdated (especially pricewise) but hopefully still useful specialized stamp catalogs… So here comes an exchange offer that is open to all readers of the blog: I’ll exchange my unwanted specialized  Read More →

When I wrote shortly about these stamps last week, I had no idea what kind of thrilling research adventure I’d be taken into. I thought I had picked a somewhat simple series to play with for upcoming weekend (as well as for blog topic), but boy I was wrong. I did have a superb  Read More →

Just browsed the latest edition of Linn’s Stamp Magazine, and it gave me a whole lot of thinking. Lawrence block wrote (once again) an excellent column, and this time he focused on hoarding and collecting. Though I’m still not even middle aged (I’ll turn 35 next month), I’ve been accumulating “all-sorts” for over 20  Read More →

In my opinion one of the hardest (but also the most interesting) challenges of stamp collecting are long definitive sets that span into all possible directions. The most notorious ones, like UK Machin stamps and Norwegian posthorns feature hundreds of major types scattered all across the stamp catalog timeline, and the varieties easily double  Read More →

The Italian revenue stamps (with inscriptions such as ‘Marca da Bollo’, ‘Tassa di bollo, ‘Riscontro’ etc.) often resemble postage stamps. When looking at these, I can’t help thinking “which came first, the chicken or the egg” design wise. As I don’t have an Italian revenue stamps catalog (meaning Unificato), I can’t give out any accurate  Read More →

IMHO it’s kind of funny, that it’s usually cinderella items that cause more research and headache than real postage stamps. Here’s one my all-time favourite cinderella items from Italy. I have owned this vignette over an decade, but only recently have I managed to decipher some of it’s background. IMHO the design is Art Nouveau  Read More →

Last thursday I managed to get a copy of “Norma 2010 – a specialized catalog of Finland postage stamps” from nearby public library. So I decided share yet another short catalog review. Some background In short, there are two major stamp catalogs in Finland – LaPe and Norma. Both have very long backgrounds with annual editions. Thick  Read More →

Time definitely does fly, as it’s been a bit over a month since my last post. Yes, I did have a relaxing summer vacation with plenty of sun and heat. A short review of Stanley Gibbons Stamps of the World 2010 During my vacation I did manage to loan a copy of Stanley Gibbons “Stamps of the  Read More →

Just to notice, that this will be my last update on the blog for few weeks. Summer has finally reached central-Finland, and like most folks I’ll be taking a break from the online world to enjoy the sun and warm weather. Instead of traveling anywhere, I’ll be mostly doing classic summer chores on  Read More →