Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Often, I have had some stamps for a country as I start a collection but in this case I have almost nothing that is not spoken for in other albums so this will be a start from zero collection. I looked on eBay for some available starter collections but have decided that I will not take the easy way out of building on a prior collection and do everything from scratch and see how it grows. Album has spaces for 760 stamps with Scott mounts in place covering regular issues, semi-postal stamps, air post stamps, military stamps, occupation stamps for Karelia, and occupation stamps for Russia. It should be an interesting diversion and springboard for learning more about the history of an area for which I know virtually nothing.I have started my process of learning about the stamps of Finland by checking out Jim Jackson's posts on his http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/ web site and with a cursory review of the catalog entries in the Scott catalog.
So, an adventure begins!
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Although I did not expect to find much, I went through some feeder albums that I had purchased over the past two years for my International collection and found 18 unused stamps to add to the Finland album so it is no longer completely barren. So. the current status is 18 of 760 stamps. 
Interestingly I found another country, Finland, to add to the list of countries for which no pages were present in my 2006 purchase of a Minkus Supreme Global based collection with which I have been working off and on for over a decade without noticing that the country was missing from the album. The bulk of the collection has been moved into other albums but I continue to pull stamps from it as other collecting interests develop. It continues to be a useful source!
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'
If I were collecting Suomi/Finland on more than my catch-as-catch-can basis, I'd work a trade with Keijo:
http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/stamp-exchange
"When I launched SCB on cold January winters night in 2009, my opening words were somewhat plain and simple “I know first posts always suck, so I’m not going to give any BIG promises or pages of text here. This blog is about life of a casual stamp collector living in middle of nowhere. It’s about a hobby I love and feel passionate. Welcome, feel free to participate and enjoy.” Ever since I have written roughly 600 blog entries (with over 300,000 words and thousands of images) on stamps and life of a stamp collector. How can a single casual collector have got so much to say is one of those mysteries I have pondered at times."
Happy tenth, Keijo, and many more!
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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Interesting coincidence, Jerrel. I too have started working on Finland, 3 months ago. I initially had decided to leave Scandinavian coutries out of my target range, but a good deal came by (too good to pass), and I acquired a collection with pages to 1980...so here I am... (now the question is..if Finland, why not the rest of Scandinavia? 
I also had a few envelopes of stamps to help populate the many holes I acquired and gave me extra duplicates...(maybe an Approval book later). But there were two or three good Approval books that were activated recently that helped me a lot! So I will wait a little before putting one together.
Fairly easy collecting as (except for a few) there are reasonably priced and readily available.
rrr...
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I've collected Finland for a few years. I like to get a catalogue so I can see what's what, and somewhere along the way I acquired a specialist Finnish catalogue - it's called Norma or Suomen Postimerkit. My edition is 1968. It's very informative about the BOB stuff - Aunus, North Ingermanland, Kerelia and East Karelia and some local town post issues. I haven't compared it to Facit.
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Added three new stamps for Finland to bring me to 21 of 760 stamps.
New stamps are Scott #'s 84, 89 and 97. New mint stamps were located in a 1928 edition International Junior Postage Stamp Album that I received this week to use for additions to my 1930 edition International album which is slowly progressing (but not for Finland this week 
).
Here is a list of the previous 18 stamps I have added so far: Scott #'s 111, 129, 131, 132, 178, 385, B114, B115, B116, B132, B133, B134, N22, N23, N24, N25, N26, and N27.
Still debating on what to do about earlier issues but so far only adding unused stamps. Yes, hinged are included.
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Added 45 new stamps to bring me to 66 of 760 stamps.
New stamps are Scott #'s B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, C4, N1, N2, N3, N4, N5, N6, N7, N16, N17, N18, N19, N20, N21, NB1, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, and 142.
The album is slowly starting to look a bit less barren with these additions.
Continuing to read the Prisoners of Geography book by Tim Marshall. I am starting the section on the Democratic Republic of the Congo next. It was amazing to learn just how big Africa is despite its appearance on a Mercator projection map. It is bigger than the USA, India, China, and more all put together yet looks just a bit larger than South America on a Mercator projection world map!
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Acquired a mint packet of stamps for Finland and, after adding stamps from it to my Finland collection, now have 223 of 760 stamps.
More interesting additions include Scott #'s 80, 81, 158, 161, 180, 181, 175B, 224-226, 239-242, 245, 246-248, 251, 262, 265, 267, 279, 297-299, 311, 342-344, 347-348, 322, B1, and M5 plus many others.
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Added 66 new stamps to bring me to 289 of 760 stamps in the album. New stamps were found here on Stamporama's approvals.
New issues include B98, B99, B100, 249, 250, M3, M6, 77, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 100, 103, 108, 117, 127, 130, 133, 145, 146, 153, 222, 253, 268, 302, 303, 319, 332, 333, 334, 362, 414, 416, 427, 165A, 165B, 173B, 173C, 176A, 219, 219A, 219B, 313, 314, 351, 353, 361, 373, 374, 419, 424, 430, 436, 437, 441, 481, 485, 507, 508, and 509.
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I see that I have 840 used Finish stamps on my swap list,swap list!
https://colnect.com/en/stamps/list/country/2635-Finland/swap_list/Tobben63
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Added 2 new mint stamps to bring me to 291 of 760 stamps in the album.
New issues were Scott #'s 237 and 238. Recognized that I needed the two issues as they were the issues without the overprints for Karelia. I could have added a lot more issues but didn't have the album with me for verification and I haven't reached the stage where I know the missing issues. Pricing was great at 20% of Scott and nice stamps so I will make sure I have the album with me for the upcoming July show in case the dealer is there and hasn't sold all of the Finland issues. 
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Spent the entire day today at the Evergreen Stamp Club summer stamp show and made many acquisitions from a u-pick album for the Finland album plus went through almost every dealer at the show's displayed stock looking for more moderately priced items to add to the collection.
Added 29 stamps by going through dealer stock items. New stamps added were Scott #'s 46, 49, 153-154, 182-183, 214, 379, 471-473, 254-256, 98, C3, 195-196, 207-209, 415, 113, B166-B168, B171-B172, and B175.
Added 102 stamps from the u-pick album. New stamps added were Scott #'s 227, 229, 232, 223, 266, 269, 276, 277, 284, 288, 289, 301, 326, 324, 331, 312, 340, 346, 314A, 365, 371, 378, 381, 383, 387, 386, 397, 431, 432, 435, B49, B50, B51, B52, B53, B54, B57, B69, B70, B71, B72, B73, B82, B85, B102, B103, B106, B111, B112, B120, B121, B122, B124, B125, B129, B130, B131, B135, B136, B137, B138, B141, B145, B146, B147, B148, B149, B150, B151, B152, B153, B156, B159, B160, B161, B162, B163, B164, B165, B169, B170, B173, B174, B176, B177, B178, B179, B180, B181, B182, B183, B184, B185, B186, B187, B188, B189, B190, B191, B192, B193, and C2. These stamp purchases were from the dealer that I mentioned in my June 10th posting. I have picked up several items from him for the Smithsonian album this past year both at stamp shows and online through Hipstamp.
Nine additional stamps were added from recent purchases from Stamporama approvals and auctions.
Current count in the album is up to 431 of 760 stamps. While several other stamps were seen in various dealer's stocks, costs exceeded my budget for today with a few items being priced above the Scott catalog which was unexpected and a bit of a shock as many of the un-purchased items were definitely not in VF or better condition and had some fairly significant hinge remnant issues. There were two really nice stamps that were very interesting at the last dealer from whom purchases were made but at $56 and $80 each they will require a future purchase if they remain available and a review of pricing and budget allows. They were Scott #'s 45 and 56 and were truly exceptional XF, NH stamps.
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Added 34 new stamps to the album from a page of stamps purchased from a Sandafayre auction to bring me to 479 stamps for the album.
Several other purchases of stamps from Stamporama had, also, been made since my last update but I lost track of my want list and had not reported the additions. Those stamps were all later additions from the 1940s through 1972. The album is starting to look quite respectable now with only the first page of the album having no stamps.
New stamps from the Sandafayre auction were Scott #'s 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 74, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, and 152. Two other stamps that are new are Scott #'s 153 and 154.
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Nice collection there!
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Just added some new additions for the Finland collection from a fellow stamp club member's returned APS circuit books that he shared with me at the last club meeting. New additions are Finland Scott #'s 339, 384, 388, 389, 390, 408, 421, 422, 428, B15, B16, B17, B21, B22, B23, B31, B32, B32, B33, B34, B54, B55, B56, B57, B82, B83, B84, B85, B86, B91, B92, B93, C7, and M1.
New stamps bring me to 513 of 760 stamps for the album. And still no stamps for the first page of the album! Actually Scott #'s 1-37 are proving elusive as mint stamps.
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And try to find copies of those early Finland with the ginormous perfs that has ALL the perfs intact. I hear those sell for a high premium.
I think those are the largest perfs, depth wise, of any ever issued. What do you think, Stampers? Any others you can think of?
I only have a few and man are they raggedy! Still happy to have a few on my modest retiree budget! Would love to add a few more - if anyone has any to trade I can offer some nice stamps in return - pics on my trade site.
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Added 5 stamps to bring me to 518 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps added were C5, C6, 490, 496, and 511. Acquired one other stamp which turned out to be Scott #462 which is an orange 40p definitive stamps from 1972 but although the album space listed 462 it was actually for a renumbered Scott #460 multi-colored stamp picturing a bus. This is the first time where I have bought a stamp based on the number in the album's illustration where the number has been updated since the album was published in a newer edition catalog. Looks like I am going to have to cross-check my want list for the album with a current edition catalog!
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Added 16 new stamps to bring me to 534 of 760 stamps for the Scott hingeless album which covers up to 1971.
New stamps added were 318, 401, 402, 407, 412, 414A, B78, B79, 280, 439, B107, B108, B109, B148, B149, and B150. Stamps were found in some additional returned APS circuit books from a local collector.
Also, added another 18 stamps from the same circuit books to the Finland sections of my International 1840-1963 albums. New stamps there were 77, 141, 142, 148, 245, 308, 380, 381, 386, B101, B102, B103, B135, B136, B137, B145, B146, and B147. Now sitting just under 20% complete for the International album set with 17062 of 85587 spaces filled.
All in all, it was a very productive review with quite a few additions for the albums without being overwhelming.
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Added 5 new stamps and 1 upgraded stamp to bring me to 539 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are Finland Scott #'s B30, M7, 336, B157, and B158. One stamp, Scott B159, which is part of a three stamp set was upgraded from a LH copy to NH as it came with the set. The stamps were found on Hipstamp.
Had a nice discussion with a fellow collector during a Christmas dinner celebration for the Greater Eastside Stamp Society about the serpentine early issues for Finland. I have continued to look for some of the earlier stamp issues for Finland with these unusual separations with no short perforations but for now they are far above my budget for these stamps. I saw a very nice pair of stamps which brought home just how hard it would be to separate these stamps without having a short perforation result! I did spot three very nice, problem free stamps in this series being auctioned on eBay this week. For now I will just enjoy seeing them rather than worry about acquisition.
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Over the Christmas holidays and until today I have been very active in acquiring additional stamps for my Finland Scott Hingeless album copyright 1972 with purchases from Stamporama, Hipstamp, eBay, and a couple of local dealers red box and U-Pick world albums providing additions to bring me to 598 of 760 stamps for the album including completion of the semi-postals through 1971.
Today I hit the jackpot following a cancelled local stamp show due to a venue mixup. Quite a few individuals who had made plans to attend the show ended up at a local stamp dealer, Bel-Kirk Stamp Coin and Comics, and were very active in looking for new items for their collection. I showed the dealer, Bill, my progress on the album and he brought out a couple of binders from the back saying look through these and see if you can find any needed items. Following a two hour review I managed to identify 81 new additions for my album of affordable items from the two binders and can now report the following additions to the album:
Scott #'s 31, 32, 60, 61, 62, 63, 78, 79, 99, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 169, 171, 175, 197, 164, 168, 170, 172, 174, 206, 170A, 170B, 453, 458, 174A, 174B, 175B, 175C, 176B, 176C, 176D, 176E, 176F, 176G, 176H, 176I, 257, 258, 270, 259, 171, 260, 272, 261, 262, 273, 274, 275, 293, 295, 296, 306, 315, 316, 317, 321, 420, 426, and 429 plus the Karelia issues N8 through N15.
Current completion status is now 679 of 760 stamps for the album! And am now down to two missing stamps for the back of the book section, Scott numbers C1 and M8 which are definitely premium items.
There are at least another twelve available mint stamps plus uncounted used stamps which are currently beyond my budget availability in the two binders which had an annotation indicating a catalog value of just under $15,000 for the collection so more possibilities await for the future! It was very interesting to see a number of page additions to the albums where a number of early issues including the serpentine stamps had specialized material many with Facit numbers added over and above the Scott Specialized album pages' content. The visit was definitely quite a treat and very productive for new content for my collection!
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WTG Jbaxter on your Finland - you’re really making progress!
Today was a great day for my Finland collection! A recent auction purchase arrived and I think I finally have a #2. Not a spectacular copy, but better than nothing, also added 20 cheapie space filler coat of arms to give me more to study for paper and color varieties. I still have a great deal of work to do on these, but I have them roughed in.
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Wow! Those are some REALLY uncommon stamps to have. I did add a Scott #31 and #32 today but those are the first of the 1-37 range that I have added. The collection that I looked at today had many of these stamps with four different issues which were mint with no short, serpentine perfs and nice ranges of some of the other stamps in the early issues which can get quite expensive, i.e. expensive enough that an individual stamp could cost more than ALL of the stamps that I added today put together.
You have put together a very nice set of examples for a specialized approach to the early stamps' varieties. Thanks for sharing the images!
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Thanks - I call them my “Hockey Star” stamps because they are almost always missing teeth!
Seriously, ones with ALL the teeth are very pricy and far outside of my modest stamp budget, but it’s possible to find these raggedy ones in collections for a tiny fraction of catalog value.
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My 1971 Scott album has a page for Finland with stamps listed as N1-N8 under Russian Occupation which are separate from the Karelia issues. Does anyone know where these stamps are found in the current Scott catalogs?
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Those are now listed under Karelia:
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Thanks, the renumbering of the issues (and my lack of attention to detail ????) through me off completely!
Update: The Karelia issues do not include the Aunus overprint found on the stamp images in my album. Eventually I found the stamps had been renumbered from N1-N8 to N13-N20 and are now listed under Russia / Occupation Stamps / Issued Under Finnish Occupation in the Scott 2017 Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Coveres 1840-1940.
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Strangely, I received a second set of the Karelia stamps of 1941-43 which were issued under Finnish occupation from 1941-43 so both my Finland album has a full set and my International 1940-1963 collection now has a full set so I am twice blessed. It is quite nice to have two completed pages in the Part II album and a new country in the album with not just 50% completion (my primary goal for the International albums at this point) but 100%!
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 680 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #404A. The stamp was ordered through Hipstamp from a dealer who often comes to local stamp shows.
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Hi all,
Great thread and an amazing collection!
Also, thanks for the tip of the website: http://www.stampcollectingblog.com
I had never visited that site and it's pretty cool.
JR
(Modified by Moderator on 2020-02-01 11:55:29)
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Yes, Keijo’s site is definitely something of a treasure as well as the bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com site by Jim Jackson and Bob’s globalstamps.blogspot.com site.
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Adding two new stamps to bring me to 682 of 760 stamps for the album as a couple of nice copies showed up unexpectedly on eBay that I could not resist. They were a special birthday treat to myself. 
New stamps are Scott #'s M8 (which I had mentioned previously as being the only military stamp missing from the album and one of two missing back of the book items) and Scott #56 which is seldom seen as well in nice, mint condition.
I, also, found an older APS stamp circuit book full of mint stamps for Finland online which should significantly impact the completeness of the Finland sections in my International 1840-1963 collection once I get them added. Very exciting as well!
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Added net gain of two new stamps to bring me to 684 of 760 stamps for the album.
Checked the APS circuit book that I had just mentioned to see if there might be any additions for the main Finland collection by chance and found a few stamps so added Scott #'s 176, 303, 349, 400, and 404 to the album but, also, found that I had incorrect stamps for 302, 303, and 304 in the album previously (there were no images for this definitive set and I had not cross-checked them against the catalog) so a net gain of two stamps. Apparently the U-pick book from which the original set came had the wrong stamps on the page as well!
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Went through the APS stamp circuit book for Finland and managed to find 70 stamps to add to the International 1840-1963 album and reached a milestone of an overall 20.5% completion for that album set so slowly making progress on that collection as well. Interestingly the place where I had the wrong stamps in the Finland album was not incorrect in the International albums and all of the stamps were needed (that were removed from the Finland album because of improper placement) so that worked out well.
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Added 5 new stamps to the album to bring me to 698 of 760 stamps for the Finland album. Note that somewhere I missed several additions to the album but I confirmed tonight that there are 62 missing stamps and that the album does have spaces for 760 stamps.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 34, 64, 65, 66, and 67. Stamps were added from the previously searched Finland album at a local stamp dealer. I, also, rechecked the serpentine issues that were in that album as well and decided that all of the stamps are actually used. Some have VERY light cancels but all are actually used stamps. We, also, checked a number of additional items that he had in some counter books and found one additional stamp, a Scott #37, but that one will require saving up for as it has a catalog value of $625! It was a very nice, true VF stamp as well with full gum and a very light hinge mark.
I spent some time tonight reviewing the serpentine issues from Scott #4 through #13 paying attention to the cost differences between stamps with all intact serpentine teeth in both mint and used states versus the values for stamps with one or two short teeth. Typically the catalog values the stamps with one or two short teeth at 1/3 the value of stamps with all teeth intact for used stamps while mint stamps with no short teeth are anywhere from double to eight times the price of used stamps with no short teeth depending on the issue. Interestingly there were reprints issued several times for Scott #'s 2 and 3 in the 1800's plus a centenary reissue in 1956 plus a series in 1893 for Scott #'s 4 through 11. Does anyone have more details on the number of times that reprints were issued and the circumstances that gave rise to the reprints?
I do have a small want list of more modern issues, Scott #C1 and the Karelia - Russian Occupation stamps with the Aunus overprint Scott #'s 1 through 8. My album also has spaces for stamps listed as Scott #14 and 15 but these are no longer listed in the Scott catalog plus the catalog implies that 2C and 3B are unknown as mint stamps so maybe I am only missing 50 stamps for my album.
Update: removed 177, 179, and 212 from the want list as a Stamporama member contacted me with an offer for those items.
Update again: removed remaining items from 108a and up from the want list as they are on their way via online purchases.
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Added 3 new stamps to bring me to 701 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 177, 179, and 212. Stamps were received from a Stamporama member with some additional stamps from Denmark for my International 1840-1963 albums as well which today reached a new milestone of 18,100 different of 85,590 stamps for 21% completion following a vacation day where I spent the day going through an International Book IV album looking for items for the collection at a local stamp dealer. That album of the set is now at 26.2% completion so I now have slightly more than 1 out of every 4 stamps for the Part IV album. 
In addition, the previously mentioned Finland M8 stamp arrived in today's mail as well. I believe this is the highest catalog value item that has been added to the album. It was acquired from Finland via eBay.
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Added 10 new stamps to bring me to 711 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 33, 35, 108a, 173, 221, 302, 304, 329, 345, and 403. Items were purchased through Hipstamp and Jay Smith and Company and complete modern issues after Scott #82 through the year 1971 for a significant milestone.
I am continuing to look for candidate stamps for the International album as well so still have a lot of stamps to acquire for Finland for that collection which covers up to 1963.
New want list for mint stamps for the Finland album is much tougher with Scott #'s 1-3 (reprints possible? found for 2-3), 3B and 2C (not priced in mint though), 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14-15 (unlisted in latest Scott catalog so maybe no longer an issue), 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 36, 37, 57, 58, 68, 69, 75, 82, and C1 plus the Aunus overprints for eight four stamps.
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Updated the post about the Russian Occupation Stamps to correct the entry regarding the stamps with the Aunus overprint. They were renumbered to N13-N20 and are found under Russia / Occupation Stamps / Issued Under Finnish Occupation in the Scott 2017 Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Covers 1840-1940.
They were listed as N1-N8 under Russia / Occupation Stamps / Issued under Finnish Occupation in the Scott 2014 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue just to confuse the issue.
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Added 3 new stamps to bring me to 714 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are Scott #'s 2 and 3 (reprints from 1956 by the Finland government on watermarked paper were purchased as the original stamps are far beyond my budget and always will be, there were 1,605 of the reprint sets produced) and Scott # C1 which completes the air mail issues in the album. Items were purchased from Hipstamp.
Continued working on the addition of Finland stamps for my International 1840-1963 collection as well with several additions purchased through Stamporama offerings this week. The International collection is now up to 21.5% complete with 18,403 stamps in the album. Completed several additions of Canadian stamps to that album today as well and completed removal of all used Canadian stamps that had been added to the album. With replacement stamps and some new additions I managed to remove the 20 used stamps that were in that album without a net reduction in completeness for Canada. I will continue to replace the existing used stamps in the album (currently there are roughly 300 or so across all parts) with very few exceptions (currently USA Scott #1 and Great Britain Scott #1 are likely to always be used stamps due to the prohibitive cost of these issues as mint stamps).
I had a great time at a local stamp show on Saturday purchasing mostly stamps for the International album as I was unable to locate any mint stamps from dealers' stock for the Finland album. Largest group of additions were for India and Seychelles in the 1840-1940 time period with 30 new items acquired. Fortunately one dealer had a new selection of low valued mint stamps for India that filled most of the holes in the 1840-1940 time span on my want list. The show was small with about ten dealers but very well attended!
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 715 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #82.
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Added 2 new stamps to bring me to 717 of 760 stamps for the Finland album.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 57 and 69. Items were acquired from eBay.
Also, spent the afternoon at a local stamp store going through a Scott International Part V album from Afghanistan through the German Democratic Republic pulling mint stamps for my International 1840-1963 collection and the evening adding the stamps to the album. I was able to add 199 stamps for the period 1960 through 1963. Plus the dealer purchased a large collection and I was able to help unload the back end of an SUV containing the collection which was delivered this afternoon! Then got a chance to spot check parts of the collection with the dealer. There is quite a variety of older albums plus some very nice country and area collections in Minkus albums. It will be very interesting to review the collection as it is broken down and prepared for sale over the next few months.
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Over the last few days I have been reading about the history of Finland and reviewing images of the country from bing.com/images which has been very interesting. Wikipedia has some nice articles on it as well. Plus I reread Jim Jackson's posts about the stamps of Finland in the Big Blue 1840-1940 aka Part I album.
In my world, the most famous person from Finland is Linus Torvalds, the creator and a principal developer for the Linux operating system for computers.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 718 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is the third stamp on the first page of the album (the other two are reprints for Scott #'s 2 and 3) and is Scott #4a so the first Serpentine issue in my collection. Stamp was acquired via eBay from a collector in California!
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Added pictures for some of the latest acquisitions as they are a bit special.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 719 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #7, a second Serpentine issue for the album. Unused examples for these without perforation faults continue to be elusive with few being offered in advertisements.
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Those serpentine “teeth” are incredibly fragile. Finding used copies with all of the teeth is very difficult, so I have nicknamed them my “hockey player” stamps.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 720 of 760 stamps in the Finland album.
New stamp is Scott #25. Stamp was acquired through Hipstamp.
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Received one other Finland stamp this week, a used Finland Scott #9 serpentine issue which I acquired because it was very attractively priced and had no perforation faults. I have not added it to my album which to date has no cancelled stamps but partially bought it because of the dearth of advertised serpentine issues without perforation faults on the basis that I may have to relent and add used stamps for the serpentine issues. It is included here for your review.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 721 of 760 stamps in the Finland album.
New stamp is Scott #37! This is a very special stamp that is nicely centered.
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Added 4 new stamps to bring me to 725 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are N13-N16 for Russia - Issued under Finish Occupation in 1919 per the Scott 2017 Classic Specialized Catalog of Stamps and Covers. Interestingly as late as 2014 these stamps were numbered N1-N4 which is what my album pages show them as.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 726 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #17. Stamp was acquired from an eBay auction. It is the fifth stamp to be added to the first page of the album.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 727 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott # 75. Stamp was acquired from a local dealer here in Washington who has a store on Hipstamp.
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Added 2 new stamps to the Finland album to bring me to 729 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are Scott # 6a and Scott # 9. These two stamps are the first used stamps to be added to the album since serpentine issues with full perfs are few and far between.
For a real shock check out the catalog value for the 6a issue. Now the magic question of course is whether the perforations really measure 1.5 to 1.75 mm rather than 2.0 to 2.25 mm in depth. It really is an interesting question! Scan was at 450 dpi using Microsoft Paint scanning both stamps from a Canon flat bed scanner.
I really need to a acquire a quality magnifier like a linen tester with a built-in mm scale at some point.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 730 of 760 stamps for the Finland album.
New stamp is Scott # 19. Stamp was acquired from Hipstamp. Note that you can see just a trace of the remains of a hinge poking over the perforations at the top. The hinge remnant is at the top of the stamp and just about 1mm in height and the width of the hinge horizontally on the stamp. I have had a couple of recent bad experiences trying to remove hinge remnants so this one will stay.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 731 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #58. This stamp was acquired through a Sandafayre auction from the UK. This stamp's centering looks better in person than in the scan. It is definitely a lovely copy for this issue. It is interesting how the thin frame lines look almost multi-colored in the scans due to pixel boundaries from the scanner.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 732 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #27. Stamp was acquired from the APS Stampstore. The delivery of the stamp is confirmation that the APS Stampstore is shipping again!
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 733 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #18. Item was acquired through Hipstamp.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 734 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #16 which is a very nice addition to the collection. It is a mint, no gum specimen of likely the fourth rarest stamp from Finland as an unused stamp and not a stamp that I had expected to ever have. Stamp was acquired from a local stamp dealer via Hipstamp.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 735 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Scott #68 which completes all but the first two pages of the album which are definitely going to be a challenge plus, of course, the high values with the Aunus overprints. This stamp is a very unusual MNH stamp from 1901.
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Added 1 new stamp to give me 736 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Scott #12 and was acquired from eBay. It is not the prettiest stamp but is a mint stamp with original gum and the price was exceptional. . Of course, I suspect it has one tiny missing perf on the upper left so may not be a long term solution if something reasonable comes along. I wonder if there is a way to clean the paper that would not fade the ink, perhaps simply washing it with a tiny drop of Johnson's baby shampoo or Neutrogena soap? This will require some thought. I am not really that concerned about the gum on the back as it is quite rough as well. I rather like the overall presentation of the stamp but am mildly concerned about the orange/rust covered contaminants on the paper.
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Added some additional comments about the last addition to the Finland album.
On another note, I have made quite a few additions to the International 1840-1963 collection that I have mentioned previously and reached a milestone yesterday of 23,077 of now 85,598 stamp locations in the albums for 26.96% completion. Had to update the counts associated with two more countries, South Africa and Vatican City in the Part III album, where my counting was in error. Still slightly short of 25% completion in the Parts 1A1-1B2 and Part III pages but getting very close on both of them. Huge change occurred in the Part II pages and have now reached 33.17% completion with 5,593 stamps in that album so right on the border of having one of every three stamps in the Part II album. Given that I only recently reached 25% coverage this is quite a change. Many stamps were, also, added for the Part III pages with that album seeing a change from 21.5% completion to 24.23% with 3,402 stamps in the album.
Source of the change was an auction lot for a large number of Scott pages for J-Z countries dating from 1940-1951 in a somewhat worn International Part III binder with several earlier pages where stamps were somewhat stuck down. Many countries from the page set were missing but I found many useful additions for my albums. Fortunately other than mainly some issues from Mexico which I could not get to loosen most of the stamps did detach with only some relatively minor paper adhesions for about 70 stamps of the 2,000 or so for the Parts II and III albums that I was able to pull from the pages for my collection over the last couple of months.
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Following is from a new acquisition for my Finland collection but these are a bit different in that they are additions to the coverage of my Scott Hingeless album. They are Specimen overprints of an early series of stamps from Finland issued in 1889-92 corresponding to Scott #'s 38-45.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 737 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamps is one of the higher valued Finnish Occupation of Russia stamps Scott # N17. New stamp was acquired from eBay.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 738 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #10. Stamp was acquired through Hipstamp. Interestingly I now have 3 serpentine issues as mint stamps and 3 serpentine issues as canceled stamps.
I had an opportunity to review a local collectors' Finland stamps which he has mounted in an antique Senf album and a Yvert and Tellier album. To my shock he had a decent mint Finland Scott #1 plus three used sets of Scott #'s 2 and 3 plus a mint reprint set of Scott #'s 2 and 3.
He, also, had quite a number of Japanese issues in an album for me to pick from for my NOS (new old stock) Japan Scott Hingeless album for stamps through 1974 which is the twin of my Finland album. That album with the additions I acquired from him plus previous acquisitions is starting to be quite presentable although I expect mint stamps before 1894 are going to prove quite difficult for a representative sample.
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Added 2 new stamps for Finland to bring me to 740 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamps are Scott #'s 5 and 13 (actually 13c for this example). These stamps have been a long time coming. Although the #5 is used it is quite a clean copy while the #13 does show that some of the perfs are shorter than they perhaps should be, especially on the right hand side although they are somewhat interesting in that the top most perf appears complete while several of the perfs down the right hand side show parts of the adjoining stamps printing so perhaps they are not really short but the others are just abnormally long! These roulette issues are quite a challenge.
I, also, replaced one stamp, Finland Scott #18 as it bothered me that the stamp is so short. Note the difference in the two stamps height in the attached picture. Not sure if the stamp has been reperfed or the perforater was set improperly resulting in the shorter stamp. Do note that the new stamp has a bit of an ink or possible paper fault in the lower portion of the stamp and the ink in the design appears to have not been quite as cleanly applied. Nitpicking can be somewhat interesting when you look closely at the production of some earlier stamp issues and this one was produced between 1875 and 1881. The two stamps do show quite a bit of variation.
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Rechecked the Scott #18 mentioned in my last post and the issues do not appear to be with the paper but rather with the ink application. Note the bottom right corner of the design as well.
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Although not an addition to my Finland standalone collection, I received one new stamp for the Finland section of my International album. New stamp is Finland Scott #10 and is quite a lovely issue although it is definitely a government reprint as it even included an Apex certificate from the APS.
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Added 3 new stamps to bring me to 743 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamps are Finland Scott #'s 26, 28, and 29. Stamps were acquired from a local stamp dealer who greeted me on arrival with a suggestion that I check out some stamps in a stockbook that he had just put together for stamps from Northern Europe. It was definitely a productive visit plus got to meet three stamp collector friends during my brief visit in between work assignments for the day.
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 745 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #8 and was acquired through eBay. Due to a dearth of options this is one of five used stamps in the album. All are the very challenging serpentine roulette issues from the period of 1860-1874!
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Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 746 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott # N6 for the Russian Occupation of Finland stamps.
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Received a new old stock Scott Hingeless album for Finland copyright 1972 and will be starting a new collection: Often, I have had some stamps for a country as I start a collection but in this case I have almost nothing that is not spoken for in other albums so this will be a start from zero collection. I looked on eBay for some available starter collections but have decided that I will not take the easy way out of building on a prior collection and do everything from scratch and see how it grows. Album has spaces for 760 stamps with Scott mounts in place covering regular issues, semi-postal stamps, air post stamps, military stamps, occupation stamps for Karelia, and occupation stamps for Russia. It should be an interesting diversion and springboard for learning more about the history of an area for which I know virtually nothing.
I have started my process of learning about the stamps of Finland by checking out Jim Jackson's posts on his http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/ web site and with a cursory review of the catalog entries in the Scott catalog.
So, an adventure begins!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Although I did not expect to find much, I went through some feeder albums that I had purchased over the past two years for my International collection and found 18 unused stamps to add to the Finland album so it is no longer completely barren. So. the current status is 18 of 760 stamps.
Interestingly I found another country, Finland, to add to the list of countries for which no pages were present in my 2006 purchase of a Minkus Supreme Global based collection with which I have been working off and on for over a decade without noticing that the country was missing from the album. The bulk of the collection has been moved into other albums but I continue to pull stamps from it as other collecting interests develop. It continues to be a useful source!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
'
If I were collecting Suomi/Finland on more than my catch-as-catch-can basis, I'd work a trade with Keijo:
http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/stamp-exchange
"When I launched SCB on cold January winters night in 2009, my opening words were somewhat plain and simple “I know first posts always suck, so I’m not going to give any BIG promises or pages of text here. This blog is about life of a casual stamp collector living in middle of nowhere. It’s about a hobby I love and feel passionate. Welcome, feel free to participate and enjoy.” Ever since I have written roughly 600 blog entries (with over 300,000 words and thousands of images) on stamps and life of a stamp collector. How can a single casual collector have got so much to say is one of those mysteries I have pondered at times."
Happy tenth, Keijo, and many more!
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Interesting coincidence, Jerrel. I too have started working on Finland, 3 months ago. I initially had decided to leave Scandinavian coutries out of my target range, but a good deal came by (too good to pass), and I acquired a collection with pages to 1980...so here I am... (now the question is..if Finland, why not the rest of Scandinavia?
I also had a few envelopes of stamps to help populate the many holes I acquired and gave me extra duplicates...(maybe an Approval book later). But there were two or three good Approval books that were activated recently that helped me a lot! So I will wait a little before putting one together.
Fairly easy collecting as (except for a few) there are reasonably priced and readily available.
rrr...
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
I've collected Finland for a few years. I like to get a catalogue so I can see what's what, and somewhere along the way I acquired a specialist Finnish catalogue - it's called Norma or Suomen Postimerkit. My edition is 1968. It's very informative about the BOB stuff - Aunus, North Ingermanland, Kerelia and East Karelia and some local town post issues. I haven't compared it to Facit.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added three new stamps for Finland to bring me to 21 of 760 stamps.
New stamps are Scott #'s 84, 89 and 97. New mint stamps were located in a 1928 edition International Junior Postage Stamp Album that I received this week to use for additions to my 1930 edition International album which is slowly progressing (but not for Finland this week ).
Here is a list of the previous 18 stamps I have added so far: Scott #'s 111, 129, 131, 132, 178, 385, B114, B115, B116, B132, B133, B134, N22, N23, N24, N25, N26, and N27.
Still debating on what to do about earlier issues but so far only adding unused stamps. Yes, hinged are included.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 45 new stamps to bring me to 66 of 760 stamps.
New stamps are Scott #'s B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, C4, N1, N2, N3, N4, N5, N6, N7, N16, N17, N18, N19, N20, N21, NB1, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, and 142.
The album is slowly starting to look a bit less barren with these additions.
Continuing to read the Prisoners of Geography book by Tim Marshall. I am starting the section on the Democratic Republic of the Congo next. It was amazing to learn just how big Africa is despite its appearance on a Mercator projection map. It is bigger than the USA, India, China, and more all put together yet looks just a bit larger than South America on a Mercator projection world map!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Acquired a mint packet of stamps for Finland and, after adding stamps from it to my Finland collection, now have 223 of 760 stamps.
More interesting additions include Scott #'s 80, 81, 158, 161, 180, 181, 175B, 224-226, 239-242, 245, 246-248, 251, 262, 265, 267, 279, 297-299, 311, 342-344, 347-348, 322, B1, and M5 plus many others.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 66 new stamps to bring me to 289 of 760 stamps in the album. New stamps were found here on Stamporama's approvals.
New issues include B98, B99, B100, 249, 250, M3, M6, 77, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 100, 103, 108, 117, 127, 130, 133, 145, 146, 153, 222, 253, 268, 302, 303, 319, 332, 333, 334, 362, 414, 416, 427, 165A, 165B, 173B, 173C, 176A, 219, 219A, 219B, 313, 314, 351, 353, 361, 373, 374, 419, 424, 430, 436, 437, 441, 481, 485, 507, 508, and 509.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
I see that I have 840 used Finish stamps on my swap list,swap list!
https://colnect.com/en/stamps/list/country/2635-Finland/swap_list/Tobben63
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 2 new mint stamps to bring me to 291 of 760 stamps in the album.
New issues were Scott #'s 237 and 238. Recognized that I needed the two issues as they were the issues without the overprints for Karelia. I could have added a lot more issues but didn't have the album with me for verification and I haven't reached the stage where I know the missing issues. Pricing was great at 20% of Scott and nice stamps so I will make sure I have the album with me for the upcoming July show in case the dealer is there and hasn't sold all of the Finland issues.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Spent the entire day today at the Evergreen Stamp Club summer stamp show and made many acquisitions from a u-pick album for the Finland album plus went through almost every dealer at the show's displayed stock looking for more moderately priced items to add to the collection.
Added 29 stamps by going through dealer stock items. New stamps added were Scott #'s 46, 49, 153-154, 182-183, 214, 379, 471-473, 254-256, 98, C3, 195-196, 207-209, 415, 113, B166-B168, B171-B172, and B175.
Added 102 stamps from the u-pick album. New stamps added were Scott #'s 227, 229, 232, 223, 266, 269, 276, 277, 284, 288, 289, 301, 326, 324, 331, 312, 340, 346, 314A, 365, 371, 378, 381, 383, 387, 386, 397, 431, 432, 435, B49, B50, B51, B52, B53, B54, B57, B69, B70, B71, B72, B73, B82, B85, B102, B103, B106, B111, B112, B120, B121, B122, B124, B125, B129, B130, B131, B135, B136, B137, B138, B141, B145, B146, B147, B148, B149, B150, B151, B152, B153, B156, B159, B160, B161, B162, B163, B164, B165, B169, B170, B173, B174, B176, B177, B178, B179, B180, B181, B182, B183, B184, B185, B186, B187, B188, B189, B190, B191, B192, B193, and C2. These stamp purchases were from the dealer that I mentioned in my June 10th posting. I have picked up several items from him for the Smithsonian album this past year both at stamp shows and online through Hipstamp.
Nine additional stamps were added from recent purchases from Stamporama approvals and auctions.
Current count in the album is up to 431 of 760 stamps. While several other stamps were seen in various dealer's stocks, costs exceeded my budget for today with a few items being priced above the Scott catalog which was unexpected and a bit of a shock as many of the un-purchased items were definitely not in VF or better condition and had some fairly significant hinge remnant issues. There were two really nice stamps that were very interesting at the last dealer from whom purchases were made but at $56 and $80 each they will require a future purchase if they remain available and a review of pricing and budget allows. They were Scott #'s 45 and 56 and were truly exceptional XF, NH stamps.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 34 new stamps to the album from a page of stamps purchased from a Sandafayre auction to bring me to 479 stamps for the album.
Several other purchases of stamps from Stamporama had, also, been made since my last update but I lost track of my want list and had not reported the additions. Those stamps were all later additions from the 1940s through 1972. The album is starting to look quite respectable now with only the first page of the album having no stamps.
New stamps from the Sandafayre auction were Scott #'s 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 74, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, and 152. Two other stamps that are new are Scott #'s 153 and 154.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Nice collection there!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Just added some new additions for the Finland collection from a fellow stamp club member's returned APS circuit books that he shared with me at the last club meeting. New additions are Finland Scott #'s 339, 384, 388, 389, 390, 408, 421, 422, 428, B15, B16, B17, B21, B22, B23, B31, B32, B32, B33, B34, B54, B55, B56, B57, B82, B83, B84, B85, B86, B91, B92, B93, C7, and M1.
New stamps bring me to 513 of 760 stamps for the album. And still no stamps for the first page of the album! Actually Scott #'s 1-37 are proving elusive as mint stamps.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
And try to find copies of those early Finland with the ginormous perfs that has ALL the perfs intact. I hear those sell for a high premium.
I think those are the largest perfs, depth wise, of any ever issued. What do you think, Stampers? Any others you can think of?
I only have a few and man are they raggedy! Still happy to have a few on my modest retiree budget! Would love to add a few more - if anyone has any to trade I can offer some nice stamps in return - pics on my trade site.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 5 stamps to bring me to 518 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps added were C5, C6, 490, 496, and 511. Acquired one other stamp which turned out to be Scott #462 which is an orange 40p definitive stamps from 1972 but although the album space listed 462 it was actually for a renumbered Scott #460 multi-colored stamp picturing a bus. This is the first time where I have bought a stamp based on the number in the album's illustration where the number has been updated since the album was published in a newer edition catalog. Looks like I am going to have to cross-check my want list for the album with a current edition catalog!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 16 new stamps to bring me to 534 of 760 stamps for the Scott hingeless album which covers up to 1971.
New stamps added were 318, 401, 402, 407, 412, 414A, B78, B79, 280, 439, B107, B108, B109, B148, B149, and B150. Stamps were found in some additional returned APS circuit books from a local collector.
Also, added another 18 stamps from the same circuit books to the Finland sections of my International 1840-1963 albums. New stamps there were 77, 141, 142, 148, 245, 308, 380, 381, 386, B101, B102, B103, B135, B136, B137, B145, B146, and B147. Now sitting just under 20% complete for the International album set with 17062 of 85587 spaces filled.
All in all, it was a very productive review with quite a few additions for the albums without being overwhelming.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 5 new stamps and 1 upgraded stamp to bring me to 539 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are Finland Scott #'s B30, M7, 336, B157, and B158. One stamp, Scott B159, which is part of a three stamp set was upgraded from a LH copy to NH as it came with the set. The stamps were found on Hipstamp.
Had a nice discussion with a fellow collector during a Christmas dinner celebration for the Greater Eastside Stamp Society about the serpentine early issues for Finland. I have continued to look for some of the earlier stamp issues for Finland with these unusual separations with no short perforations but for now they are far above my budget for these stamps. I saw a very nice pair of stamps which brought home just how hard it would be to separate these stamps without having a short perforation result! I did spot three very nice, problem free stamps in this series being auctioned on eBay this week. For now I will just enjoy seeing them rather than worry about acquisition.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Over the Christmas holidays and until today I have been very active in acquiring additional stamps for my Finland Scott Hingeless album copyright 1972 with purchases from Stamporama, Hipstamp, eBay, and a couple of local dealers red box and U-Pick world albums providing additions to bring me to 598 of 760 stamps for the album including completion of the semi-postals through 1971.
Today I hit the jackpot following a cancelled local stamp show due to a venue mixup. Quite a few individuals who had made plans to attend the show ended up at a local stamp dealer, Bel-Kirk Stamp Coin and Comics, and were very active in looking for new items for their collection. I showed the dealer, Bill, my progress on the album and he brought out a couple of binders from the back saying look through these and see if you can find any needed items. Following a two hour review I managed to identify 81 new additions for my album of affordable items from the two binders and can now report the following additions to the album:
Scott #'s 31, 32, 60, 61, 62, 63, 78, 79, 99, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 169, 171, 175, 197, 164, 168, 170, 172, 174, 206, 170A, 170B, 453, 458, 174A, 174B, 175B, 175C, 176B, 176C, 176D, 176E, 176F, 176G, 176H, 176I, 257, 258, 270, 259, 171, 260, 272, 261, 262, 273, 274, 275, 293, 295, 296, 306, 315, 316, 317, 321, 420, 426, and 429 plus the Karelia issues N8 through N15.
Current completion status is now 679 of 760 stamps for the album! And am now down to two missing stamps for the back of the book section, Scott numbers C1 and M8 which are definitely premium items.
There are at least another twelve available mint stamps plus uncounted used stamps which are currently beyond my budget availability in the two binders which had an annotation indicating a catalog value of just under $15,000 for the collection so more possibilities await for the future! It was very interesting to see a number of page additions to the albums where a number of early issues including the serpentine stamps had specialized material many with Facit numbers added over and above the Scott Specialized album pages' content. The visit was definitely quite a treat and very productive for new content for my collection!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
WTG Jbaxter on your Finland - you’re really making progress!
Today was a great day for my Finland collection! A recent auction purchase arrived and I think I finally have a #2. Not a spectacular copy, but better than nothing, also added 20 cheapie space filler coat of arms to give me more to study for paper and color varieties. I still have a great deal of work to do on these, but I have them roughed in.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Wow! Those are some REALLY uncommon stamps to have. I did add a Scott #31 and #32 today but those are the first of the 1-37 range that I have added. The collection that I looked at today had many of these stamps with four different issues which were mint with no short, serpentine perfs and nice ranges of some of the other stamps in the early issues which can get quite expensive, i.e. expensive enough that an individual stamp could cost more than ALL of the stamps that I added today put together.
You have put together a very nice set of examples for a specialized approach to the early stamps' varieties. Thanks for sharing the images!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Thanks - I call them my “Hockey Star” stamps because they are almost always missing teeth!
Seriously, ones with ALL the teeth are very pricy and far outside of my modest stamp budget, but it’s possible to find these raggedy ones in collections for a tiny fraction of catalog value.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
My 1971 Scott album has a page for Finland with stamps listed as N1-N8 under Russian Occupation which are separate from the Karelia issues. Does anyone know where these stamps are found in the current Scott catalogs?
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Those are now listed under Karelia:
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Thanks, the renumbering of the issues (and my lack of attention to detail ????) through me off completely!
Update: The Karelia issues do not include the Aunus overprint found on the stamp images in my album. Eventually I found the stamps had been renumbered from N1-N8 to N13-N20 and are now listed under Russia / Occupation Stamps / Issued Under Finnish Occupation in the Scott 2017 Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Coveres 1840-1940.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Strangely, I received a second set of the Karelia stamps of 1941-43 which were issued under Finnish occupation from 1941-43 so both my Finland album has a full set and my International 1940-1963 collection now has a full set so I am twice blessed. It is quite nice to have two completed pages in the Part II album and a new country in the album with not just 50% completion (my primary goal for the International albums at this point) but 100%!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 680 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #404A. The stamp was ordered through Hipstamp from a dealer who often comes to local stamp shows.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Hi all,
Great thread and an amazing collection!
Also, thanks for the tip of the website: http://www.stampcollectingblog.com
I had never visited that site and it's pretty cool.
JR
(Modified by Moderator on 2020-02-01 11:55:29)
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Yes, Keijo’s site is definitely something of a treasure as well as the bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com site by Jim Jackson and Bob’s globalstamps.blogspot.com site.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Adding two new stamps to bring me to 682 of 760 stamps for the album as a couple of nice copies showed up unexpectedly on eBay that I could not resist. They were a special birthday treat to myself.
New stamps are Scott #'s M8 (which I had mentioned previously as being the only military stamp missing from the album and one of two missing back of the book items) and Scott #56 which is seldom seen as well in nice, mint condition.
I, also, found an older APS stamp circuit book full of mint stamps for Finland online which should significantly impact the completeness of the Finland sections in my International 1840-1963 collection once I get them added. Very exciting as well!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added net gain of two new stamps to bring me to 684 of 760 stamps for the album.
Checked the APS circuit book that I had just mentioned to see if there might be any additions for the main Finland collection by chance and found a few stamps so added Scott #'s 176, 303, 349, 400, and 404 to the album but, also, found that I had incorrect stamps for 302, 303, and 304 in the album previously (there were no images for this definitive set and I had not cross-checked them against the catalog) so a net gain of two stamps. Apparently the U-pick book from which the original set came had the wrong stamps on the page as well!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Went through the APS stamp circuit book for Finland and managed to find 70 stamps to add to the International 1840-1963 album and reached a milestone of an overall 20.5% completion for that album set so slowly making progress on that collection as well. Interestingly the place where I had the wrong stamps in the Finland album was not incorrect in the International albums and all of the stamps were needed (that were removed from the Finland album because of improper placement) so that worked out well.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 5 new stamps to the album to bring me to 698 of 760 stamps for the Finland album. Note that somewhere I missed several additions to the album but I confirmed tonight that there are 62 missing stamps and that the album does have spaces for 760 stamps.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 34, 64, 65, 66, and 67. Stamps were added from the previously searched Finland album at a local stamp dealer. I, also, rechecked the serpentine issues that were in that album as well and decided that all of the stamps are actually used. Some have VERY light cancels but all are actually used stamps. We, also, checked a number of additional items that he had in some counter books and found one additional stamp, a Scott #37, but that one will require saving up for as it has a catalog value of $625! It was a very nice, true VF stamp as well with full gum and a very light hinge mark.
I spent some time tonight reviewing the serpentine issues from Scott #4 through #13 paying attention to the cost differences between stamps with all intact serpentine teeth in both mint and used states versus the values for stamps with one or two short teeth. Typically the catalog values the stamps with one or two short teeth at 1/3 the value of stamps with all teeth intact for used stamps while mint stamps with no short teeth are anywhere from double to eight times the price of used stamps with no short teeth depending on the issue. Interestingly there were reprints issued several times for Scott #'s 2 and 3 in the 1800's plus a centenary reissue in 1956 plus a series in 1893 for Scott #'s 4 through 11. Does anyone have more details on the number of times that reprints were issued and the circumstances that gave rise to the reprints?
I do have a small want list of more modern issues, Scott #C1 and the Karelia - Russian Occupation stamps with the Aunus overprint Scott #'s 1 through 8. My album also has spaces for stamps listed as Scott #14 and 15 but these are no longer listed in the Scott catalog plus the catalog implies that 2C and 3B are unknown as mint stamps so maybe I am only missing 50 stamps for my album.
Update: removed 177, 179, and 212 from the want list as a Stamporama member contacted me with an offer for those items.
Update again: removed remaining items from 108a and up from the want list as they are on their way via online purchases.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 3 new stamps to bring me to 701 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 177, 179, and 212. Stamps were received from a Stamporama member with some additional stamps from Denmark for my International 1840-1963 albums as well which today reached a new milestone of 18,100 different of 85,590 stamps for 21% completion following a vacation day where I spent the day going through an International Book IV album looking for items for the collection at a local stamp dealer. That album of the set is now at 26.2% completion so I now have slightly more than 1 out of every 4 stamps for the Part IV album.
In addition, the previously mentioned Finland M8 stamp arrived in today's mail as well. I believe this is the highest catalog value item that has been added to the album. It was acquired from Finland via eBay.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 10 new stamps to bring me to 711 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 33, 35, 108a, 173, 221, 302, 304, 329, 345, and 403. Items were purchased through Hipstamp and Jay Smith and Company and complete modern issues after Scott #82 through the year 1971 for a significant milestone.
I am continuing to look for candidate stamps for the International album as well so still have a lot of stamps to acquire for Finland for that collection which covers up to 1963.
New want list for mint stamps for the Finland album is much tougher with Scott #'s 1-3 (reprints possible? found for 2-3), 3B and 2C (not priced in mint though), 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14-15 (unlisted in latest Scott catalog so maybe no longer an issue), 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 36, 37, 57, 58, 68, 69, 75, 82, and C1 plus the Aunus overprints for eight four stamps.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Updated the post about the Russian Occupation Stamps to correct the entry regarding the stamps with the Aunus overprint. They were renumbered to N13-N20 and are found under Russia / Occupation Stamps / Issued Under Finnish Occupation in the Scott 2017 Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Covers 1840-1940.
They were listed as N1-N8 under Russia / Occupation Stamps / Issued under Finnish Occupation in the Scott 2014 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue just to confuse the issue.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 3 new stamps to bring me to 714 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are Scott #'s 2 and 3 (reprints from 1956 by the Finland government on watermarked paper were purchased as the original stamps are far beyond my budget and always will be, there were 1,605 of the reprint sets produced) and Scott # C1 which completes the air mail issues in the album. Items were purchased from Hipstamp.
Continued working on the addition of Finland stamps for my International 1840-1963 collection as well with several additions purchased through Stamporama offerings this week. The International collection is now up to 21.5% complete with 18,403 stamps in the album. Completed several additions of Canadian stamps to that album today as well and completed removal of all used Canadian stamps that had been added to the album. With replacement stamps and some new additions I managed to remove the 20 used stamps that were in that album without a net reduction in completeness for Canada. I will continue to replace the existing used stamps in the album (currently there are roughly 300 or so across all parts) with very few exceptions (currently USA Scott #1 and Great Britain Scott #1 are likely to always be used stamps due to the prohibitive cost of these issues as mint stamps).
I had a great time at a local stamp show on Saturday purchasing mostly stamps for the International album as I was unable to locate any mint stamps from dealers' stock for the Finland album. Largest group of additions were for India and Seychelles in the 1840-1940 time period with 30 new items acquired. Fortunately one dealer had a new selection of low valued mint stamps for India that filled most of the holes in the 1840-1940 time span on my want list. The show was small with about ten dealers but very well attended!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 715 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #82.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 2 new stamps to bring me to 717 of 760 stamps for the Finland album.
New stamps added were Scott #'s 57 and 69. Items were acquired from eBay.
Also, spent the afternoon at a local stamp store going through a Scott International Part V album from Afghanistan through the German Democratic Republic pulling mint stamps for my International 1840-1963 collection and the evening adding the stamps to the album. I was able to add 199 stamps for the period 1960 through 1963. Plus the dealer purchased a large collection and I was able to help unload the back end of an SUV containing the collection which was delivered this afternoon! Then got a chance to spot check parts of the collection with the dealer. There is quite a variety of older albums plus some very nice country and area collections in Minkus albums. It will be very interesting to review the collection as it is broken down and prepared for sale over the next few months.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Over the last few days I have been reading about the history of Finland and reviewing images of the country from bing.com/images which has been very interesting. Wikipedia has some nice articles on it as well. Plus I reread Jim Jackson's posts about the stamps of Finland in the Big Blue 1840-1940 aka Part I album.
In my world, the most famous person from Finland is Linus Torvalds, the creator and a principal developer for the Linux operating system for computers.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 718 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is the third stamp on the first page of the album (the other two are reprints for Scott #'s 2 and 3) and is Scott #4a so the first Serpentine issue in my collection. Stamp was acquired via eBay from a collector in California!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added pictures for some of the latest acquisitions as they are a bit special.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 719 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #7, a second Serpentine issue for the album. Unused examples for these without perforation faults continue to be elusive with few being offered in advertisements.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Those serpentine “teeth” are incredibly fragile. Finding used copies with all of the teeth is very difficult, so I have nicknamed them my “hockey player” stamps.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 720 of 760 stamps in the Finland album.
New stamp is Scott #25. Stamp was acquired through Hipstamp.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Received one other Finland stamp this week, a used Finland Scott #9 serpentine issue which I acquired because it was very attractively priced and had no perforation faults. I have not added it to my album which to date has no cancelled stamps but partially bought it because of the dearth of advertised serpentine issues without perforation faults on the basis that I may have to relent and add used stamps for the serpentine issues. It is included here for your review.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 721 of 760 stamps in the Finland album.
New stamp is Scott #37! This is a very special stamp that is nicely centered.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 4 new stamps to bring me to 725 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are N13-N16 for Russia - Issued under Finish Occupation in 1919 per the Scott 2017 Classic Specialized Catalog of Stamps and Covers. Interestingly as late as 2014 these stamps were numbered N1-N4 which is what my album pages show them as.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 726 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #17. Stamp was acquired from an eBay auction. It is the fifth stamp to be added to the first page of the album.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 727 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott # 75. Stamp was acquired from a local dealer here in Washington who has a store on Hipstamp.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 2 new stamps to the Finland album to bring me to 729 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamps are Scott # 6a and Scott # 9. These two stamps are the first used stamps to be added to the album since serpentine issues with full perfs are few and far between.
For a real shock check out the catalog value for the 6a issue. Now the magic question of course is whether the perforations really measure 1.5 to 1.75 mm rather than 2.0 to 2.25 mm in depth. It really is an interesting question! Scan was at 450 dpi using Microsoft Paint scanning both stamps from a Canon flat bed scanner.
I really need to a acquire a quality magnifier like a linen tester with a built-in mm scale at some point.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 730 of 760 stamps for the Finland album.
New stamp is Scott # 19. Stamp was acquired from Hipstamp. Note that you can see just a trace of the remains of a hinge poking over the perforations at the top. The hinge remnant is at the top of the stamp and just about 1mm in height and the width of the hinge horizontally on the stamp. I have had a couple of recent bad experiences trying to remove hinge remnants so this one will stay.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 731 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #58. This stamp was acquired through a Sandafayre auction from the UK. This stamp's centering looks better in person than in the scan. It is definitely a lovely copy for this issue. It is interesting how the thin frame lines look almost multi-colored in the scans due to pixel boundaries from the scanner.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 732 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #27. Stamp was acquired from the APS Stampstore. The delivery of the stamp is confirmation that the APS Stampstore is shipping again!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 733 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #18. Item was acquired through Hipstamp.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 734 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #16 which is a very nice addition to the collection. It is a mint, no gum specimen of likely the fourth rarest stamp from Finland as an unused stamp and not a stamp that I had expected to ever have. Stamp was acquired from a local stamp dealer via Hipstamp.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 735 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Scott #68 which completes all but the first two pages of the album which are definitely going to be a challenge plus, of course, the high values with the Aunus overprints. This stamp is a very unusual MNH stamp from 1901.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to give me 736 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Scott #12 and was acquired from eBay. It is not the prettiest stamp but is a mint stamp with original gum and the price was exceptional. . Of course, I suspect it has one tiny missing perf on the upper left so may not be a long term solution if something reasonable comes along. I wonder if there is a way to clean the paper that would not fade the ink, perhaps simply washing it with a tiny drop of Johnson's baby shampoo or Neutrogena soap? This will require some thought. I am not really that concerned about the gum on the back as it is quite rough as well. I rather like the overall presentation of the stamp but am mildly concerned about the orange/rust covered contaminants on the paper.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added some additional comments about the last addition to the Finland album.
On another note, I have made quite a few additions to the International 1840-1963 collection that I have mentioned previously and reached a milestone yesterday of 23,077 of now 85,598 stamp locations in the albums for 26.96% completion. Had to update the counts associated with two more countries, South Africa and Vatican City in the Part III album, where my counting was in error. Still slightly short of 25% completion in the Parts 1A1-1B2 and Part III pages but getting very close on both of them. Huge change occurred in the Part II pages and have now reached 33.17% completion with 5,593 stamps in that album so right on the border of having one of every three stamps in the Part II album. Given that I only recently reached 25% coverage this is quite a change. Many stamps were, also, added for the Part III pages with that album seeing a change from 21.5% completion to 24.23% with 3,402 stamps in the album.
Source of the change was an auction lot for a large number of Scott pages for J-Z countries dating from 1940-1951 in a somewhat worn International Part III binder with several earlier pages where stamps were somewhat stuck down. Many countries from the page set were missing but I found many useful additions for my albums. Fortunately other than mainly some issues from Mexico which I could not get to loosen most of the stamps did detach with only some relatively minor paper adhesions for about 70 stamps of the 2,000 or so for the Parts II and III albums that I was able to pull from the pages for my collection over the last couple of months.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Following is from a new acquisition for my Finland collection but these are a bit different in that they are additions to the coverage of my Scott Hingeless album. They are Specimen overprints of an early series of stamps from Finland issued in 1889-92 corresponding to Scott #'s 38-45.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 737 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamps is one of the higher valued Finnish Occupation of Russia stamps Scott # N17. New stamp was acquired from eBay.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 738 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamp is Finland Scott #10. Stamp was acquired through Hipstamp. Interestingly I now have 3 serpentine issues as mint stamps and 3 serpentine issues as canceled stamps.
I had an opportunity to review a local collectors' Finland stamps which he has mounted in an antique Senf album and a Yvert and Tellier album. To my shock he had a decent mint Finland Scott #1 plus three used sets of Scott #'s 2 and 3 plus a mint reprint set of Scott #'s 2 and 3.
He, also, had quite a number of Japanese issues in an album for me to pick from for my NOS (new old stock) Japan Scott Hingeless album for stamps through 1974 which is the twin of my Finland album. That album with the additions I acquired from him plus previous acquisitions is starting to be quite presentable although I expect mint stamps before 1894 are going to prove quite difficult for a representative sample.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 2 new stamps for Finland to bring me to 740 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamps are Scott #'s 5 and 13 (actually 13c for this example). These stamps have been a long time coming. Although the #5 is used it is quite a clean copy while the #13 does show that some of the perfs are shorter than they perhaps should be, especially on the right hand side although they are somewhat interesting in that the top most perf appears complete while several of the perfs down the right hand side show parts of the adjoining stamps printing so perhaps they are not really short but the others are just abnormally long! These roulette issues are quite a challenge.
I, also, replaced one stamp, Finland Scott #18 as it bothered me that the stamp is so short. Note the difference in the two stamps height in the attached picture. Not sure if the stamp has been reperfed or the perforater was set improperly resulting in the shorter stamp. Do note that the new stamp has a bit of an ink or possible paper fault in the lower portion of the stamp and the ink in the design appears to have not been quite as cleanly applied. Nitpicking can be somewhat interesting when you look closely at the production of some earlier stamp issues and this one was produced between 1875 and 1881. The two stamps do show quite a bit of variation.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Rechecked the Scott #18 mentioned in my last post and the issues do not appear to be with the paper but rather with the ink application. Note the bottom right corner of the design as well.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Although not an addition to my Finland standalone collection, I received one new stamp for the Finland section of my International album. New stamp is Finland Scott #10 and is quite a lovely issue although it is definitely a government reprint as it even included an Apex certificate from the APS.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 3 new stamps to bring me to 743 of 760 stamps in the album.
New stamps are Finland Scott #'s 26, 28, and 29. Stamps were acquired from a local stamp dealer who greeted me on arrival with a suggestion that I check out some stamps in a stockbook that he had just put together for stamps from Northern Europe. It was definitely a productive visit plus got to meet three stamp collector friends during my brief visit in between work assignments for the day.
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 745 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott #8 and was acquired through eBay. Due to a dearth of options this is one of five used stamps in the album. All are the very challenging serpentine roulette issues from the period of 1860-1874!
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re: Finland - Adventure in Northern Europe
Added 1 new stamp to bring me to 746 of 760 stamps for the album.
New stamp is Scott # N6 for the Russian Occupation of Finland stamps.
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