If I should describe a nightmare of stamp collecting flyspecker, it would likely include a bunch of common as mud stamps, a happy moment when the joyful collector makes a new discovery from these stamps, and then the heartbreaking cry  upon collector realizing that the pile of similar duplicates he/she once had are no longer to be found. In words of  Alice Cooper I’ll say “Welcome to my nightmare…”

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Since my goal is to keep the operations of SCB  as transparent as possible, below is a financial summary for 2018.  Many philatelic organizations are obliged by their by-laws to release a public financial summary, but most stamp websites and philatelic publishers on the other do no such thing as they are privately owned. As such we collectors are usually struck by lightning when some website or publisher closes down because of financial issues.   I’ve been very open about any kind of financial issues SCB (or me) has faced over the years, and i wish that open financial report like this would open up the complexity and costs of  running a philatelic website like SCB for wider audience.

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At least for the next month or two I’ll be rehousing and adding up to African part of my worldwide stamp collection. As such I’d like to take the opportunity to showcase some of the more interesting pieces from countries that I’m currently working.

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I’d like to wish readers of SCB a merry and peaceful yuletide. Do enjoy this time of year with your family, friends and stamps, and take a small break from daily life – as that is precisely what I’m about to do for the next week or two. Below are some (more or less recent) worldwide Christmas stamps that have landed upon my stamp collection this year. What makes these stamps worthy of public showcasing is that they all bring a smile on my face (mostly because of personal memories), and I hope they would do the same for you.  Merry Christmas folks!

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Here’s an interesting bunch of stamps that has made me pulling my hair. The stamps might very well be genuine, or they might be fake – no way to tell with my limited knowledge, but I suspect the latter. In 1925 Portugal issued four 10 centavos postal tax stamps to collect funds for construction of memorial stones (Padrões)  of “great war” of 1918. The topic of stamp was allegorical drawing by Armando Concalves, and the stamps were issued in four colors: blue, brown, green and rose. According to sources the stamps were printed in lithography at Casa da Moeda (Portuguese Mint) on sheets of 100 stamps, and line perforated at perforation 11 x 11. One million copies of each stamp were prepared. Some of these stamps were overprinted for use in Azores, and that is what I have.

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This weeks article picks up pretty much where I left off two years back with my entry about Lebanese stamp forgeries, except being on topic of  fake Syrian postage.  For what I know, the source of these fakes is the same.

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Postally used stamps of German hyperinflation era are said to be minefield of fake cancellations. Each and every stamp catalogue provides a slightly different wording, but the baseline is same: catalog values (from August 1916/early 1919 to end of 1923) apply only for INFLA-signed/certified copies, anything else should be treated equal to mint stamps value. Thus it is somewhat excruciating that many sellers, buyers and collectors do not pay any importance to provided guiding, but always get stuck with the *what if…* scenario.

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Not so long back I acquired a mixture of “Chinese” stamps. As always with packages described like this, the contents was actually mixture of oriental stamps from Persia to Japan, and anything in between having non-western writing. Possibly the most interesting part of the lot were various forgeries of Japanese definitive stamps of the 1940s. These forgeries are said to be very common and a guaranteed part of every worldwide collection build since 1960s.

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As all readers hopefully know, SCB provides a paid Premium subscription that gives you access to all there is. And then there’s the time- and feature limited (but still generous) Free Trial. The latter has been technically built as such that no person should be able to have more than just one signup without knowingly frauding the system. And all in all, the system works well. People who enjoy the contents upgrade and become Premium subscribers and supporters of community sooner or later. And folks who are not up to it simply let their free trials lapse and become forgotton. But would anyone knowingly fraud the system? In the end the annual subscription is only 18.40€, and the money goes fully into supporting the SCB website.

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Not sure how life goes with other worldwide collectors, but for me status quo means that there’s always some unsorted auction purchases etc. on my stamp desk awaiting. However, in recent times that pile has grown way larger than I feel comfortable, mostly because of work and life interfering with my collecting habits. As I’ve now got the doctors orders to take life slowly (besides work) for next couple of weeks, I have been trying to put some focus on reducing the size of that pile.

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