Something to look forward to.

I talked the stamp dealer I work parttime for to let me bring home a pound of Sweden he has in his store. Actually, he has about 40 pounds, all on paper, and most of it exactly alike. I told him that if I could take it home, I'd look at it, discover how many stamps there were in a pound, how many different, and so forth. He agreed. I have until Friday to give him the word, but most of the work has been done.

This material apparently came from the return mail of a stamp dealer in England. There are between 1800 and 2000 stamps per pound, usually with two to five stamps per piece of paper on about three-quarters of it. I found exactly seven stamps from nations other than Sweden in the pound I picked from the middle of the box - three from Denmark, three from England, and one from the United States.

I haven't finished soaking them off paper yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what's there. The earliest stamp I know for sure is in the mix in quantity is Scott #701, from 1966. The last issued stamp I found in quantity (more than three copies) was #857, from 1970. If we take Scott at its word, there should have been 157 stamps inclusively between the two numbers. There are roughly 120 different in the lot I'm currently soaking off paper. About 20 of those are definitive stamps, the rest are all either booklet stamps or large commemoratives.

The stamps from the Wasa booklet are there in quantity, including the large 55o blue stamps depicting the the ship and the Swedish coat of arms. The three stamps from the "highways" booklet are there, but in lesser quantity (at least in this group). I found four different stamps from the 1969 "Paintings" souvenir sheet, and plenty of copies of the stamps of the "Swedish Art Forgings" booklet.

Most of the commemoratives were present both with the coil variety and the booklet variety. There were at least a dozen copies each of the Swedish Fairy Tales booklet stamps, and I found four of the five Wildlife set from 1968.

Once everything's soaked off, I'll put one of each on a Hagner page, scan it in and post it. I hope to be able to have a price and shipping terms by next Monday for anyone wishing to relieve Shayne of some of this material.