Sweden, British Commonwealth, and other goodies.

I finally got all the Sweden arranged on two Hagner sheets - 139 different, plus about a dozen non-Swedish items. It was quite an eye-opener! The stamps cover a wider period than I first thought, but the majority of them are indeed between 1965 and 1970. There are a large number of booklet stamps in pairs - something European collectors prize. There's even a separate valuation for pairs in the Swedish catalog, "FACIT".

Unfortunately, I'm having problems with my ISP. I haven't been able to FTP anything in weeks, which means I can't upload scanned images. I've called twice, and sent an email, but so far I haven't gotten an answer, other than they're "working on it". When I do, I'll post images of the two pages - they're already scanned in.

The biggest problem being a collector working for a stamp dealer is that you want to buy everything yourself. Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of money, so the temptation is curbed by reality. Every once in a while, however, you just can't resist - like the Swedish on-paper lot, and the lot I bought today.

The lot I got was 187 different mint never hinged British Commonwealth. The stamps came from 28 mostly smaller colonies - Swaziland, Solomon Islands, Bermuda, St. Vincent, Gambia, etc. The total catalogue value for the lot was $91.60 - about a sixth of the $15 I paid for it. There will be five identical lots posted on eBay in the next few days, plus three other lots with fewer stamps, plus some duplication that are also worth looking at. The Sweden will be boxed up beginning this weekend, and should start appearing on eBay within the next ten days.

I've been trying to follow the lots I've created on eBay, but between normal household chores, working 15 hours a week, working on my own collection, and continuing to work on the two novels I have in progress, there just isn't any time to do more than a cursory check. Some of them are doing quite well, others aren't.

If you collect mint Sweden, there are some real goodies at Web-Collector on eBay. There are about five or six different lots of six to ten sets, plus a host of booklet panes. The average lot catalogues for about $100, and each set of lots is mostly different.

One thing we did recently was to go through three boxes of Switzerland and dump all the stamps (an advanced collector's duplicates, sorted down into #10 window envelopes) into a 30-gallon trash container, and mixed them up well. There were stamps from about 1905 through 1980, including about 60% of the semi-postals for that era. We ended up with about 40,000 stamps. These were divided into five one-pound boxes, about 75% off paper, and they'll be offered beginning some time this week. A pound of stamps off paper is quite a number - somewhere around 3000. There were many $1 or more items.

Right now, I'm working on sorting down almost two pounds of off-paper stamps, plus what I'm managing to soak off paper. I've got about a half-pound of Ireland I'm working on, soaking about 30 stamps a day. I don't have room to dry more than that and still keep them safe from the kittens who have taken over my office. Expect quite a number of my want/have pages to show major changes in the next few weeks, as I get this material catalogued and mounted in my collection!