How to classify Strubel (1) 2 Rappen, 1 Franc

The classification of Strubel has changed since Mr. Urs Hermann's study was published in 2005 and I think this will be the new standard. I'm trying to classify my Strubels once again with this information.
2Rappen
As this stamp was issued 3months before the new series come, there are no variety in manufacturing point. When I see my stocks together, however, it seems there are some difference in shade. I think this is because of Glue burns, so I should confirm it. Unfortunately I have no used 2rappen.

You  can classify 1Franc  into three. One is with silk thread black, the othe with silk thread yellow and the last one with thin paper.The last one is very rare and the catalogue price is 10,000CHF, but I found one at some accumlated collection.(See the second line below.) It has little margin and cut in unfortunately, so the valuation is not so high as 10,000CHF, I'm happy to have one and I like getting acumlation as I can get such a rarity with cheap cost and knowledge.
By the way, all the stamps  I see have  black silk thread and no yellow one. There are two stamps at the third line below and they have no silk thread and cna't classify, but the shade of the first stamp in the first line and the first stamp in the last line is different and I think this is also because of the glue burns. How do you think about it?

How To Use Stampedia International Stamp Catalogue (Video)

We prepared this movie for the last PHILANIPPON2012. I'd like to show it again here. Click the triangle!

I'm working with stamp packet of TURKEY 500 different.

It's been a long time sice I last worked with stamp packet. How happy it is, though it cost only 3 cent per stamp. I think it's a fun of philately! How can I tell this fun to Jr. philatelists? I'd like to write an article this time with this mind.
Shown photoe is the result I classfied stamps with the philatelic classification of Stampedia Turkey Catalogue.

Stampless cover of Zurich Canton "Five month without stamp again"

On March 1, 1843, Canton of Zurich issued the first stamp of European continent, however they have five month period starting in 1949 without stamps just after the change of national postal rate of Swiss Confederation because there are no stamps which suits for the national postal rate.
I recently got one cover of the period and show it here. This cover was cancelled at Zurich in the afternoon Jan. 24, 1850 and you can see a stamp "Franco" which means the postage to the destination is fully paid.  This cover was going to Eschbach, Baden  (South of Germany now) and the amount those days was  6 Kreuzer .
There are not so many international letters those days, so the postal clerk can not always tell the full postage rate to foreign countries. But as Baden is close to Zurich, the postal clerk knows the rate and that's why the sender of this letter paid fully and the cover has a red "Franco" stamp on it.
By the way, according to the Michel Guide of Stampless Cover, the amount the sender paid is written in red on the back of the letter, so I saw the back to find "6" in red.
I got this cover at 100CHF and this is one tenth-thirtyth of cover with stamps, though this cover is rare as it goes to foreign country with rare red Franco stamp on it. However I can enjoy with this cover very much as it has many points. As a matter of fact I can not understand the black cancellation on the back now. So I have to study it more.
I also want more common domestic cover for my collection and maybe it cost me much cheaper than 100CHF. I believe you can also enjoy Swiss Classics with small budget if you have knowledge.

Today I joined the meeting of the Japan Philatelic Society of UK.

Today I joined the meeting of the Japan Philatelic Group of UK. and decided to be a member.

I found this group interesting when I saw their stamp exhibition held a few months ago. One of my philatelic friends also introduce me to their members.

As I exhibited collection of Switzerland and German States in Japan, some of the members don't think I'm interested in UK stamps, however I used to collect stamps of UK and USA when I'm in Jr. high school and I like it. Today's meeting has no special agenda as usual, however I feel confortable because chat about Printing company such as De La Rue or another chat of Pre Stamp Cover interested me much.

In the event I was presented a literature of the Postal History Soceity of Japan and it was interesting. I like especially the article of "Seven Books on Local British Postal History" by Mr. Hoshina Sadao. This article help me making better my thematic collection of "development of stamp" . 

Reconstruction of Swiss classics

Upon making a collection of Switzerland, I decided to get along to actively re-construction in order to earn points of knowledge. You can classify all the positions and plates of the early Swiss classics with some good handbooks.

First I classify my RAYON3 stamps. RAYON3 was printed in sinlge color and one sheet contains 180 stamps, 18th copies of 10 original plate. So you can easily distinguish 10 types by checking the red background curve lines.

As a result I have 6 types out of 10 already as I show here, however I doubt if position 9 is genuine or not.

I'll continue trying re-construction for the other stamps also. It needs knowledge and study instead of money. I can enjoy it with the same price of the covers.

Decoding of pre-stamp covers

I started to collect stampless covers of Switzerland to understand  Switzerland classic philately much more. I've bought about 50 cover lots from Sqwitzerland and start studying them with the guide book of stampless covers published by Michel. Swiss Cantons of the age use different currencies and have each individual postal systems, you can enjoy domestic letters as if it is international letters. The Michel book teaches me "The paid amount is written at the back of the envelope while the unpaid amount is written at the front. "
When you see the cover below, you can see red  "6"  at the upper-right corner. I can understand this is the unpaid amount, however I can't tell the currency. The dealer said the currency is Kreutzer as it is sent in 1747 from the contents, but I need to study more. I have also difficulty in understanding where it comes from and the destination, thought the dealer said both of them are Zurich.

This cover is a folded letter and you can see "1747" at the top of the contents.

Begin to create sub-collections from the packet

When I was a Jr. high school student, I bought a packet of Belgium containing 300 different stamps as I ghought I might make some collection. From that packet I found so many faces of King Baldwin 1st that I remember the name even when I'm away from philately for quarter century.

By the way, I'm far from completing a stamp collection of Belgium. I can't even finish classfying the packet. My point of English at school was not so bad, however it is difficult to understand philatelic words of Scott and at that time, all the stamps are listed in monochrome color and only one image shown per series as today. Without friends and advisors collecting foreign countries, it was difficult to make collection those days as we don't have such literatures written in Japanese.

So what can I do today if I were in the same situation in this internet times? I have a chance to write an article of packet collection of Turkey containing 500 different stamps. I'd like to make an article which advices to myself living 30 years ago as a Jr.high school student. It's better for him to have fun in philately with small amount of money and I think such an article is needed in philately today to increase junior collectors.

Final day of Otemachi annex of the Ginza Post Office.

The opening day of the All Nippon Stamp Show was the closing day of Otemachi annex of the Ginza Post Office.

I sent the summer greeting shown yesterday with this cancellation and I also sent it to me by myself. I received it today because yesterday was holiday as well as Monday and the Post Office was not opened as the destination of the cover. It was rare for me to make such covers these days.

 

Summer Greeting

We have all Japan Stamp Show here in Tokyo now and this is the third time I exhibit my collection at this event.

This time I exhibited a work titled "All the Stamps of the World Until the Invention of Perforation".

As I thought philately is something like collecting culutural heritages, I'm going to exhibit ones willingly. The following is the list of the upcoming exhibition and I'll do my best.

Nov. 2-4 iphla2012 (Meinz, Germany) the international philatelic literature exhibition and I entried Stamepdia as web service.

Nov. 9-11 JAPEX2012(Ikebukuro, Tokyo) I'll try to exhibit something. I'll think about it from now on.

Nov.21-23 Japanese Southeast occupied area stamps (Mejiro, Tokyo) This is non-competititive stamp show organized by the occupied area stamp club.It's been 30years since I made the last exhibit work of this stamps.

Nov.21-25 Emirates2012(UAE) FIAP show. I'd like to entry if it is really organized.

Jan.19-20, 2013 Europex2013(Mejiro, TOkyo) This is non-competitive stamp show organized by Mr. Itabashi and me. I'd like to run it as my ideal style.

 

Regarding the Europex, we'd like to continue it once a year from 2013 with one theme per year and the theme for 2013 is Black sea.

There are seven countries around the Black sea and we're going to show the colleciton of those seven countries this time.

We are not only exhibit collections but also show some videos and ditigal archives so as to get more interests on philately.

 

By the way, I wrote several articles this half a year such as French Colonies Stamps on "Yushu" (published by JPS) and "the Egg-brown-six" on "Yushu-research" and "Hokuriku-Philately". I'm going not only to write articles but also to publish our new magazine "Stampedia Philatelic Journal 2012" in upcoming half a year.

 

 

2012 Midsummer

Stampedia Project

Takashi Yoshida representative

 

※ (image) what I bought impulsively at the stamp show today....

If you're in Tokyo this weekend...

All Japan Stamp Show has just started yesterday. The organaizer of this event has been Japan Post until last year and it's changed this year to the Philatelic Federation (Rengo). I'm surprised how it is improved in comparison to the ones until last year! It became much better. I appreciate all the people who works for the competition.

This year , the show is positioned as a gate for the international competition again and that makes the object of the event clear. As a result, the ratio who see the exhibit works increases, I think and the dealers stand has many philatelists seeking stamps and covers.

By the way, there are another mini pex held in Mejiro, Tokyo this weekend, until today. "Mitaka-Hosun stamp show" is a non-competitive stamp show with 30 works. I've been to the minipex last Friday, however I love to see again some of them.

Japan, Village-Send stamp  (Kenichi Hattori) * a local post started from the 17th century in Japan. I love it.

Japan, U-Koban  (Osamu Asai)

Japan, Cancellation in Tama (Hiroyuki Nagano)

Japan, International Letter Writing Week  (Yasuhito Kakihara)

Japan, Direct drilling roller cancellation (Morio Suzuki)

Japan, international covers and postcards with bilingual machine cancellation(Yuzo Yokoyama) 

Japan, express (Kigen Arai)

UK, Telegraph stamp(Tadakazu Ota)

World, newspaper stamps (Eisuke Uchinaka)

Mancuria  (Marcus Cousins)

Every time what I feel when I look at the mini-PEX is a regret that we can only see the works on exhibition. I can't remember them all and I hope we can get some scans of the works in digital some day.

The first panda stamp in the world -from my Chinese stamp collection-

Mr. Fukui, a famouse philatelists collecting Chinese stamps asked me if I collect Chinese stamps or not the other day. As a matter of fact, when I decided to start Stampedia project, the base of my collection was what I was given by my father who collected Chinese stamps for a long time. Besides I bought some Chinese stamps in my childhood because it was most cheap stamps at the stamp dealers.

Well I encountered the full sheet of 120 single 1959 Chinese stamps depicting panda besides the facevalue last month and I got it. It was not so popular and I paid only 100 euro. 1963 Giant Panda stamps are much popular and much expensive than this stamp, however this is the first Panda stamp.

So my answer for the first question if I'll collect Chinese stamps is half yes but half no because I'm not going to make a traditional competitive work of Chinese stamps as I don't have enough difficult stamps such as 1897 surcharged stamps or liberation stamps.

 

Greeting card in 1926

Emperor Taisho died on Dec.25th 1925, there are not many new year greeting post card of 1926, however most of the people got used to exchange new year greeting at that time, there are many postcards as substitutes for new year greeting ones. The contents starts with the word "We are in the darkness, but ..."

I started making postal history collection of Japanese post cards as my sub theme recently and I got interested in Emperor Taisho. I met these post cards last week.

Left) Toshima ??/Jan. 5th 1926 Circle Comb Cancellation

Right) Hakodate Jan. 8th 1926 Machine cancellation 

 

What you need in making exhibition works

I've almost completed 70 leaves out of 80 in all for the upcoming national stamp show. I get used to it as it's 5th time for me, however I feel fear sometimes for short of leaves, hinges and so on. I'd like to note something here.

Mount , Hinge and Self-adhesives for covers: you can only get these materials at philatelic store but no stationery store in your town. So you should always try to keep stock of these, otherwise you'll be shocked on the day before the deadline of sending the exhibition work.

Leaves: I make my collection on Pages, Apple software. This is one of the reason I forget the lack of leaves until two days before the deadline. I used to use Frank Goddon leaves before and it took me two months to import it from London just because of out of stock at the dealer. So it is very dangerous to use such leaves, I think.  Even at the international stamp competition, more and more A4 size leaves tend to be used, so I think it's time to changing the leaf size to A4. What is important in ordering A4 size paper at the stationery store is  to order (1) non-acid paper, (2) cream color but white one (3) thick paper (200g / meter square) I got one made in Austria in the stationery store in Ginza, Tokyo and each leaf costs me 20yen= 20cents.

Wraps: You are asked to wrap your leaves by vinyl clear pockets otherwise stamps jump out of the leaves while handling and exhibiting the collections. Stamps dealers have one but I recommend to use stationery store because it's cheaper (30yen=30cents) and easy to get at many places.

As a result, you'd better have enough stock of the materials you can only get at stamp dealers. Regarding all the other materials you should buy at usual stationery store and you should find which store has enough stock.

 

History of the Great Britain Postage Rates

I'm now making a collection which I'll exhibit at the upcoming national exhibition.I'm now researching some postal rates on the covers and I found a website Letter Rates 1840-1968 of G.B. Unfortunately it does not show the international rate of the classic period, so I have to research more....

The shown is an entire letter to U.S.A. franking 1840 Pence Blue, horizontal strip of 4. I'd like to know if 8 pence is a right rate for this letter or not...

1988 Tanzania International Red Cross 125th Anniv. 3shilling 16examples inflation cover ? to Japan

Oct. 22nd 1988  CITY DRIVE DARESSALAAM TANZANIA, Double circle cancellation.

The destination of this letter is The U.N. universtity in Tokyo.

I got it as I thought it's a kind of the inflation letters, however there are also possibility that it is just a letter with many low face value stamps. 

Stamp market

I've been to Marche de Timbres in Paris, Stamp Castle in Shanghai, however there're several stamp fleamarkets in Japan and I've benn to Stamp Market in Tokyo yesterday.
I was offered some covers with arrival machine cancellation and this is one of them, Roman-letter machine cancellation of Osaka. I like this cancellation.


It is also happy seeing friends again at the market and I found one of my best philatelic friends there yesterday of course he is much senior to me. He also offered me a nice international cover with trial machine cancellation of Kojimachi with the destination of Guam, USA.

The last example I show today is a special courtesy cover attached Commemorative booklet. I think it is very rare to attache such stamps on this kind of letters.

Stan deals catalog country has been increased to 31 countries.

 

Today we released our 31st country stamp catalogue of Slovakia and I'm happy to show you our history and the future.

The idea of Stampedia comes to me in 1989 when I met with database technology and at that time I'm not satisfied with traditional stamp catalogues. Since the I've been tried to use paper, Floppy and at last web as a media. I also started listing only Japanese commemoratives at first as I don't have so much money then, however now we're trying to list all the stamps of the world.

We started Stampedia on Dec. 1st 2009 with two country stamp catalogues of France and Monaco, so it's been three years since then and we've been trying to improve the existing catalogues alreadyreleased this year as some of them are in bad quality. Fortunately we've done a lot of improvement including philatelic classification this year and we're still doing it now.

From now on we also try to increse the quantitly. We'd like to have 100 country stamp catalogues by the end of this year and today we released Slovakia.

Thanks to the staff in our project, almost all the stamps are placed in the leaves and scanned and the data was cut into indivudual stamps at Viet-Nam and China by our co-operated company, as a result we possess images of more than 300,000 stamps with 1200pixel high resolutions.

We're the only organization who possess such a high resolution stamp images as well as stamps themselves, so some of the publishers asked us to lend our images for fees, however we have no plan to do so because our aim is to provide "Free Whole Earth Stamp Catalogue" to all the philatelists over the world and not for the other web services aiming to get money.

Last but not least, we'd like to show you our plan of the last half-year. The four big country catalogues will come and those are Japan, Turkey, Russia and Jugoslavia. Many countries became independent from the latter three countries, so it'll help increasing the number of country catalogues. Enjoy Stampedia!

 

 

2012 Japan New definitives High face value 350Yen and 500Yen issued on July 2nd, 2012

A friend of mine sent me these FDC covers to me. The machine cancellation is not usual for the registered letters. Thank you Mr.F and I'll give you some nice international cover later on.

Letter Pack Light vol.2

I sent a new letter pack light to the destination of general delivery just because I want a cancellation of the destination post office. I like this example because there are two kinds of cancellation and both of them are very clear and beautiful at right position. It seems it took two days to deliver (June. 30 -> July 2) , however it is just because July 1st is Sunday. 

By the way, today Japan Post issued two new definitives, 350 yen and 500 yen. As only half hundred post office sell these new stamps in Japan, I have no chance to get them in the morning and I've finally got it in the afternoon at Kyobashi Post Office near Ginza. I made some FDC, so I'll show them later days.

America'12 held in Japan

Today I've been to America'12 held in Tokyo. private stamp show of Japanese philatelist who collect stamps of USA. I'm not used to stamps of US just because I have little knowledge of the manufacute knnoledge of them, however, I can understand some of them as the defenitives between 1845 to 1954 is shown in this show.

As a general collector, I usually ignore the difference in manufacutring point of view, however it's more interesting to collect defenitives of some important countries with manufacuturing points and regarding stamps of US, I can study how to collect them.

By the way, I got a letter with machine cancellation of Yokohama P.O. sold at the show. it was just $3.5. very cheap, though the envelope was not clean as attached.