Azerbaijan

I always wondered how in the world would I be able to get the more ... countries, all the talk about here in France are the french stamps and the stamps from the colonies.*

And a while ago I went to a small stamp flea market in Senlis and asked the president of the local stampclub to have a look at her worldwide stamp doubles book.

And there they are a bunch of old stamps from one far away country Azerbaijan, 10 cent a piece so a grand total of 1,80 €.

I didn't inspect them closely, I just grabbed them all remembering an article by Jim about Azerbaijan stamps and its forgeries.

So the other evening I spread them out on the table and tried to compare what I have with the theory explained in Jims article.

So what do we have?

The 5 and 10 ruble stamp have the left ornament upside down, so they are russian / soviet made reprints.

A different colour of paper between the 2 ruble and 5 ruble stamp.

Well the 20k  stamp has a bad colouring and together with the 10k in the middle has "heavier" paper than the left 10k. So the left 10k might be an original and the other two soviet reprints. The AZ and the DJ don't seem to touch at the bottom in the 20k stamp so seems to be genuine.

Notice the bad colouring of the upper 1 ruble stamp, both seem to have white paper.

Wouldn't dare to proonounce if they are fake or genuine.

Grayish/brownish paper to me so must be soviet reprints.

The 40k has a dot in the sun, so is genuine.

The points of the star in the 60 k stamp seems to be sharp so must be genuine as well.

Although the colour of the paper is light than for the 1ruble stamps, I can't realy say it's white paper, I suppose they are soviet reprints.

The derricks on the left and the second derrick from the right are intact so it seems these are genuine stamps. Paper shifts a little between the two stamps but can't say the 25 ruble stamp is on white paper.

6 extra's

So in the end what did I buy? 9 out of ten stamps for my Big Blue and 6 extra's. (my son will be happy to add some hinges on them and fix in my Scott International Volume 1 the coming days)

So what am I missing? Only the Baku 2Rub stamp - Scott 6 it seems. If someone would have this one stamp... Thanks in advance !


All my thanks go to Jim Jackson for his excellent article on the Aerbaijan stamps, which permitted me to make this little exercice.

Comments are of course always welcome.

* with the exception of my friends of the France-Russian Philatelic Cercle and Nicolas of Philatélie Hellenique;-)

Time flies and Big Blue is getting filled up (a little by a little) ...

Time has gone by since my last post which doesn't mean I didn't took care of my Big Blue.

On the contrary even, since last year when I ended on about 1069 stamps present in my Scott International Volume 1 I was able to add about almost 800 stamps in only 4,5 months.

On this we have 1875 stamps present in the Big Blue (+ some extra's which are not my priority for the moment) so we have a 5% completeness.

I was able to get some very nice stamps, nice for several reasons : design, cancelation,...

For the moment this was my most expensive acquisition : (about 7€)

This is my preferred belgian stamp for the moment, look at that nice cancelation :

King Albert Red cross with SOTN cancel from Le Havre in 1915

The better news even is that I get help these days to fill Big Blue.

Remember when I wrote at the start of the blog that maybe (one of) my kids might get interested in it?

Well my oldest son, begged me to learn how to put hinges on stamps so I let him experience with some damaged stamps.

Then he added some stamps with hinges on printed album pages related to the famous Machin and Marianne stamps.

But he kept on telling me he could help me with Big Blue.

So finally I let him try and this week alone he added about 350 stamps in my Big Blue. (he had easter holiday)

The kid's only 9 years young, he should be playing soccer or basketball in the garden, not putting stamps in Big Blue.

Well this will pass the coming years when he discovers other things typical for teenagers but at least he will have had a good taste of (old) stamps, hinges, Big Blue so that when he gets settled he will be able to continue the daunting task of completing the Scott International Volume 1.

Because even if we reach the number of 2.250 stamps at the end of the year (in January 2018 I was hoping for having 2000 stamps on december 31st, 2018) we will need tens of years of completing the album.

I suppose I'll never see that day.

For those able and willing to help me I finally came around in making a mancolist for the U.S.A. and Canada.

They will be posted on respective pages or in separate posts soon, just have to check how it will be the easiest way to publicize these.

Hopefully I'll be able to realize other mancolists as well the coming weeks, months.

Oh and that 5Kreuzer Austria stamp I never found? Well that's been rectified, and he has found some peace in my Big Blue too.