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.

We hit the 1000 stamp mark !

This past weekend I was able to add a bunch of hungarian stamps as well as a few austrians and one russian stamp.

That makes we crossed the first 1000 stamps mark !

As a matter of fact with the United States Pages and the pages of Poland (with courtesy of Jim Jackson) which permitted me to have complete Scott's International Volume 1 I had, before adding one stamp,   807 stamps present in my dear Big Blue.

Details of the collection go like this :
- 676 in the binder I bought (cfr my post of May 13th)
- 107 stamps of the United States of America
- 24 stamps of Poland

So since my acquisition of my Scott's International I added 200 stamps myself.

Many are still available to be added from various countries but as said before time is only available in small quantities.

With the festivities of Christmas and New Year's Eve coming up I won't have lots of time to work on my Scott's International collection the coming days.

Hopefully I'll be able to work an hour or so a few evenings in the weeks to come.

Mainly Austria talk and some other countries and not to forget Poland !

No no I haven't fled from Big Blue, but during summer time I left it aside, well stamps were getting in but I wasn't ranging them or verifying what I had or not.

So now with autumn passing away and winter settling in, I try to dedicate a part of my weekend (3 or 4 hours on two days) to Big Blue.

So it happened I had quite some stamps from Austria to look after.

I did a first run, thought I had them all verified, then stumbled upon a second cover with austrian stamps.

Then yesterday I discovered I had a binder with loose pages containing .... austrian stamps.

So here I go again.

Well for the moment I have been able to expand my austrian collection to 112 stamps or 15% of the 755 stamps.

And as nice addition while I was putting on the hinges and waiting for them to dry on my austrian stamps I added a few belgian stamps (now 40), my first 8 Newfoundland stamps !!, my first Egyptian stamp and one more for India (makes 12 in total).

So now  I have 946 stamps in Big Blue, there might be a few hunderd ready in my feeder stockbooks but that's to be seen in the future.

Oh 946 stamps makes it 3 % complete.

I even had time to have a quick glance on the hungarian stamps I have waiting, will try to put hinges on them the coming evenings I hope.

Let's have a realistic goal : 1.000 stamps hinged in Big Blue for December 31st, 2017?

Anyway it takes quite some time to verify which stamp goes where on which page and then to put on the hinges and put them in the album so that might be tight after all.

And so what about Poland?

Well acquiring a Big Blue via the net may be interesting and the easiest way for europeans but you're unable to verify its completeness. The seller had told me that the american pages were missing but when I wanted to have a quick look (for 3, 4 stamps) on the polish pages they were not there.

That also explained the 0 in the excell sheet ;-)

Luckily Jim Jackson came forward and sent me the pages related to Poland.

Thanks so much Jim !!

To end my post : I have quite some austrian stamps double for the moment, will try to set up a page for eventual swaps if anyone's interested or cares;-)