Kiloware: Always Euro-Centric?

Kiloware, its something that drives all of us stamp collectors mad. But what is it about always being Euro-centric that is giving me issues? The fact is, that in recent kiloware items I have bought, the results have weighed heavily on the Europe side. From England to Hungary, from Spain to Romania to Ireland and Poland, these stamps have been plagued my batches ever since I've bought them.

I don't have any problems if the items are different or have light duplications. What I do have an issue is those small Romanian stamps that are there by dozens, a huge block (!) of polish stamps stuck together in what can be called a dealers packet and obviously the machin heads that always appear in large quantities. Some, note that some, of these stamps are unique and I'm OK with that. Really, I am. But when they appear in the 20's or 30's then I realize that this isn't quite unique anymore.

Where do all this European stamps come from? With the research that I've done, comes to the conclusion that there is a huge glut of Eastern bloc stamps since the fall of the Soviet bloc in 1991. Since then, these CTO's have flooded the market making real, recent issues from these countries harder to come by. Poland and Romania are certainly plagued by this issue. What could be the case for these countries is the fact that dealers and buyers bought of large quantities to make a fast buck, unloaded as much of it as they can, but are stuck with extreme amounts of them left. So they sell them in bulk to quickly reduce inventory, making dealers use them to flesh out kiloware packets. But again, these are my theories. The end result is that Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and sometimes Hungary are the ones that show up more. Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and other's I'm certainly forgetting show up less from this bloc.

But its not just the Eastern Bloc that has this issue. England, Spain and Ireland can be accused of this as well. Franco stamps from Spain, especially the orange head one, are the bane of Spanish stamp collectors. While the other colours are frequently found as well, it seems the orange one is the most replicating one found. A bag of kiloware is certainly to have a minimum of 10 Franco heads with 5 of them being the orange one.

England and it Machin heads are another case. They have, on one hand been released with a large amount of values and I have to say its quite exciting to find values you don't have, but this dies down the instant you pull your 20th Machin head of the same value, in my case I have found the 16p (forget the colour) no more than 15 times in one batch that I pulled. Ireland also has the same case as with England. Its series however shows up less frequently and as a result, I get more Irish stamps that I never had before.

On the other hand, other areas appear less and less as a result of large amounts of Europe. I have so far found a grand total of 1 stamp from Uzbekistan from a Kiloware bundle for Central Asia that wasn't including Mongolia. China, Taiwan and Japan appear somewhat regularly as does Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, India and Pakistan but these are not in the majority and combined hardly number more than 30. Other places like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Burma, East Timor, Kuwait, Libya, Uganda and others appear infrequent or not at all. Its really a sad day at kilowaring when you can only find Europe and North America.

Of course, I'm not trying to say "STOP BUYING KILOWARE", nope that isn't me, but I believe its time to walk up to your stamp dealer or wholesaler and ask them directly "Give me Kiloware, with more Asia, Africa, Oceania, Middle East, Central Asia then Europe or North America". Only though our talks with these dealers can we find a balance to this mixture.

No pictures for today, I'm not at home so obviously no scans. Tomorrow I'll continue the area overview with Asia.

Central Asia: The Homelands

Regions of Stamp Collecting: Part 2 Central Asia

This area has to be one of my favorite areas ever. As a history student, I love Central Asian history and I cannot get enough of it. The fact that I imagine nomadic hordes sweeping down and waging a war again civilized empires to be exciting. But enough of that, this blog is for stamps.

Central Asia, as outlined about consists of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. Historical countries include just Tannu Touva. Since most of these countries were given independence in 1991, they have had a few stamps out. Mostly since they are new, other collectors tend to shy away from this area. None the less, collecting this area comes with its own risks. For One, there are not a lot of brick and mortar stores selling this area because of either the rarity involved or because of a more darker reason.

Since independence, these areas have been the target of forgeries. There are countless forgeries of various Central Asian stamps featuring a wide area of topics from Disney cartoons to Dinosaurs to famous people. For this reason, it has badly impacted this area and has made people shy away. Also in this mix is a number of CTO's produced by Mongolia on topics which it has no connection to it.

In any case, if you know what you're getting and can be smart about it, there is no reason why this area is going to be difficult. My wish is to have more and more of this area show up in kiloware deals and the like which is current not happening.

Since I don't have my excel sheet I can't give counts for this reason, but I know for sure the largest count for this region is Mongolia and Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan being the lowest. This is a great region and I invite anybody who can to collect it.

Next time, we're heading for the mysterious continent that is Africa!

Kyrgyzstan:

Turkmenistan:



Tajikistan:

Uzbekistan:

Kazakhstan:

Middle East: The Main Center

Regions of Stamp Collecting: Part 1 The Middle East

This is the start of a new topic describing the regions which I have divided my stamp collection and what they have in store for the Stamp Collector. We'll start off with one of my favourite areas, the Middle East. My collection features both new, existing and non-existing countries. Lets start off with the region description and the countries involved.


First off as you can see from the picture, this includes Turkey, because lets face it, Turkey isn't European by a long shot. It also features Afghanistan in it because historically it has been equally involved with both India and Persia. I have added it because in my view its culture resembles more of a Persian background than an Indian one. These are mine-fields to those who don't wish these countries to be included in this region, but tough luck, its my region settings.

Anyway, it includes: Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain, U.A.E, Jordan, Israel (haha, not a black spot), Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Kuwait. As well as these former countries: Aden, United Arab Republic and Yemen Arab Republic.

There are some countries which do not count because they have issued stamps only for collectors. I call poppy cock on that, because they clearly exist and while finding them used is hard as finding a needle in a haystack, they have been used for postal mail so therefore they do exist. Don't expect to find these in a Scott's stamp catalogue though, they have decided not to list them, which I declare is their own foolishness. These countries are: Ajman, Dubai, Fujeira, Manama, Ras Al Khaima, Sharjah, Umm Al Qiwan, Quaiti State of Shihr and Mukalla and Kathiri State of Seiyun. The total number of countries in this region is about 27. If I am missing any, please kindly comment below and let me know.

The number of stamps in my collection for this region is 1036, with Turkey leading the way at 405. Then comes Afghanistan with 151 and then Saudi Arabia with a measly 64. I'd personally like to get higher numbers of countries in this region, but sadly kiloware isn't geared up to this, which is another topic I will get to in the future.

This area is highly collectible, with some notable stamps which I will showcase below. It is also highly collection because of the political reasons and thus many stamps are geared towards this event. It is sad that Scott's Stamp Catalogue has not accepted the stamps of these "sand dune" countries as they like to call them, I say a pox on them if they can sideline still existing countries even though they are in the UAE.

Next time, I'll focus on Central Asia and we'll go through each region as we continue this journey in blog form. Till then, happy stamp collecting!

This one is from Saudi Arabia:


Iraq:


Iran:


Aden:

The Daily Stamp News:

This is the start of my blog. It is about my collection, general topics of interest regarding the collecting and expanding of the collection and posts of buying, selling, kiloware and all sorts of things including why they aren't more countries from Asia or anywhere else except Europe in kiloware? To start off, a description of my collection.

I have exactly 34 stockbooks worth of stamps having recently acquired 5 more stockbooks for the recent kiloware I have purchased. They are divided by region, namely Europe, North America, South America, Central America, Middle East, Central Asia, Asia, Africa and Oceania. The largest of these as you can imagine is Europe with 11 Stockbooks to its name, The Americas (North, South, Central) with 9, Asia with 5, Africa with 4, Middle East/Central Asia with 3 and last but not least Oceania with 2.

As you can see here, this is the unsorted parts that I'll have to work on. I already see a large amount of Europe in there, which I'm hoping won't be the case. Other than that, I have a large number of stamps on paper which I will have to soak and remove as well as a recently sorted bag of Kiloware that I have to put into stockbooks. All this work....

Besides the physical sorting, there are also counts and various mathematical equations that I am in the process of making so that I have a very accurate count of the countries I have and the regional breakdowns as well.

So far, I have a ton of work. But I'll get through it, hopefully, without all my time being taken up...That's all for now, keep in touch for the next post hopefully on Kiloware if nothing else is important.

However, I do have a request before I leave. If you have stamps lying around the house, a collection you don't want or mail coming into your house with stamps, then let me know and ring (or email, text, IM, PM, whatever) me up. As a collector I'm duty bound to announce this message.