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.