New additions to my stamp collection: Danzig, Newfoundland, Peru, Turn-und-Taxis and more .:. EN/RU

...and it was not easy to unpack! The seller probably was afraid of his mailing being opened on the way, searched and partly stripped of most valuable stamps - thus he minimized the risks. In any case, he made it much more difficult for a potential thief to access my stamps :) Inside the envelope there was another envelope glued tightly to the first one; inside the second envelope was a stack of business cards, glued with tape, and inside it had another last bundle of stamps. There were not many: as much as 18 pieces.

The Danzig stamps stick out especially temptingly from the envelope - not the most common varieties. The large blue stamp is a silent testimony to the Weimar Republic hyperinflation. The denomination of 20,000 Deutsch marks (!) was masked and overprinted with a new denomination of 100,000 Deutschmarks. (As you know, soon the stamps will receive price tags of millions and billions Deutchmarks...)

The stamp with the "Great Coat of Arms of Danzig" from 1921 is the most expensive here - uncancelled and in excellent condition, it cost me 3 USD - by my criteria, this is an expensive stamp, I prefer to buy stamps about ten times cheaper.

I started to get attracted to the genre of "stamp on stamp" - or rather, the variety of it that is dedicated to honoring the memory of the first issues of stamps of different countries. Of course, I prefer to buy the first stamps themselves (or the original issues next to them). But the whole problem is that they cost a lot of money, very rare, almost never surface on the market and near impossible to buy. Thus, this option is quite acceptable for those who want to look at the stamp and travel this time machine.

A stamp dedicated to the first German marks, next to these marks. (Not exactly those but rather similar Turn-und-Taxis postal issues of 1852 and 1865). A modern scrap of paper - uncancelled - cost me 6 rubles (less than 1 US cent). Whereas old scraps of paper, which are 165 years old, cost over 3 dollars each.

I've added another Queen Victoria stamp to my collection. And many, many King Georges are on their way to me. Someday I'll tell you more about what I think and how I feel of this stuff. For now, just a simple price comparison: 2-cent cancelled green George was 15 rubles, and an uncanceled old Victoria was 200 rubles (0.18 cents and 2.5 USD, accordingly).

Sultan Abdul Hamid II (Turkey) stamp, standard post issue of 1901. The only thing that a European can discern in this Turkish stamp is the text "2 piastres". I won't say that these are beautiful stamps, but the Turkish/Persian/Levant/Morocco/North African issues attract me, and I slowly buy them when I see a low price tag.

Peru, 1886 - standard postal issue, the lowest nominal of 'one centavo' (i.e. this stamp should not be rare). The seller put a price tag of 15 rubles (0.12 USD) - thus I did not pass by, clicked the "Buy" button almost immediately as I saw this lot - simply because it is a beautiful stamp. It is the second Latin American stamp in my collection (the first was Panama, which separated from Columbia, with its famous canal, and with the corresponding overprint. Also a very beautiful and memorable stamp).

Austria, 1916. These three stamps belong to a small series of charity stamps to benefit military. (Part of the money from stamps sales was obviously used - to go for war taxes, either to please wounded soldiers with sweets, or to produce more shells to make more wounded soldiers.) Perhaps these are not not the pinnacle of postage stamp art, but the engravings were made by the great artist Koloman Moser (if that name means anything to you), and I plan to find all the stamps from this series eventually, including the last one with the airplane - the ender of the series is, of course, the most expensive and rare.