A is for Aden and Z is for Zanzabar


A is for Aden and Z is for Zanzibar... Now what is between? For the world wide classical era philatelist and stamp collector, a country specific philatelic survey is offered by the blog author, Jim Jackson, with two albums: Big Blue, aka Scott International Part 1 (checklists available), and Deep Blue, aka William Steiner's Stamp Album Web PDF pages. In addition, "Bud" offers commentary and a look at his completely filled Big Blue. Interested? So into the Blues...

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Colombia - Bud's Big Blue

Colombia Earlies
Bud's Big Blue
Bud's Observations
When its first adhesive stamps were issued, Colombia was known as The United States of Granada (rhymes with armada and Nevada, to be distinguished from Grenada which rhymes with cicada).   I didn’t have any of these earlies when these scans were made, but later found one (shown above in the middle of other newfounds). The placename Grenada pops up often enough in Central and South America, perhaps owing to explorers coming from the Spanish region of Andalusia, the location of medieval and present day Granada.

Political and economic turmoil ooze from Columbia’s stamps and serious collectors benefit from insights into these underlying instabilities, there being too many to list here. Specialists have long sought to sort through the philatelic rubble of sovereign states issues, consular overprints, local posts, private carriers, fakes, provisional issues, civil wars and revolts -- Panama’s independence providing one of many philatelic disarrays.

Much work remains, and generalist collectors can help. Items of uncommon historical interest sometimes turn up in feeder albums. Sadly, I see none in the following scans. Tell me if you spot any.

Census: 208 in BB spaces, 26tip-ins, 120 on supplement pages, six in header.

Jim's Observations
Many of the early Colombians through 1904 were issued in multiple perforation formats: imperforated, sewing machine perforation, and regular perforation. In fact Scott often, but not always, recognizes the Imperf variety as the major number; relegating the perforated and/or "sewing machine perf" to a minor number. 

With over 200 stamp spaces in Big Blue, one can hardly argue that the coverage is meager. But Big Blue ignores whole categories of stamps that any collector with a passing interest in Colombia should have. The most egregious absence are the Colombian States, which was dropped by the '69 editors.

Colombia Blog Post and Checklist

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Supplements
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2 comments:

  1. Reharding the Colombian States being cut from the 1969 edition, they are also missing from the 1964 edition.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the information.

      The importance of the '69 edition is either it was a recipient of cuts done by earlier editions, or the cuts were applied first in the '69. Then, since the '69, very little has changed content wise (less than 1% change) in subsequent editions.

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