Tripolitania - Bud's Big Blue

1923 Tripolitania in Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Observations

(From Jim: Bud is well, but has a lot of non philatelic obligations and responsibilities at the moment. With his permission, I will upload  country pages in his complete '69 Big Blue that so far has not been shown. He might add his observations later. Enjoy!)

Jim's Observations

Tripolitania, located in North Africa on the Mediterranean Sea, and including the important coastal city of Tripoli, is historically part of western Libya.

taly captured the Ottoman Tripolitania Vilayet (province) during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911. The sub-provinces (sanjaks)  at the time were Fezzan, Cyrenaica, and the city of Tripoli. Altogether, they made up what became known as Italian North Africa (1912-1927), then Italian Libya (1934).

WW I interrupted the occupation, and the Italians were left with Tripoli, Derna, and the coast of Cyrenaica. Control of the interior of Libya was tenuous at best until the mid-1920s to 1931.

The Italians sent colonists in large numbers to Tripolitania in order to better secure the country. By 1939, there were 60,000 Italians in Tripolitania, mostly in Tripoli.

The Capital was Tripoli, and the population was 570,000 in 1921.

Stamps of Italy were overprinted "Tripolitania" beginning on October 24, 1923. (Cyrenaica also had an overprint at the same time.)

Initially the Italian occupied areas were administered as a single colony, but Tripolitania became a separate colony on June 26, 1927.

Stamps were issued for Tripolitania until 1934.

The 2014 Scott Classic Specialized 1840-1940 catalogue has, for Tripolitania 1923-1934, 154 major descriptive numbers for the categories of regular (64), semi-postal (33), air post (43), air post semi-postal (10), air post semi-postal official (1), air post special delivery (2), and authorized delivery (1). Of those, 26 are CV <$1-$1+, or only 17%. Raising the bar to CV $5+, yields 91 total, or 59%.

Of interest, "unused" is almost always much less CV than "used" in the Scott catalogue. That would argue, in my view, that these issues were not really needed much by the colonies (they are much rarer genuinely used). Rather, these stamps were sold mainly to collectors.

BTW, "fake" cancels on "used" stamps are common.

Clearly, Tripolitania ( and Italian colonies in general) are moderately expensive to expensive for the general WW classical era collector who wishes a "representative" collection. And, if one is collecting with the Big Blue album, which has a very generous selection indeed for Tripolitania (and Italian colonies on general), the expense outlay rises further.

Big Blue '69, on seen pages, has 119 spaces for the stamps of Tripolitania. The categories covered include regular, semi-postal, air post, and air post semi-postal groupings. Total coverage is 77%.

The coverage is astonishingly high for a "representative" album, compounded by the fact that the CV for Tripolitania is often moderately expensive to expensive.

The spaces coverage in BB for Italian colonies in general is also high, as I have mentioned before. If one obtains BB feeder albums, one will note that the Italian colonies page sections are invariably quite empty. The challenge for a BB collector is the thousands of dollars in Italian colonies CV that would need to be acquired in order to "fill" a BB album. I think the over generous Italian colonies coverage in BB is a big stumbling block for anybody that would like to "fill" a BB album.  For myself, I know that I do not want to spend my entire stamp budget for several years on Italian colonies in order to complete those spaces in BB. And I can't help but feel that these issues did not, for the most part, serve a real postal need, but rather to milk the collector. 

There are twenty-two spaces that require a CV $10+ stamp, and one space that requires a CV $30+ stamp.

A not small number of the rest of the spaces require stamps in the ~ CV $4-$6 range. 

For more on Tripolitania, click on the link below.

Tripolitania Blog Post & BB Checklist

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Trinidad and Tobago - Bud's Big Blue

1913-1922 Trinidad and Tobago in Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Observations

(From Jim: Bud is well, but has a lot of non philatelic obligations and responsibilities at the moment. With his permission, I will upload  country pages in his complete '69 Big Blue that so far has not been shown. He might add his observations later. Enjoy!)

Jim's Observations

The 2014 Scott Classic Specialized 1840-1940 catalogue has, for Trinidad & Tobago 1913-1951, 108 major number descriptions. Of those, 63 are CV <$1- $1+, or 58%.

The Trinidad & Tobago stamp issues have three highlights for the WW classical era collector: the 1935-37 nine stamp pictorials, the 1938-41 fourteen stamp George VI fourteen pictorials, and the 1917 thirteen stamp "War Tax" category.

Big Blue '69, on 1 1/3rd page (shared with Trinidad), has 38 spaces for the 1913-1938 stamps of Trinidad & Tobago. Subtracting for the 23 stamps listed in the 2014 Scott Specialized catalogue for 1940-1951, leaves 85 major number descriptions. Coverage is then 45%.

There are no expensive stamps ($10+) in the '69 BB.

Unfortunately, the '69 editors removed 21 stamps spaces listed in the 1940s editions for war tax (12 spaces), postage due (4 spaces), semi-postal (2 spaces) , and official categories (3 spaces). CV for all the missing spaces is <$1-$7.

This is one of the more egregious examples of rough hacking or pruning in the '69.  Since all "modern" editions of BB follow the '69 editor layout, the butchered leftover pages have remained.

I will include the missing spaces in the checklist, for those that would like to "add back" the spaces.

For more on Trinidad and Tobago and the checklist, click on the link below.

Trinidad and Tobago Blog Post & BB Checklist

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Trinidad - Bud's Big Blue

 1878-84 Trinidad in Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Observations

(From Jim: Bud is well, but has a lot of non philatelic obligations and responsibilities at the moment. With his permission, I will upload  country pages in his complete '69 Big Blue that so far has not been shown. He might add his observations later. Enjoy!)

Jim's Observations

Trinidad is the larger and more populated of the "Trinidad and Tobago" grouping, seven miles off the coast of Venezuela. But they were separate independent British colonies in the beginning.

Trinidad received the name from Christopher Columbus ("La Isla de la Trinidad") during the third voyage of 1498.

The Spanish controlled the island through 1797, and the French also settled there from Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Dominica.

By the time the British took the island in 1797, the population  in Trinidad was 17,000+ ( 2,000+ whites, 1,000+ Amerindians, 10,000+ African slaves, and 1,000+ free people of color). 

Abolition of slavery was proclaimed in 1833, but the slaves were required to continue to work on the plantations  until 1840. 

Stamps were introduced in 1851, the seated "Britannia" design.

The two British colonies of Trinidad and Tobago were united from 1889 until 1899, when Tobago became a ward of the larger island.

From 1899 until 1913, stamps of Trinidad were used for both islands.

The last new Trinidad stamp was released in 1910.

Beginning in 1913, "Trinidad" stamps were superseded by those inscribed  "Trinidad and Tobago".

The 2014 Scott Classic Specialized 1840-1940 catalogue has, for Trinidad 1851-1910, 134 major number descriptions. Of those, 23 are CV <$1-$1+, or 17%. Raising the threshold to CV $7+ yields 45 total, or 34%. Clearly, Trinidad stamps tend to be a bit expensive for the WW collector.

The earlier 1851-1876 issues (58 major numbers), with three different "Britannia" designs, are a specialist's dream, consisting of various perfs, types of paper, and minor number shades.

They also are costly: from $tens to $hundreds to $thousands. 

The rest of Trinidad's issues, save for the 1893-94 Official issue, are less expensive for the collector to obtain.

Big Blue '69, on 2/3 of a page, shared with the beginning of the Trinidad and Tobago coverage, has 26 spaces. Coverage is 19%. 

Unfortunately, the '69 editors dropped the War Tax (12 spaces) and Semi-Postals (2 spaces) categories included with the BB 40s editions.

Surprisingly, the '69 has no expensive stamps ($10 threshold) required. This is mainly achieved by initiating coverage in 1876, hence avoiding the earlier expensive "Britannia" issues.

There are choices for BB spaces, based on wmk 2 vs wmk 3, for the 1901-08 issue and the 1885-1907 postage due issue.

For more on Trinidad, click on the link below.

Trinidad Blog Post & BB Checklist

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Transvaal - Bud's Big Blue

1885-95 Transvaal in Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Big Blue

Bud's Observations

(From Jim: Bud is well, but has a lot of non philatelic obligations and responsibilities at the moment. With his permission, I will upload  country pages in his complete '69 Big Blue that so far has not been shown. He might add his observations later. Enjoy!)

Jim's Observations

Transvaal (South African Republic), one of the Dutch speaking Boer states, was an independent country from 1852-1902. (The other independent country was the Orange Free State.)

But when gold fields were discovered in 1886, it significantly elevated British interest.

The Boers defeated the British in the First 1877-1881 Boer War, but surrendered to the British after the bloody 1899-1902 Second Boer War on May 31, 1902 with the Treaty of Vereeniging.

The British had declared by proclamation that the territory should be known as "The Transvaal" on September 1, 1900.

Suffice to say, through the prism of historical reading about the Boer wars and the era, that this was not the finest moment for mankind.

The turmoil is reflected in the stamps issues. The First Republic released stamps between 1869-1876. There are then "First British Occupation" issue stamps between 1877-1880. The Second Republic issued stamps between 1882-1896. The Second British Occupation stamps began in 1900. Finally, "Transvaal" proper Edward VII stamps were issued between 1902-1910.

The capital was Pretoria, and the population was 1,260,000 (297,000 white) in 1904.

The Union of South Africa was established in 1910.  Transvaal, existing now as a province, ceased their own stamp production.

The 2014 Scott Classic Specialized 1840-1940 catalogue has, for Transvaal 1869-1910, 293 major number descriptions. Of those, 50 are CV <$1-$1+, or only 17%.

Big Blue '69, on 1 1/2 pages, has 52 spaces. Coverage is 18%.

Fortunately, BB ignores the expensive 1869-1879 issues ( 117 major numbers), and begins coverage with the 1885-93 Second Republic issues.

There is only one "expensive" (CV $10) stamp required for the spaces.

I should mention that there are plenty of reprints and forgeries for Transvaal. For detail, click on the link below.

Transvaal Blog Post & BB Checklist

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