Big Blue 1840-1940: February 2017

1933 Scott 381 400r green

"Republic Figure, Flags of Brazil and Argentina"

Bud's Big Blue
Bud's Observations

Many years ago specialization in Brazil looked attractive to me -- a youthful infatuation. So I look at my current Brazil collection with bitter-sweet, first-love nostalgia. Some of these stamps seduced me into becoming a collector. Back then, the early and mysterious lathe-work issues lay far beyond my reach, as well as the other Brazil betters. BB, compassionately, left out the expensive ones, except for a few. So I contented myself with lesser Brazils, hoping someday to….

Among the lesser I found the Série Vovó (1920-1941) -- allegorical and complicated, yet inexpensive -- and I resolved in a moment of folly to sort them out. The results, marked with yellow labels, spread throughout the following pages. It took years to find and identify them all. Even so, the set is probably incomplete. I don’t know, don’t care anymore. It addled me.

Further, the effect of studying Série Vovó on my romance with Brazil’s stamps was devastating. I hardly glanced at them again. Eventually, I don’t recall when, a few of the lathe-works and other betters found their way into my BB. “Someday” came and went without bestirring old feelings. Love had died. Worse, I developed distaste for perf counts, shades, watermarks, minor design variations and, most of all, fly-specks. I’m the poorer for it.

Yet occasionally the old sentiments still flutter. What if my early passions had persisted? Would I have loved the semi-official airmails? the history? the many philatelic allegories? Perhaps. One allegory of the Republic, a charmer, says “tudo nos una nada nos separa” -- all unites us, nothing separates us (see above). Quite sweet. But it’s for another lover, not me. Argentina’s tell-tail flag caresses her shoulder.

Census: 274 in BB spaces, 15 tip-ins, 115 on supplement pages plus 120 on watermark detection pages.

Technical Note

I’m finding, thanks to magnified scans, several damaged stamps that I didn’t notice before. They’re being marked for later replacement. Seventeen were found among the Brazils.

Jim's Observations
Like Bud, I have a similar story with Brazil. You will note below three! linked blog posts on Brazil. They reflect my own journey with the 1920-41 definitives. The reality is that the many Brazil watermarks are difficult indeed to determine. I first tried to see what I could do by parsing out color as a determinant factor, ignoring the watermarks. That path was a failure. I then tackled the watermark challenge head on- involving a month of watermark study and many hundreds of stamps. Ultimately, that results were more pleasing to me. I found out something about myself also. I tend to be a splitter by inclination - and actually, love to parse issues (within reason)! But that had consequences. I could no longer stay within the boundaries of Big Blue, and adopted the Steiner pages (Deep Blue) for my country collections.

Brazil Blog Post and Checklist
Brazil Definitives 1920-41
Brazil Wmking 1918-41

Page 1 (Note: For examination, click and enlarge.)