CLASSIC LATIN AMERICA | News, commentary and opinion on Central and South American philately

The Collector | Eric Stovner | Mexico

The 10 pesos top value of Mexico's Mail Transportation issue — The 10 pesos top value of Mexico’s Mail Transportation issue, also known as the Mulitas

Eric Stovner is a collector of Mexico, specialising in the ‘Mulitas’ issue of 1895-99.

CLA How did you first begin to collect stamps?

ES My grandmother and great-grandmother gave me stamps when I was very young. My mom encouraged me early on, obtained covers for me and I found opportunities to meet with other collectors.

CLA What got you interested in collecting Mexico?

ES I was inspired by reading Dale Pulver’s monthly column on collecting Mexico that ran in Linn’s Stamp News. After purchasing a starter collection, I joined MEPSI (Mexico Elmhurst Philatelic Society International) and was fortunate to attend Chapter One meetings and learn from mentors.

CLA Why is Mexico an interesting area to collect?

ES Mexico stamps are steeped in history. The early stamps were overprinted with postal district names, in order to deter the theft of stamps transported from the printing office to the districts. Cancels on these and subsequent issues have been thoroughly researched and published; I enjoy collecting the town cancels.

Mexico has older and modern rarities, many of which are at reasonable cost. And the MEPSI meetings in Mexico are fantastic!

Complete set of the basic 'Mulitas' issue, showing estimated numbers sold — Complete set of the basic ‘Mulitas’ issue, showing estimated numbers sold

CLA What are your key areas of interest?

ES The Mulitas issue of 1895-1899. Also known as the Mail Transportation issue, the mulitas are the little mules that are illustrated on some of the stamps. I also collect used Mexico and slogan cancel covers.

CLA What have been the main challenges in building your collection?

ES Time. Exhibiting helped force me to learn even more. Another challenge is locating research for specifics on certain mailing rates other than first class and the exact dates when changes occurred.

CLA Tell us about some of your favourite items in the collection.

ES I have a Wells Fargo Express envelope which was carried about eighty miles between small mountain towns in 1897 via stagecoach. The cover states “Urgente – Cerveza y hielo!” (“Urgent – beer and ice!”), directly indicating an important (!) reason that the express services were used.

I also have an Hidalgo Express envelope sent on the first day of use on April 2nd 1895.

Lastly, one of my favourites is a three centavos postal card sent in 1896 to a Colin Gordon at Horny Old Lodge in West Malvern England. It has an interesting message from a tourist describing a lion skin being sent by the day’s parcel post, along with a small tarantula…and “apologies for the small size, but it was hard to catch”…!

“Urgent – beer and ice!” 1897 Wells Fargo stagecoach cover — “Urgent – beer and ice!”. A 1897 Wells Fargo stagecoach cover

CLA If you could add one item to your collection, what would it be?

ES Mexico Scott 278A, five peso with RM Eagle watermark. Why? It’s considered the essential item to have if exhibiting the Mulitas. Difficult to obtain and was last seen at auction in 1999. There are only eight copies known, one with a questionable watermark due to differing expert opinions.

CLA Do you have other (stamp) collecting interests?

ES Yes, worldwide classic (1840-1940) used and I am also interested in forgeries.

CLA What advice do you have for a new collector considering starting a Mexico collection?

ES Join MEPSI and, if possible, attend their meetings and presentations. Get mentorship from experienced Mexico collectors. Get Nick Follansbee’s Catalog. Read Dale Pulver’s book, “Introduction to the Stamps of Mexico”. Enjoy!

You can find out more about collecting Mexican stamps by joining MEPSI at www.mepsi.org

Do you have a collection of Latin America that you would like to share with readers? Drop me a mail at nick@classiclatinamerica.com with your details.

Original ABNC steel plates come to market

So you’ve acquired a nice selection of plate proofs and a few die proofs to enhance your collection. Now how about an original steel plate as the cherry on the cake?

Over one thousand of the American Bank Note Company original, engraved printing plates have recently come to market, offering an unusual opportunity to own the unique plate from which your chosen stamp originated.

And many of these plates are from Latin America.

Most of the plates date from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century and contain many engraved images that will be familiar to Latin America collectors.

Frames, vignettes, intermediate and experimental plates are all represented, along with the finished engravings for both post and revenue stamps.

The original archive was purchased in 2005 and it appears there have been some subsequent small sales since but this holding represents the bulk of the collection.

Additionally, there are plates from a few of the other countries where ABNC made sales, together with a number of US fiscals and cinderellas.

Interestingly, there are also a number of Seebeck issues amongst the collection of plates, with the printing work being undertaken by the Hamilton Bank Note Company.

Every one of the twenty republics is included in the sale; there wasn’t a single country in Latin America that ABNC had not got onto its order books in some form or other.

The collection is being marketed by numismatic dealers David Lawrence and you can view or make purchases through their website at www.davidlawrence.com. There is also an auction planned later this month for a few of the plates but most are being sold at $1500 a piece.

Quite how best to display (mount?!) your new treasure? That, I’m not too sure.

A few more images below to whet the appetite…

Latin American Philately Zooms Forward

The COVID crisis is challenging the status quo in so many aspects of our lives: some for better, some for worse, many unknown.

Stamp collecting, though, has received an unprecedented boost and has been firmly propelled into the digital age (apologies, it now appears compulsory to use the word ‘unprecedented’ at least once in every article these days…).

As for Latin American philately…well, it has been given an extraordinary fillip recently with the introduction of the recently established Mi Oficina (My Office) Philatelic Society.

Every evening, a group of collectors, congregate around their screens to listen to a series of presentations on a diverse range of philatelic subjects.

All without charge, all hosted on Zoom and all of an exceptionally high standard.

Perhaps similar to the sort of presentations you might expect to hear at the Collector’s Club or the Royal Philatelic…except these are happening every night.

And it’s very popular, with over seventy participants attending a typical presentation.

Over 100 presentations to enjoy

Around forty presentations have already been given, including subjects such as Ecuadorian forgeries, early Chilean fiscals, Peru’s 1862 One Dinero, Honduran philately, the Escuditos of Uruguay, Mexican Postal districts…and much, much more.

A further sixty plus future presentations have been booked every night until mid-August with a number of dates booked out up until October. An incredible achievement by the organisers, Alfonso Molina and Henry Marquez, now with the backing of the Inter-Americana Philatelic Federation.

Whatever your interest in Latin American philately, you are sure to find something here that you will not want to miss.

Online forums have been with us for a number of years now but it seems philately is finally embracing the tools that allow collectors to talk, share and discuss without the constraints of a physical presence. This, in turn, increases our international ‘connectedness’ and gives greater exposure to the hobby.

Mi Oficina Philatelic Society You Tube — A selection of previous presentations, available to view on YouTube

Guidance for non-Spanish speakers

A couple of important points to bear in mind:

Firstly, the majority of the presentations are in Spanish only. Not all, but most.

Secondly, depending on where you are in the world, the live sessions may not be timed conveniently for you. All presentations commence at -5 GMT.

However, the presentations are all available on YouTube to be watched at your leisure and can be accessed via the Mi Oficina homepage.

And, if you want to follow along in English (or any other language), the YouTube subtitle feature does a reasonable job of translating the narrative.

Step 1. Choose the presentation you want to watch.

Step 2. Switch on subtitles. This is the first icon at the bottom left of the screen

Step 3. Change language to English or your preferred language. Click on the Settings icon, and navigate to Subtitles and then to Auto Translate where you can pick the language of your choice.

As I mentioned, there is a packed programme of presentations over the next few months with new topics being added on a frequent basis. You can view the full list here or by visiting the FIAF website.

The list of future presentations is in Spanish but viewing the links via Google Chrome will enable an easy translation.

If you’d like to know more or are interested in sharing your own knowledge, you can contact the organisers directly at mioficinaphilatelicsociety@gmail.com.

$800,000+ Venezuela auction kicks off 2020

Venezuela 1859 1 Real blue, rejoined strip of nine. The largest known mint strip in private hands. Low estimate €7500

Auction trends in 2020 and a fabulous collection of Venezuela comes to market

Like so many industries around us, the philatelic auction business has gone into hibernation mode.

The inability for people to gather means the physical perusing of auction lots is not going to happen for a good while yet. Most of the major houses have postponed their spring sales until later in the year. Some of the revised dates look hugely ambitious to me.

I’m not convinced that the pandemic is going to rapidly disappear and things are going to get back to normal all that quickly…

And even when lockdowns are universally lifted, are – let us be honest – predominantly older men going to want to congregate en masse in the close confines of an auction environment?

Possibly not until a freely available vaccine gives one the confidence to mingle with impunity.

Online auctions take centre stage in 2020

Fortunately, we have the benefit of online bidding to fall back on and unless healthy cash balances and patient sellers allow it, I can see many of 2020’s auctions ending up being online only affairs.

Many houses had juicy inventories backed up for the now postponed London 2020 event and sellers will have been waiting patiently, so the pressure will be on from some to either go to market online only or pull their lots for another day, farther into the future.

With good descriptions and clear images, there is no reason why singles and sets shouldn’t do just as well as if the auction were still live.

Collections though, are going to demand more of the auction house.

Buying blind on a collection is always going to be a gamble. This then puts much more emphasis on photographs and spending the time to create many more images for album sales.

More work for the auction house but future sellers are going to be keen to align with auctioneers that can show off their collections in the best light over an internet connection.

Venezuela 1861 cover with 1 Real blue and Half Real orange affixed. One of only two covers of this bicolour franking recorded. Low estimate €3000.

High ticket Venezuela at Spink

Interestingly, Spink have bucked the trend by not postponing and have a phenomenal holding of Venezuela coming to market on 29th April (The “Lugano” Collection).

The last meaningful sale of Venezuela we’ve seen was the Brack auction of 2016. However, this ‘behind closed doors’ sale is solely focused on the 1859-62 first issue. It contains many of the key items of early Venezuelan philately and will need very deep pockets for the high ticket rarities.

Aggregated bid estimates come in at $800,000 plus – and that’s the low estimate. Star billing goes to the 1859 Medio Real Red Error of Colour, billed as ‘The Most Important Item of Venezuela Philately’ at a low estimate of €200,000.

An online only sale of early Venezuela that nets over one million dollars? Let’s see!

Venezuela 1861-62 Half Real orange, marginal block of eight. Low estimate of €2,500

Byerley and Moorhouse auctions postponed

Two important postponed sales to keep an eye on…

Firstly, Part II of the vast Bill Byerley collection of Nicaragua will be offered by Harmers on June 16th. Only eight weeks away so watch to see whether this doesn’t get another postponement.

Secondly, the third part of the late Brian Moorhouse’s dealer stock is being auctioned by Corinphila; now delayed until early September. No doubt this will contain a smorgasbord of Latin American delights from across the continent.

In the meanwhile, as the world self-isolates and gorges on screen time, perhaps philately may be reinvigorated by a house bound, inquisitive audience with a newly found desire to engage with the world through those little bits of coloured paper.

The Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue: a review

The Alexandria ‘Blue Boy’ on the cover of the 2020 edition changed hands last year for $1,000,000 at H. R. Harmer

Once upon a time, Stanley Gibbons’ twin volume South America and Central America catalogues were my daily reference tools.

They are still powerful weapons in the Latin America collector’s armoury but for a number of years, the Scott Classic Specialized has been my ‘go to’ first port of call.

Gibbons hasn’t updated the aforementioned volumes for many years now (see this post on SG Part 20 )…and it doesn’t look like they will.

On the other hand, Scott has a continual programme of annual incremental updating.

Scott’s coverage of ‘on cover’ pricing is also a useful differentiator. It tends to be somewhat haphazard but, where applied, can help illustrate some of the significant premiums for ‘on cover’ examples, particularly the early issues.

Not that I’m suggesting you necessarily need to replace your copy every year (particularly if you only collect one or a handful of countries) but if you’ve not updated for a while, perhaps the start of a new decade is as good a time as any.

With this in mind, I thought I would compare how the recently issued 2020 edition stacks up against an earlier copy from five years ago.

How much changes from year to year?

Just how much has changed? Is it really worth shelling out $125 (plus shipping) when the cash could be put towards adding something interesting to your collection?

As prospective catalogue buyers, we are primarily interested in two categories of information:

What price increases or decreases have occurred since I last bought my catalogue?
What new information has been added to help me with my collection?

It would, of course, make that decision so much easier if it were clearly apparent what changes had occurred between the years. A subtle highlight, perhaps, to show where prices have changed or new data had been included?

Alas, it isn’t going to happen.

The bottom line is that the number of changes is relatively minimal in comparison to the overall number of listings. Updating catalogues is a manual process, gleaned from the efforts of contributing correspondents and a few thorough country reviews.

You’d need an army of researchers to properly review each edition. Even with new tools to hand such as Noble Spirit’s Stamp Market Index (see here), it still takes case by case decisions to commit to changes.

What does this mean for Latin America collectors?

I don’t have the patience to look at each country’s listing in minute detail but I have done a broad sweep, comparing 2015 with 2020 side by side.

With five years between them, how much has changed…?

These are some of the things I noticed:

In Argentina, a significant expansion of the 1864-67 Rivadavia listings; up from nineteen stamps and varieties to fifty entries, primarily being driven by paper types and shades.

In Chile there are now enlarged illustrations showing the differences in the 1894 Columbus types. New additions are found in the 1880-1913 ‘AR’ Postal Fiscals.

Similar to Chile, image enlargements are also spotted in a couple of examples for the Dominican Republic.

There are plenty more future opportunities to improve listings across the catalogue by visually illustrating the differences between types, rather than relying on a description.

In Colombian states, the values were extensively revised in 2019.

Something odd has happened to Haiti with a mass breakout of never-hinged pricing. Every stamp from Scott 1 onwards appears to now be priced for MNH as well as regular mint.

MNH prices now exist for every Haitian stamp to 1940.

Will we see this protocol copied across to other countries? Is it a beneficial development or does it just give the regummers an extra incentive?

Haiti is an inexpensive country to collect and there ain’t much to be make from uplifting a hinged 25c stamp to an unmounted 75c. But apply the same principles to Brazil or Mexico and the temptation will be there.

Venezuela has been shown a disproportionate but very welcome amount of attention in recent years with the inclusion of the 1900-1922 Postal Fiscals. Long since recognised in Gibbons, these sixty-seven new entries had kept many Scott users mystified for a long while.

In 2020, Venezuela has yet again been shown the love with over two pages of new additions dedicated to the Gobierno Nacional perforated officials. This bumps up the number of Venezuela entries by a further one hundred and fifty-six listings.

The GN perforations can be found upright, inverted or sideways

Worth checking any stocks you may have as some of these sets have been allocated significant values. For example, the 1937 Resellado overprint Air Post set comes in at $850 in mint condition.

It’s fair to say that the number of price changes, either up or down, is minimal across the board. A few tweaks and exceptions here or there but for all intents and purposes, values remain broadly static.

That isn’t to say that market prices remain static. The reality is that it is just not feasible to check, review and revise tens of thousands of price points every year without a large team of researchers or some form of dynamic updating. Or even every five years.

And bear in mind, of course, that I’ve only taken a cursory glance at twenty countries. There will certainly be some substantial changes to countries from other regions of the world.

The Scott Classic Specialized is a flawed catalogue. As is every other catalogue, from any other publisher that has come before it.

But despite any limitations it is the best of its kind, improves each year and is a perfect jumping off point from which to dig deeper.

For me, it’s an essential tool.

Introducing ELASCA – The European Latin American Stamp Collector Association

ELASCA website — Back copies of the ELASCA Bulletin are available from the website

Most Latin American countries have their own specialized society but what if your tastes are broader and you want to encompass the region as a whole?

Regional societies and journals have thrived in the past, notably The Mainsheet from the UK-based Spanish Main Society.

In the US, the Latin America Philatelic Society was active from the late ’90’s through to 2007, before it ran out of steam. It published The Latin American Post four times a year.

And prior to that, The Pan American Philatelist published a journal active for a four year period between 1954 and 1957.

These organisations are now long gone but in a quiet corner of The Netherlands, The European Latin American Stamp Collector Association (ELASCA) continues to fly the flag for the regional approach.

Jan de Ruiter is the co-founder of the organisation. He has a particular interest in ‘multada’ (postage due) and ‘ambulancia’ (travelling post office) items from Chile and this article illustrates a few of them.

CLA What is the story behind ELASCA? How did the organization start?

JDR The story begins in 1987. I became a member of a Dutch specialized stamp association for Latin America which was founded in 1964. The association did not have a regular bulletin (only five issues up until 1999) but it did hold meetings four times a year.

The association was unknown to the general public and led a quiet life. In 2000 the board asked me to become editor. With the help of other board members I produced one thin bulletin per year, then from 2001 it became two bulletins per year which became increasingly thicker.

In 2003 I initiated the website and became involved in the auction. Those too were a success. Apart from the role of treasurer and chairman, I fulfilled all executive functions.

In 2006 I was invited to become chairman and the number of members gradually increased from 60 to 101. However, there was a power struggle and I decided not to stand for re-election in 2012 and left the association.

ELASCA was then founded in March 2013 by 17 members, many of them from the old association.

Chile 1896 Postage Due — The images in this article contain favourite items from Jan’s own collection. Here, a row of high values from the 1896 postage due issue on straw paper

CLA Who are the people behind ELASCA?

JDR ELASCA was started by myself, Jan de Ruiter, with great help from my co founder Hugo van Tilburg from Belgium. Unfortunately Hugo passed away in 2015.

CLA What is the motivation for ELASCA? What does it hope to achieve?

JDR I like to write about philatelic topics and decided to start a blog after I said goodbye to the previous association. But a few philatelists from the old organisation challenged me to set up a new society in which I could work out all my ideas and offered me their support.

My goal was a new type of stamp association that embraced the changes in society by leveraging the internet. Meetings to exchange stamps are outdated in my view. Stamp associations are aging and numbers are falling because there is no longer an influx of new collectors. But that applies to almost all types of club, including political parties.

1894 letter from Santiago to Valparaiso, showing 10c due handstamp applied in Santiago and multada stamp applied on arrival in Valparaiso

CLA Tell us about the membership. What are the benefits?

JDR ELASCA has two types of membership: internet only members and full members. Full members receive a hard copy bulletin in either English or Dutch. Internet members receive the web based bulletin in English.

Dealers are welcome as members because they have a common interest with the association. A typical ELASCA member is computer literate, speaks English and wants to share their philatelic knowledge with others.

ELASCA also offers services to philatelists who are not members of the association. These include access to the free library, the free release of the bulletin after five years and our auctions.

We hold two auctions per year with a maximum of 110 lots, usually containing postal history and better stamps such as errors, proofs and specimens. There is always a minimum of one lot per auction for each country.

The ELASCA Bulletin is issued twice a year. It contains twenty-five A4 pages as standard and includes in-depth topics (examples of older bulletins are available in the free library).

ELASCA holds two meetings per year in Barneveld, in The Netherlands, coinciding with a well-attended stamp fair. We also organise meetings during major international stamp fairs.

CLA What challenges does ELASCA face? What do you think the future looks like?

JDR The viability of stamp societies is the biggest challenge. It is an extra challenge for ELASCA, because it is a young association without “legacy” members.

To counter this, we have developed contacts with fellow associations, e.g. the current Presidents of ELASCA and Arge Brasilien have been working closely together since 2005. In 2015 they had a joint stand during Europhilex in London and at Sindelfingen (Germany), the most important exhibition in Europe, both associations always share a stand.

1895 uprated postcard from Valparaiso to Santiago with 'multada' overprint — 1895 uprated postcard from Valparaiso to Santiago with ‘multada’ overprint

CLA Can you tell us something about your own interests? How did you become a collector?

JDR I have a Burgundian lifestyle (for those not familiar with the phrase, Google tells me that this translates to enjoyment of life, good food and an extravagant lifestyle, Ed. (!) ).

Travelling is my passion. My first major trip was in 1969 by train to Istanbul at the age of 17. That was quite an undertaking then. After that many trips followed to Turkey and other countries. From 1976 I traveled to Central and South America every other year, initially with my wife but later with the children also.

My son was fourteen months old when we traveled to Brazil for six weeks and my daughter ten months old when we first visited Cuba. In 2014 we traveled through Chile and Argentina (but not to places where it is cold!).

My grandmother gave me my first stamps at the age of four: stamps from the USA. Later, Dutch stamps were added and at the age of ten I expanded into Egypt and the stamps of Dutch and British colonies.

From the age of twenty-five I could call myself a philatelist. I collected the Netherlands with colonies plus Egypt and Brazil quite fanatically. The Netherlands and colonies later lapsed, when I discovered that I had bought counterfeit stamps and I stopped collecting Egypt because dealers could no longer deliver the new stamps.

But Chile and Cuba replaced them. Chile is currently my main collecting area. The travelling post offices (‘ambulancias’) are my passion.

Find out more about ELASCA at www.elasca.eu

The Collector | Eric Stovner | Mexico

Original ABNC steel plates come to market