CLASSIC LATIN AMERICA

News, commentary and opinion on Central and South American philately

Publications

The Collector | Peter Bamert | Mexico

Mexico National Express Co
National Express cover from 1895 with wonderful handwritten ‘Mexico’

Peter Bamert is the editor of the ‘Postal Stationery of Mexico’, a comprehensive work that catalogues Mexico’s envelopes, postal cards, wrappers and more.

CLA How did you get interested in collecting postal stationery?

PB As a boy I began collecting stamps of the whole world. Then I started a topical collection about reptiles. One day I found a Mexican cover of the National Express with the Mexican coat-of-arms (an eagle with a snake).

From this moment I fell in love with Mexican postal stationery.

CLA What is the definition postal stationery?

PB The FIP commission defines postal stationery as “comprising postal matter which either bears an officially authorized pre-printed stamp or device or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related service has been prepaid”.

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

PB Starting a collection is easy. Most Mexican postal stationery envelopes, cards, etc. are readily available on the market. However, finding the more advanced missing items gets more difficult. Only patience and the tireless searching of dealer’s boxes, the internet and auctions helps to bring the collection forward.

Wells Fargo Mexico Cover
An 1872 Wells, Fargo cover from La Paz to San Francisco with special handling ‘express’ label

CLA Tell us about some of your favorite items.

PB Firstly, a 30 cents US Wells, Fargo and Co envelope (4th Nesbitt issue) with the pre-printed sub-heading of “Paid over our Mexican Coast and California Express – $1.05”.

Jas Viosca, the agent for Wells Fargo at La Paz, sent this envelope on January 14th 1872. It went via the ship New Bern to Gaxiola & Andrade, General Commission Merchants, in San Francisco. The  red express label with the manuscript “La Paz S.C. Mexico” denotes special handling by a Wells Fargo messenger.

Secondly, a cover of the National Express Company which was operating in the 1890’s along the Ferrocaril National RR route (see image at top). Nothing rare but with beautiful handwriting and a nice company frank.

CLA What inspired you to write a book?

PB When I started collecting the postal stationery of Mexico, the MEPSI catalogue was the best reference available. However, it did not list the express companies and other categories of postal stationery.

As time went by, more and more unlisted items appeared. Therefore, in about 1995, I decided to update the MEPSI and Higgins & Gage catalogues. It took me some twenty-three years to complete my oeuvre.

1895 Wells Fargo ‘Mulitas’ cover to Germany

CLA What information does your book contain?

PB This is primarily a catalogue of all Mexican postal stationery known, up until 2017. However, it is very detailed and contains many intricacies which makes it more of a handbook than a catalogue alone.

For example, it contains all express companies which are listed in detail.

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

PB Start with a basic collection of the area of interest. Then:

  • look out for literature (not just catalogues!)
  • join a club with people who share your field of interest (in Switzerland, for instance, the Schweizerischer Ganzsachensammler Verein or SGSSV)
  • start exhibiting early! This brings you new friends and much good advice

CLA Do you have other stamp collecting interests?

PB Yes, I collect postal stationery from other South American countries (Peru, Bolivia and El Salvador). As a Swiss, I also collect private postal stationery of Swiss banks.

Additionally, I collect postal history of the Trans-Siberian railroad during the czarist period (c. 1895 – 1919); an extremely interesting topic with many railroad related  cancels and nice post cards.

‘Postal Stationery of Mexico’ is available for direct purchase from the United Postal Stationery Society website.

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:

  1. What price increases or decreases have occurred since I last bought my catalogue?
  2. 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.

New specialized Argentina catalogue published

GJ Specialized Argentina Catalogue
The GJ 2018/2019 catalogue is published in two volumes

It wasn’t so long ago that stamp catalogues contained a handful of grainy, black and white images to help identify an issue.

The new GJ Argentina Catalogue shows just how far things have come. Profusely illustrated in full colour on heavyweight, glossy paper, this A4 format catalogue brings the stamps to life and conveys a level of detail that hugely assists in identification.

The GJ Catalogue (or, to give it its full name, the GJ Catálogo Especializado de Sellos e Historia Postal de la República Argentina 2018-2019) is edited by the Argentinean dealers Guillermo Jalil and José Göttig.

It is a two-volume work. Volume 1 covers the early regional issues of Corrientes, Buenos Aires and Cordoba, followed by Confederation and then Republic issues through until 1999.

GJ Specialized Argentina Catalogue
The quantity and quality of full size, colour illustrations is impressive

The second volume picks up in 2000, carrying right through until October 2018. The remaining two thirds of Volume 2 cover the Officials, Government Departmental overprints, Telegraphs and the further reaches of the back of the book. Finally, we get a thorough review of postal stationery, a section on pre-philately and stagecoach mail.

Excellent coverage of varieties

Where it excels over previous works however, is in the depth of detail and inclusion of images of the varieties. The authors have gone to great lengths to accommodate a huge number of varieties that become so much easier to recognise when illustrated. The quality of the printing also allows for excellent reproduction of the images, such that shades and colour varieties become far more apparent.

To take but one example:

The Rivadavias section in Gibbons stretches to a commendable 48 issues and varieties. Scott provides a disappointing 19 variants whereas Michel lags behind with a must-do-better 13 issues. GJ takes it to a completely different level with 290 individually priced varieties with 123 of them illustrated in colour…

GJ Specialized Argentina Catalogue
A small selection of the Rivadavia varieties

The authors have sensibly adopted pricing in US dollars. The Argentinean peso plunged to a historic low against the dollar in 2018 and the comparative stability of the dollar should make life simpler for both dealer and collector.

It’s difficult to take issue with what should be an essential purchase for any existing or future collector of Argentina who aspires to go beyond the mainstream catalogues. Proof and colour trial listings would be very useful but as this is essentially a catalogue of issued stamps it is probably beyond scope.

An excellent addition to any philatelists book shelf and highly recommended.

For further information and pricing details, contact the publisher at info@philatino.com

Collect Brazil? You probably need this…

Brazil catalogue cross reference book

Pre-internet, collectors tended to be far more reliant  – dependent even – on the catalogue that was written in their own language. Buying and selling was limited to the relationships with dealers you knew, and the auctions you attended were those nearer to home.

I’m generalising but you get the picture.

Move on to the present and you can be buying or selling, from and to, anyone who is anywhere. The click of a mouse secures you a win on a bid from an auction on the other side of the globe.

If so, the odds are that they’ll not necessarily be using the same catalogue that you depend upon.

The four main catalogue publishers – Scott, Michel, Stanley Gibbons and Yvert & Tellier – all have have their own reference systems, none of which directly relates to the other. Throw in a regional specialized catalogue to the mix and the collector that wants to take advantage of the global market has a lot of cross-referencing on their hands.

Which is what makes this new handbook rather useful.

Cross referencing between Michel, RHM, Scott and Y&T

The author, Ulrich Schierz, has managed to convince four catalogue publishers to authorise the use of their numbering systems, so as to provide a cross-reference between either one.

Scott, Michel and Y&T numbers are printed alongside their corresponding RHM (the specialised Brazilian catalogue) counterpart to provide a quick and easy cross check.

Brazil catalogue cross reference example
A sample number comparison

There are no prices here, no values, no colours…just numbers. But that’s all you need. The presumption is that you’ll already have your own catalogue and will be taking whatever other information you want from there. The book covers issues from the ‘Bull’s Eyes’ up until 2015.

There is also a section that cross-references the watermark types that each catalogue uses. Officials are covered and there are a few pages devoted to the notoriously complex ‘Série Vovó’, issued between 1919 and 1941. Keijo Kortelainen has a very good overview of the catalogue differences of this series on his website www.stampcollectingblog.com.

The only omission is any reference to Stanley Gibbons. Whether they were never invited to the party or declined the invitation is unclear.

But overall, I would suggest that this is a ‘must’ for the acquisitive Brazil collector. Certainly makes those eBay and Delcampe searches much easier.

 

Footnote

The book is produced by ArGe Brasilien in German and can be obtained for €11.92 plus shipping directly from the publisher. ArGe Brasilien is a German/Brazilian philatelic society but with 30% of its members outside Germany and over 100 papers published.

SOFICH, so good

SOFICH Chile catalogue

I recently acquired a very nice collection of pre-1940 Chile that had been collected by SOFICH and cross-referenced by Scott. It clearly shows just how much room for expansion there is by collecting using this specialized work.

The SOFICH catalogue is published by the Chilean Philatelic Society (Sociedad Filatelica de Chile). It is a lavish, large, hardbound tome that takes collecting Chile to the next level. If you’ve been relying on Scott/SG/Michel/Yvert all these years, well, you’ve been missing out.

It really does open up your collecting options ten-fold with no end of varieties and shades not touched upon by the major publishers.

First published in 2000, the catalogue is now in its second edition, released in 2006. This is a substantial work, clocking in at 650 pages, weighing 2.5 kilos and is one of the most comprehensive single-country works available.

Chile SOFICH album page
A shade better than Scott, perhaps…?

The catalogue is broken down into three sections.

The first covers pre-philatelic marks before launching into a thorough breakdown of every issue since the first ‘Colons’ of 1853, including perf and shade varieties, watermarks, designer, engraver and printer details, errors, print runs and so on. The second part deals with the foreign postal agencies, the War in the Pacific issues, tax and telegraph stamps, aerogrammes and postal envelopes. The final part tackles souvenir sheets, FDC envelopes and adhesive labels.

Although pricing is in peso – and is now twelve years old – it is easy to spot where a particular shade or variety holds more value in relation to others in a series.

How does SOFICH compare with Scott, SG and Michel?

To give an idea of the depth over and above the ‘regular’ catalogues, here’s a sample comparison:

Issue Number of issues and varieties
Scott SG Michel SOFICH
1904 Columbus ‘Napoleon’ 6 7 6 31
1904 Telegraph Overprints 23 22 14 73
1910 Independence Cent. 15 15 15 75
1915-28 Presidents 25 27 27 234

 

The 1915-28 Presidents & Personalities set suddenly presents a completely new challenge. Better check those ‘duplicates…’

The Sociedad Filatelica de Chile have an aspiration to produce a new edition but for now, the 2006 is the final incarnation. They currently have stock and can be contacted at admin@sociedadfilatelica.cl

Part 20, Part 20, wherefore art thou Part 20…?

Stanley Gibbons Part 20 South America

It is now ten years since Stanley Gibbons printed the fourth and current edition of their ‘Part 20’ South America stamp catalogue. And the separate ‘Part 15’ that covers Central America was last published in 2007.

It looks like these are the final editions of these heavily referenced catalogues.

Stanley Gibbons business has gone through well- documented turmoil in recent years with a misguided focus on concentrating its efforts in selling ‘investment grade’ material to a small but wealthy group of spenders.

Combined with a ridiculous vision of attempting to beat eBay at its own game by spending (read “wasting”) over £10,000,000 on a technology platform that never delivered, the company has gone through an extensive period of mismanagement.

Is an updated catalogue still viable?

To produce new versions of the Latin American catalogues would need:

  1. Resource, both human and monetary
  2. Knowledge – an in-depth knowledge of Latin American philately
  3. Access to reliable prices from which to update the existing figures. And after ten plus years, a comprehensive review would be necessary

I discussed this with Hugh Jefferies, SG’s highly regarded catalogue editor during this month’s Stampex in London and although sympathetic, realistically there is no real prospect of a replacement pair of catalogues on the horizon. Gibbons needs to reconnect with its core base of British and Commonwealth collectors and focus efforts on those parts of the business that will clearly generate a profit.

Thankfully, it looks like it is now on that path.

But perhaps it’s no great deal.

Catalogue prices are always contentious, not least in Latin America where demand, supply and ‘value’ can frequently be out of synch with one another.

The core of the catalogue remains the data, the information that allows identification and catagorization. Sure, this can change as new information comes to light but on the whole, the listings data remains fairly stable. As for new issues (a.k.a wallpaper), well, that’s no great loss in my book.

The existing catalogues still imply comparative value, even if the pricing is somewhat questionable. Relying on them as a firm base for value though is steadily becoming outdated.

How long before existing users switch to other catalogues?

How long will dealers continue to use these prices as indicators of value? Five more years, ten more years? There becomes a point where the prices stated are too detached from reality to be used in day-to-day transactions.

Which is why I have a copy of the Scott Classic Specialized on hand which is updated on an annual basis and bears a closer resemblance to market prices. Just.

The irony, of course, is that in an age when actual selling prices, whether via eBay or auction houses, are freely available to all, catalogue prices become less and less important other than as approximations of value.

Price transparency has never been quite so, er, transparent as it is today.

Gibbons appears to have now sold through all copies of both these catalogues (they are not advertised on their website) so your only source is secondhand. I noticed that some chancer had put a copy up on eBay for £140 recently. Or you could try the example for sale at Abe Books at £309.

Perhaps those investors that SG was courting ought to start investing in their catalogues instead.