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...

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Belgium - Bud's Big Blue

Belgium Mustache
Bud's Big Blue
Bud's Observations
I think Hercule Poirot’s cousins all worked in the post office. Otherwise, how can  you account for the frequent place/date cancels, some as neat as the famous Belgian detective’s mustache? Well, maybe not. But I like on-line visits to Belgian towns, and speculating about what happened there on the day of the cancel. A complete 16 line cancel from Namur is on supplement page 2, something of a rarity.

Belgian regular stamps tend to be rather drab, enlivened somewhat by the 1893-1913 detachable labels (dominical labels) which, if they were included on an envelope, no Sunday delivery would be attempted by the post office. This presumably kept church-goers happy. But since it’s devilishly hard to find covers with the stamp and label intact, I suspect most folks sinfully ripped them off. BB, being pious, insists on label-attached stamps.

Semi-postals from Belgium, however, and their railway stamps are stunning.  Included in the supplement pages are promotional materials for some of the semi-postals (page  4) and railway receipts for parcels with stamps attached (page 6, 7).

Census: 549 in BB spaces, 99 tipped-in, 179 on supplement pages.

Jim's Observations
Overall, I rate Big Blue's coverage of Belgium "good". But BB has an annoying trait of dropping a series too early with cheap stamps on the table. This was especially noticeable with the Parcel Post (Railroad) stamps. Also, Belgium's surcharged stamps seem to have a harder time making it into Big Blue. ( I've noticed this "surcharge shortage" with other countries too.)

Belgium Blog Post and Checklist

Page 1 (Click on page to enlarge for examination.)

1a

1b

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Page 2

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Page 3

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Page 4

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Supplements
Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11


Comments appreciated!

6 comments:

  1. Since the scans were made I've added 16 stamps including three souvenir sheets, straightened up the semi-postal section, and transferred some of the tip-ins to the supplement pages.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bud is it possible that your 83 Scott is in fact a Scott 62?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really appreciate your calling this to my attention and will make the neccesary changes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I found yet another placement error. On Belgium page 1, row 2, #52 is in the space where #45 should be. The change has been made.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Too bad, the "Epaulettes" are missing...

    ReplyDelete