Stamps - Hand Painted Die Proof Stamps

The drawing on the left side is actually some kind of proof which was drawn by the artist who design the stamp. This stage of process is one of the critical stage, because instead of producing the samples by using the standard printing machine, the artist is producing "the issued stamp" by using his skill. He put the water-coloured on the print, which has the size of the original stamp.

By using hand drawn painting on the stamps, the designer can give a better understanding of what the stamp will look like once it is printed in the actual colour by using the normal printing.

Unfortunately not all the designer of the stamps are using this method nowadays, because the cost of doing a digital printing is so cheap and most of the design of the stamps are now done by using computer or photography. The art of miniature drawing and colouring may not be much of a help nowadays, but in the old days; they are very valuable.

This type of proof is very scarce and difficult to find. Most of them are coming out from the French related country. Either they used to be their colonies or they have some sort of relation with France in the past. Quite a few of them are in Africa. The most common of this type of proof are coming from Congo, Mali, Niger, Central Africa Repulic, Camerous and a few small islands in the middle of nowhere....

I've got quite a few of this type of proof myself. The only problem is that you have to be very careful with how you keep them. Indonesia is definitely not a good place to keep this kind of proof simply because of the high humidity. Most of these proof will go bad within a year or two after they are exposed to the Indonesian air. That could be one of the reason as well on why it is so difficult to find the proof of stamp in Indonesia.

Back to the Blog...

My last posting was almost a year ago. I was quite busy last year with building up my first home made building in the world, which means also in Canada. This is something that I will never do or will not be able to do in Indonesia. It was a interesting project and took me almost the whole summer and early fall last year.

Early this year, I was busy with my online game... ha...ha...ha.... The on-line game is actually quite addicting. The one I was playing involve a war with other player. The only thing bad about this online game is that you can boost up your ability by using money. So that take care of most of the fun, because if you want to spend money, then you can be a champion on this game. No trick and no challenge, just plain spending to get to the top. I, on the other hand do not like to pay (you can call me cheap player), but my logic is if you are playing a game and you spend money to get to your position, then anybody can do it. There is no challenge in the game.

Also another good thing about the winter this year is that we don't have that many snow in Canada. So far my driveway does give me too much work. Until today, I have done only 2 session of shoveling and I did it only because I don't feel good to have snow and no shovelling. Today is my second shovelling day. We have about 3 cms of snow which has come down since last night. I could have just leave it alone....

Rare Items from Pos Indonesia

As a stamps collector, one of the thing that I am constantly searching for stamps or philatelic materials that are available in limited quantity.
Of all the philatelic material that are produced by the Pos Indonesia, the uncut sheets are one of the rarest item in the market. In the normal situation, the uncut sheets were not available to the general public because for some unknown reason, Pos Indonesia never sells this item.
However, in the recent year, they start to sell this uncut sheets. I don't have the information when exactly they start to sell this uncut item, but I expect it didn't start until very recently. That is for the "legal" items.

However, when we are talking about the "illegal items", you can get almost all kinds of uncut Indonesian souvenir sheets from the market. They are not cheap, but it is possible to get them. A full uncut souvenir sheet would cost a minimum between U$ 500 to U$ 2,000 per item. There are various level of uncut available in the market. An uncut pair is being the lowest in price and the highest would be the full sheets which consist sometimes up to 10 souvenir sheets.

Another item which I have not seen in the market is the proof, i.e.: the print proof, the minister proof, artist proof and all kind of proofs from the Indonesian stamps. They should exist, but apparently nobody has stolen them for sales. Like the uncut souvenir sheets, the only way a proof is available for the market is if somebody stealing them from the Pos Indonesian Archive. Strangely enough, you have seen some of the other philatelic materials, but not the "proof". Is it possible that they do not exist ? Knowing the work of Indonesian Officials, it is quite possible that these proofs do not exist.

Chit-Chat About General Things

I missed the election vote process. Did I regret it ? I am not sure what should be the answer. Maybe in some way I regret the fact that some lowlife will be using my vote to their own advantage and try to do something with it, but on the other hand, what do I care ?
I have seen so many bad things happened in Indonesia in the past. The situation is not likely to improve in the next 10 years and by then I will be too old to do anything meaningful.
The presidential election will be around 2 months away from now. Who will win ? It is very likely that we will have or elected the same person again, i.e.: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or more widely known as SBY. He is not bad, although I would say that in the last period of his reign, he did not do very much and most of the time under the influence of his VP. Enough talk about the politic...

I left Jakarta to Toronto about 3 weeks ago, just in time for the friendlier weather. Although as usual, I still have the chance "to eat the snow", but this time there was no shoveling..... (this activities really hurt my back lately, a sign of becoming too old ???). However, no shoveling means that there is something else to do. With the end of winter, spring in coming and summer to follow; which means that we have to a lot of maintenance and repair on the house. This year we are planning to fix or to be more exact to replace our roof. This is something that never been done in Indonesia. You buy a house including the roof and you don't replace the roof of your house unless the typhoon hit your house and take away your roof. Unfortunately, that is not the case in Canada. Every once in a while, you have to replace your roof (unless you have a metal roof for your house, which they say will last a life time) because apparently the shingles that they use for your roof do not last a life time. Some may last for 5 years, other may last for 15 years, but always there is a time limit. This time our house has reached it's limit on the roof....

Another project that I was planning to finish or to start, whichever is last; will be our tool-shed or garden shed. It was a long time plan, but there is always something to do before we can start our toolshed. However, this year; my resolution is to have the toolshed build and hopefully in good working condition. I've tried to recruit some help, but it is very likely that the person will not be able to help me because he is too busy. Without his help, I doubt it very much that I can do a proper job. I simply do not have the knowledge and the skill to build something so big (at least this is measured from my skill level)...

New stamps

Yippeee, my new stamps have arrived today. I've been waiting for this shipment for quite sometime. Some of the stamps are very difficult to get and I have to get it from a very specialized stamp dealer in Belgium.
One of the stamp that arrived today is the one on the left side. This one is part of the bigger group, but most of the time, this stamp is not included in the group. The main reason is because it was issued on separate occassion. The whole group was issued in 1949 which consist of a total 17 stamps. Later on another stamp was issued in the same pattern. This one was issued in 1949 as well, but at a later month.
However, the one on the left was not issued until 1952 and also at a much higher value as well. So most people or dealer when they are selling this group tend to "forget" about this particular stamp and just sell them as 17 stamps collection. The actual case in it should have been consisted of a total 19 stamps.

One of my problem with collection is the language limitation. I can only read English and unfortunately, if you want to have a good information, most of the time they are only available in their native origin.
So to get the best information about the German stamps, you should be able to read German, for French stamps then the language is French, etc.
Some of the basic term are understandable without having to learn the language, but the explanation are normally not easy to understand.

What do you need to become a stamp collector

I would say there are some basic rules which are applicable to any kind of collecting hobbies.
These are the basic rules that everybody should follow and abide.

Rule 1, you should have enough knowledge
To start anything without having the knowledge is very dangerous. The chances that you are making a mistake is very high. Regardless the kind of collection you are doing, you have to know what you are doing. This is the most common mistake of stamps collector. They start small by collecting used stamps. However, since the collected material really cost them nothing, they never bother to learn what is a good way of collecting the stamps. As the collection builds up, the value is also going up. These value is not always in term of financial term, but also in the effort used for collecting the stamps. Now, if you have spend so much time, then it is better if you learn something about what you are doing. Go and join the stamp-club and learn what is the proper way of collecting stamps. Collecting stamps is not just piling up used or new stamps, there are rules to be followed and unless you are following them, then your collection will be worthless.

Rule 2, you need to have the fund to spend
Money,...one of the most important ingredient of collecting. People like to collect things. Some people collect clothes, some people collect shoes and some people collect stamps. Whatever they are collecting, none of those things come free. There is a certain cost involved and you have to pay that with money.
So in order to have a good collection (whatever you are collecting), then you need to have the juice to run it. Without the proper juice, your collection will not worth much. Your collection is some sort of investment, except the investment is not in the form of money or stock, but in the form of stamps. The more you spend on your collection, the higher its value in the future, but you still have to spend in order to maintain it.

Rule 3, you need to have guts
Okay, now you have the knowledge and it just happened that you also have the money to spend as well. Ideally you should be able to build a good stamps collection. But there is still one more element that you need to have to make a good philatelist.
You need to have guts...or simply put, you need to have the courage to spend.
Not everybody has the gut to buy a piece of paper in the size of 2 X 2 cms at the price of $ 1,500 per piece. Even when you have the money, to spend $ 1,500 on a particular stamps is not an easy decision. The decision that you will spend your money on that piece of 2 X 2 cms may enhance your whole collection,.... but are you willing to do that.
By having the gut does not mean you should go on reckless buying spree, but with the combination of the knowledge, the buying power and the gut...... the result could be very different.

Well, of all the above rules, rule no 1 is the most difficult to obtain. There is no school that you can go to get the knowledge and the knowledge most of the time is obtained by learning from mistake. The mistake could be yours or somebody else. It is not always easy to learn something if you do not know what you need to know. So there is always a cost involves in the learning process, buying the wrong stuff, damaging the material, buying stuff in the wrong place, etc. All these are the cost that you have to pay, regardless how careful you are as a person.

One of my most precious stamp collection

Finally, I found my blog again. When my computer crashed a few months ago, I lost almost all the data and somehow I could not find my blog because I could not even remember what is the username that I am using for this blog.
Today, my e-mail was hijack again by some idiot who thinks that they can sell more by using my connection. In the process of changing my password, I found this blog again. So here it is.....

My most precious stamps is not the most expensive stamps, but I like this one best.
One of the reason is because this is my first complete train stamps.

As you can see from the picture to the left side of this writing, the stamps is very beautiful. The stamps were issued by the Belgian Postal Office. It consist of 22 stamps (very obvious) and each stamp is designed with a single colour printing process.
The stamps themselves were issued in 1980.
There are a lot of other designs from these group of stamps.

My favourite stamps are the Railway stamps from Belgium. There is a lot of debate, whether the railway stamps of Belgium can be considered as stamps or is it just something they call cinderella.
Of course this will depend on who is making the judgement.
The country or postal office who is issuing the stamps will say that their stamps have all the philatelic requirement to be considered as a stamp. However, different postal office might have different view.
A good example of this will be the stamps which are issued by little bit of island in the middle of nowhere. Some of this island may have a population of less than 1,000 people, yet they issue a full fledge stamps. One of the more famous stamps issuer is an island called St. Lucia or the one they call Nevis or St. Vincent or island group of Wallis & Futuna or maybe Davaar Island ???
I bet you have no idea where are all these islands located in the world. They are located mostly in the Carribean Sea or in the Polynesian Islands. A group of small islands who used to be part of the British or maybe the French during the colonial times. By law, they are a separate entity with their own government. However, what they have done with the stamps is so outrageous that they are doing a lot of damage to the philatelic society. Can you image the postal office on this island is actually producing millions of stamps with all kind of pictures and they are being sold to every corner of the world. Unfortunately, the victim of this manipulation is not the philatelist, but some layman who has no idea of what they are doing and they were persuaded by some sleazy stamp seller to buy the worthless stamps from these islands.

Anyway, enough bitching.... my suggestion (again I may have said it somewhere before), do not invest in the stamps unless you really know what you are doing.