(4) Scott International Postage Stamp Albums, 19th Century.
Size: (each) 12 X 10 X 5 1/8 in.
These are four International Postage Stamp Albums by Scott that cover 19th and early 20th century stamps. There are many stamps in the four albums and we chose to focus on the ones from the 1850’s to the 1870’s because those stamps are considered Classics, and that’s generally how we assessed value here. The albums are arranged alphabetically, starting with U.S. possessions, and the first place with stamps of note were the Hawaiian Islands, which had a 29S ungummed hinged stamp - 29S is the Scott number in the U.S. Specialized catalogue we used - it depicts a 2 cent red image of King Kamehameha from 1869, which was a reissue with the Cancelled overprint sold only at the Honolulu post office - and it’s a $45 stamp in mint condition, and even more in used condition, according to Scott. Then they proceed by country, starting with the A’s, B’s, etc. All the stamps are in Scott archival plastic mounts to protect the stamps from damage, there are mint as well as used stamps in the albums and they cover back-of-the-book stamps as well: air post, special delivery, postage due, officials, occupation and military overprints, newspaper and semi-postal stamps, there are imperfs, and the albums generally end around 1937, when the coronation of King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth took place at Westminster Abbey after the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, and the albums come in the original slipcases.
The first album covers the A and B countries, with almost 1200 stamps in the album, and some of the highlights include Antigua #’s 2 and 8 used and most of #’s 42 - 63 mint, Austria #’s 1 - 5 used, the Bahamas #6 used, Belgium #’s 1 and 2 used, some of the Belgium stamps have tabs in the margins below the the stamps, and Bermuda #2 and 6 used.
The second album is Part IIIB and covers the stamps from Lebanon to Nepal, with about 1100 stamps inside, and some highlights include Liberia #9 used, Montenegro #’s 1 - 3 used, and Natal #14 with rough perfs as issued, used.
The third album is Part IVA and covers the Netherlands to Peru, with about 1300 stamps inside, and the highlights include the Netherlands, #”s 1, 11, and 18 used, Newfoundland #’s 18, 20, 27, 28, 32 and 33, all used, New South Wales #’s 1, 14, 15, 29, 32, 41, all used, B1 and B2 (the Charity stamps from 1897), and F3 (the registration stamp from 1860), and New Zealand #10 used.
The last album is Part V and covers Samoa through Switzerland, but only has 25 stamps in the album, all from Slovakia (Czechoslovakia), so there’s a lot of room to add stamps to the album.
There are about 3600 stamps in the four albums altogether and they’ve been well preserved by the Scott archival mounts. The albums measure 12 x 10 inches wide and are in great condition, as are the slipcases. The pages are clean and beautiful, with no browning whatsoever, the screw-off caps and slip rods for the bindings work really well to hold the pages in place, none of the pages are loose, and the slipcases have faint spots on them and that’s about it. We used the 2024 Scott Specialized Catalogue of the United States Stamps & Covers and the Scott International Stamp Catalogues from 2018 to assess value, and we believe we described the highlights accurately.
