Album pages common designs - 1. 1935 Silver Jubilee

The 1935 Silver Jubilee set is the first set with a common design for not less then 44 countries and territories, that are or were part of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
The group of 44 can even be extended with 18 more countries/territories, that issued stamps for the same anniversary, but who did not choose the same design.
Although strickly seen they are not 'common designs', I have added the stamps to the album, as they are often collected as part of the full set.

1935 Silver Jubilee CD 301

The set depicts the 25th anniversary of the reign of King George V, in 1935.
Besides the face of the king, we see Windsor castle.
The first group with exactly the common design, consists of 44 countries, each issuing 4 stamps.
In the extended group of 18 countries, we find issues with 2 stamps only, and issues with up to 7 stamps.
Both parts together, result in 245 stamps for this collection.

Below is a clickable link, to a PDF-file, with the full set on album pages.
(a free PDF-reader is needed to open the file)

CD 301 : Silver Jubilee 1935

The pages were made by me, with the AlbumEasy program.

screenshot PDF

A full, step-by-step course can be found on my blog, starting here https://rainbowstampsandcoins.blogspot.com/2021/04/making-your-own-album-00.html

This link leads to the introduction page, all further lessons can be found in the blog archive (lesson 1 to 40).

Please let me know in the comment section, if there are mistakes (size, information, ...), I will gladly update the file if necessary.
For those who work with AlbumEasy, and who want to alter fonts, page sizes (US) themselves, drop me a message too, and I will send the .txt-file for this album.

Please note that catalog numbers are omitted in the album, as they are depending on the used catalog.

to be continued ...

Album pages common designs - 0.1 Introduction

In my search for customized stamp albums, I found many ready-to-use albums for collecting by country.
Lots of collectors have themed collections, and of course it is not that simple to create albums for such collections. First of all, because thematic collections often requires thematic catalogs - which exist, but only for limited topics (chess, cats, light houses, Disney, ...)
Secondly because most thematic collectors also add personal information, covers, ... to their collection, which makes it nearly impossible to create a tailor-made album.
Even if I would try to add such an album, it would always be too limited, or too elaborated.

There is however a group of collectors/collections, that keep the middle between a country wise collection and a thematic collection.
A good example is a collection of 'common design' stamps.
They combine stamps from different countries, but are not that excessive in the number of stamps that should be in the collection.

In this view, there are two large groups of possible collections.
The first one is the group of the joint issues.
Many countries have common issues with other countries, celebrating XX-years of diplomatic relations, famous people who lived and worked in two or more countries, international treaties between two countries, ...

Example of a joint issue between Kenya and Uganda

Those joint issues, are often collected, but not often described in catalogs.
Some joint issues, do not bare exactly the same image, which makes it also difficult to recognize them.

A second group of stamps that are in these 'country + theme collecting group', are those of the common designs.

More then a simple joint issue between two or 'few' countries, celebrating a mutual anniversary, the stamps in the 'common design' group, have identical stamps or sets of stamps, issued by a large group of countries that share a common history.

A good example here is the 1935 Silver Jubilee emission.
With the country name omitted, it can be an issue by many countries.

Common design 1935

For this group, there are a number of sub groups that I will explore.
1. The group of the CEPT issues - mainly european countries that issue(d) stamps on a common theme.
The first years they also had a common design, nowadays the topic is common, but the designs are different.
2. The group of the Portuguese and former Portuguese territories, that have issued common designs since 1898!
3. The (large) group of French and (former) French territories, who issued stamps with a common design, often with topics of local - mainly African - live and costumes.
4. The also large group of British and (former) Commonwealth of Nations issues. Here the common designs are often British royals and royal anniversaries.

Most European collectors are familiar with this first group, Portuguese, French or British collectors will be familiar with the other groups.
Scott mentions these groups in the catalog too.

In this set of articles, I like to concentrate on this second group of stamps.
And I will try to include pdf pages for collectors of these themed collections too.

to be continued...

Fun : theme related wallpapers 07

This is my third issue on money-related wallpapers.
All are - to my knowledge - free to use.

 

Fun : theme related wallpapers 06

Today another post with 'coin' related wallpapers.
Just for fun - all pictures are free to use (to my knowledge).

to be continued...

Fun : theme related wallpapers 05

This is my second post on stamp-wallpapers.
All images are free to use, as far as I know. Maybe they will be on your destop too...

More wallpapers will follow...

Currency Today : Venezuela 17

Since inflation continues in Venezuela, and the number of zeros become numerous again, a reform of the BsS was introduced in 2020, when again a 1,000,000-note was printed.

The new name : Bolívares Digitales replaced 1,000,000 BvS (or 10,000,000,000,000 BvF) by 1 BvD.
Unlike the name suggests, the notes are really printed paper money (not digital).
The 1 BvD still has the old valuta of 1 million boliváres soberanos, but the higher denominations, issued from April 2021 on, are in the new system.

The first note issued in the new 'currency' is the 5 BsD.
5 is easier to count with then the 5,000,000 before, at the time of issue, 5 millions soberanos, represented hardly one US dollar.

5 BvD

This series have all a similar, monochrome background.

reverse side of 5 Bolívares Digitales

 

A first note of 10 BsD and a second one of 20 BsD, have already a ten- and twentyfold of the note issued 7  months earlier.

Serial number on the 10 BsD is here a B (second emission) but on the 20 BsD, we see an X.
Damaged notes or erronous notes cannot be brought into circulation, and are replaced by another note, to avoid that the same serial number would appear on two notes.

This series of notes that replace a damaged one, start with an X. Other countries have different systems to indicate a note is a replacement note (i.e. with a star-marking, Z-serial letter, ...)

Replacement notes have the same value when in circulation, but are part of a smaller number of issued notes.
As you see on the note, the serial number starts with 3 zeros, in this case, there are about 2 thousand replacement notes issued.

At the reverse side, we see the same image as the previous 1 BsD (1 million BsS) note.

reverse side of 10 and 20 BsD

The colours again are in one shade only, and there are no further markings or numbers on the back of the note.

and the story continues...

Theme : 1st issues : 09 Belgium

The first stamp ever issued, was the Black Penny in the UK.
This happened in 1840. In the first ten years, only few countries followed this idea, where the cost of sending a letter was no longer paid by the receiver of the mail, but by the sender.

Two Swiss cantons, Zürich, and later Geneva, followed by Brazil, joined the system in 1843.
In 1847, the first US-stamp was issued, and the isle of Mauritius has its first stamp too in that year.
Bermuda issued its first stamp in 1848, and in 1849,  3 European countries, France, Belgium and Bavaria (independent at that time), closed the list of the 10 countries that issued stamps before 1850.

Belgium was a relatively young country in 1849.
In 1815, after the lost of Napoleon in Waterloo, 'The Netherlands' got independent.
The forced 'marriage' between the mainly protestant, and Dutch speaking north, and the catholic, french bourgeoisie in the south, didn't last very long. In 1830 both parts split up, the north remains 'the Netherlands' while the southern part becomes Belgium.

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (later Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) who rejected the Greek throne in 1830, became Belgium's first King in 1831.
Yes, we survived a year without king, between 1830 and 1831, as well as we survived 541 days without newly elected gouvernment in 2010-2011 (world record!)

Under Leopold I, the first railway line (Brussels-Mechelen) was established in 1835, and the first postal stamp was introduced in 1849.

Belgium's first 1849

The stamp was lithographed by Charles Baugniet (1814-1886) after a painting by Liéven De Winne (1821-1880).

Leopold I by Liévin De Winne

This first issue of Belgium's postal stamps is called 'the epaulettes' (shoulder pads).
The watermark is the monogram of the king, an intertwined letter L.

Monogram Leopold I

watermark intertwined L - Belgium

This stamp of 10 cents (brown), was followed by a 20 cents (blue).
Catalog prices for a cancelled stamp are around € 100 for a nr. 1 and € 50 for a nr. 2.

To be continued...

Currency Today : Venezuela 16

By 23 April 2020, the exchange rate for the Venezolan Bolívar Soberano, was 1 USD = 144,697 BsS.
One day later it was already 1 USD = 171,140 BsS

New notes were needed once again...
Similar to the notes issued in 2019, the 2020 notes are predominal in one colour.
The many zeros on the new notes (200,000 - 500,000) are replace by the word MIL (thousand).

200,000 BsS

200,000 BsS - verso

The 200 MIL BsB (or 200,000 BsS)-note is in a soft brownish-grey colour.

And the 500 MIL (or 500,000 BsS)-note is purple.

500,000 BsS

500,000 BsS - verso

In the same set, a 1,000,000 -note (1 millón) concludes the series.

Although the colour is not very expressive, for this note, at least two colours were used.

One small addition to this note, is the image of the Battle of Carabobo, which took place 200 years earlier.

1,000,000 BsS

1,000,000 BsS - verso

In 2020 the minimum wage in Venezuela was about 1,2 million BsS.
However, by the time the 1 million note was announced, its value had already dropped to a depressing half US dollar.

Similar to the paper note, a 'digital' version was introduced too.

The 6 notes in use in 2020 therefore had a 'digital' equivalent, with less zeros.

to be continued ... ?

Currency Today : Venezuela 15

The banknotes in use in Venezuela, in 2018 had a 500 Bolívares Soberanos as highest denomination.
Since the Boliváres "soberano" already replaced the previous 'Bolívares Fuertes' by 100,000 to 1, this 'high value' note, represented 500,000,000 of the old units.

And yet, in 2019 the need for even higher face values was so urgent, that 3 new banknotes had to be issued.

The Venezolan national bank skipped the logic line of notes, and did not issue a 1000, 2000 or 5000 note, but issued directly a 10,000 BsS note, replacing 20 of the highest value notes in circulation.
At the same time, also a 20,000 BsS and a 50,000 BsS note were issued.

10,000 BsS - 2019

10,000 BsS - 2019 reverse

The new notes all bare the date of 22 January 2019.

20,000 BsS - 2019

20,000 BsS - 2019 reverse

As inflation was (is) progressing in an unseen speed, the quality of the notes, is mediocre.
All 3 notes come in one colour, blue, green and brown.
No effort was done to create a different image on the notes. Each of the note shows Simón Bolívar on the front side, and his mausoleum on the reverse side.

Except for a security thread and a double serial number on the front side, the back side has no extra printings.
This set does not longer issue endangered animals of Venezula on the notes.

The notes with a narrow security thread segments were printed by Goznak (Russia), the others, elsewhere.

to be continued....