Commemorative coins : The Netherlands 06

In 2009, the Netherlands celebrated their 400 year old trade relations with Japan.
Until today the Netherlands still have a friendly relationship with the land of the rising sun.
To commemorate this anniversary, the dutch coin issued a special € 5 coin.

The coin got the name 'Japan-five'. It has legal tender like all other € 5 coins, but remained mainly a collector's item.

coin card front

coin card back

The coin's design is best viewed with two coins next to eachother.
As I didn't take the coin out of the card, I had to look online to find a picture of both sides of the coin next to eachother.

both sides of the Japan-coin next to eachother

Now we see the full design. We see a fishermen's knot. As the dutch were (and are) famous sailors and fishermen. A knot is also a good symbol to show the connection between the two countries.


The coin was issued on a coin card
Amount : 343.859 pieces
Metal : silver 925/100
Size : Ø 29 mm
Weight : 11,9 g
Face value : € 5
Quality : circulation quality
Design : Esther de Vries en Richard Niessen

This coin is the 14th € 5 coin that was issued by the Royal Dutch Mint.

To be or not to be : CTO - The disputable ones 06 c

As a final post on the 'disputable' cancelations on the early Japanese stamps, some examples of non-postal and postal cancellations:

On the right hand side, we already see the non-postal cancel (see previous posts)
The left hand side stamp shows a cancel with a double ring.
The centre isn't empty as we see with telegraph cancels.
This usually means it's a postal cancellation

postal and non-postal cancel

On the right hand side, again a non-postal cancel.
The first stamp shows TOK(YO) although the cancel is incomplete, and it might be a forgery, it gives the impression of being a postally used cancel.

postal and non-postal cancel

Same story with the 5 rin stamp:
On the right hand side the typical non-postal cancel,
On the right hand side again a clean date 'AUG 25' which gives the impression of being a postal cancel - still a poor cancel to be 100% sure it's a genuine postal cancel.

postal and non-postal cancel

The stamps above gives a better impression:
Left a postally used stamp, with a clear cancelation 'YOKOHAMA'
Right, the typical non-postal cancel

postal and non-postal cancel

Finally two nice examples of postal cancels - and again the non-postal cancel next to it.

Happy hunting, if you start reviewing your (early) stamps of Japan.

To be or not to be : CTO - The disputable ones 06 b

In the previous post, I showed some telegraph cancels on regular stamps.
Those cancels are not the only disputable cancels.
Also telephone cancels and revenue cancels were used to cancel regular stamps.
According the Michel-catalogue (and that's the best I found so far), there are 4 types of cancels to beware of.

4 types of non-postal cancels - old Japan

The first type I described in my previous article.
Now some examples of the other types:
Easy to recognise cancels

second type of non-postal cancel

second type of non-postal cancel

The last two types are also easy to recognise, but there's one important notice:
We can easily see the date (Japanese Era) on the cancel, and yet it's not a postal cancellation.
For postal cancellations also have an indication of time (hours).
On the purple stamp it's easy to see that this indication is missing.
The blue stamp in incoplete, so we're not sure.

(non)-postal cancels

The same type of cancels as the those above, but now with indication of time (hours) are postal cancellations.
Important to know is that Michel and Scott gives them a value 5 times higher then the non-postal cancels. (= 1/5 of the catalogue prices)

postal cancels

to be continued ...

To be or not to be : CTO - The disputable ones 06 a

I have wrote a lot on CTO stamps in the past articles.
From easy to recognise CTO cancels, over the harder ones.
This - for now - last part is about disputable cancels.

The cancels in this article are not really CTO cancels, but they are no postal cancellations either.
They are not fake, but the cancels on the stamps were not for postal use.
This means, those stamps weren't used as post stamps, or at least the cancel tells us that.
In that way, they fit the same definition as some CTO cancelled stamps...
The stamps are made unusable (cancelled) but not for postal trafic.

Let me give some examples:

Two beautiful Japanese stamps from the so-called UPU-Koban series (1883).

Scott catalogue mention shortly that those stamps can be found with "telegraph or telephone office cancels" and "sell at considerable lower prices then the postally used copies"...
The beauties above are such cancels.
Scott doesn't helps us further then the quotes lines above.
The French "Yvert" catalogue doesn't help us either, and even the (Japanese) Sakura catalogue fails to help me.

I had to search in the German "Michel" to find a picture of what was meant.

non postal cancels - old Japan

This might look like Japanese to most of you, and ... indeed it is.
The first cancel is a telegraph cancel.

telegraph stamps with telegraph cancels

The first type of these cancels is eay to recognise : an outer circle with japanese inscriptions, and an inner circle that remains empty.

post stamp with telegraph cancel

In the picture above, we see a regular stamp (1883) with a telegrap cancel.

to be continued ...

Collecting : my collection 03c

When you are an absolute beginner in stamp collecting, an absolute 'pro', or, as most of us somewhere between a small collector and a collecting lunatic, in all cases, a catalogue is mandatory.

But then ... which one to choose ?

A lot depends on what kind of collector you are...

Are you a collector of your own country alone ? Then better look for a catalogue of your own country.
The numbering system is unique for your country, and it will tell you lots of details about your stamps, variations, printing errors, plate numbers, ....
Some countries used to have colonies in the 18th till 20th century and they might be included in the catalogue.
I call them 'local' catalogues, and I will come to that later on.

Maybe you don't collect only your own country, but also the neighbouring countries. Or specific regions, like the Scandinavian countries, Balkan area, Benelux, South America, the Middle East...
Then you're better of with a world wide catalogue, and some are perfect for this type of collectors.
But 3 or 4 'local' catalogues could help you out as well.

Or you're a idealist and you collect everything that comes your way... then a world wide catalogue is mandatory, as not all countries have their own catalogues, and with over 200 countries and many dissapeared countries it's impossible to buy each individual catalogue, unless you're a trillionaire.

And maybe you're not bound to countrywise collecting, but you have a weakness for theme collections.
Then you have several items from several countries, but buying a world wide catalogue is too much information for what you really need.

So let's start with some 'local' catalogues.

Belgium

the Netherlands

Italy

Greece

Israel

Turkey

some latin american ones :

Argentina

Brazil

some asian ones :

P R Lao (1st ed.)

Japan

These are 'country' catalogues, I call them the 'local ones' ...

to be continued

Odd stamps : 08 Stamps with special cuts - 03 a

In this next round, I am taking you to the world of diamond shaped stamps.
I do know that squares are diamonds as well, but i will only show you diamond shaped stamps, where one of the angles is pointing downwards, in order to see the design of the stamp as it was ment.
This means that I'm not turning any common square stamp to make them look like diamonds.

Let's start with some examples from Asia
Bhutan :

Mongolia :

Nepal :

China PR :

(Portuguese) Macau :

Japan :

(non officicial) Molukkan State :

... and many many more :-)

Odd stamps : 08 Stamps with special cuts - 01 e

Round in Japan,

Japan always was quite traditional in issuing stamps.
The last years however more and more odd shapes appeared from Japanese post.

Just a glimp of what has been issued.
I took a self-adhesive sheet from 2008. In fact it's a set of two sheets depicting 'hello Kitty'.
All pictures of 'Kitty' are in traditional japanese clothes, on various backgrounds.
The first sheetlet has 10 'normal' stamps. Each row shows 2 connecting stamps.

On the second sheet, the topic of today can be found.
Next to again 5 rectangle stamps, not less then 4 round, perforated stamps are placed on the sheet.
at the bottom, there's even a more special stamp.

First to the 4 round stamps.

I only posted 3 out of the four, for the simple reason, one of them is missing in my cancelled collection so far.
The top stamp shows Kitty in spring.  The pink blossoms are out on the threes, and Kitty has flowers on her dress. The second one shows Kitty assumingly in summer. A waterfall is shown and Kitty is sitting in the green grass. On the third stamp, the one that is not shown in detail, but that can be found on the large pic of the sheet, Kitty is sitting outside, while the wind is blowing strongly. Finally, Kitty appears in a winterscene on the fourth stamp. Snowflakes are falling down on Kitty.

Finally the last stamp on the sheet. This toppic is about 'round' stamps, and the last stamp on the sheet isn't quite 'round'.
Japan is one of the few countries that has issued 'oval' stamps so far.
Since there aren't that many oval stamps, I suppose it's ok to add them to the topic of 'round' stamps.

Japan has issued more sheets with round and now and then oval stamps.
It will be an item for another topic on this blog for sure.