10th January 2025
With Christmas and New Year over with, we can get back to the serious matter of searching for the stamps needed to fill in those gaps in our French Colony collection. The very popular long sets that were issued from 1905 to the 1950’s are not always easy to complete. Our stockbooks are quite a revelation in that respect and a glance over our stocks of the many colonies will reveal probably the same gaps as there are in most collections. Certain values are so elusive despite the Yvert and Gibbons catalogues not always reflecting their relative scarcity in their valuation. The problem becomes even worse for the collectors of used issues as certain values may be prolific in a mint state yet hardly ever found used with a genuine, legible postmark.

For the dealer or, in our case, stockist, it means that in order to fill in our stock gaps, we have to purchase good complete collections which will, of course contain a majority of stamps that we, and most of our collectors, already have in excess.

You may notice that, although our average selling price is approximately 40% of SG catalogue value, certain stamps will be seen priced at as little as 20%, while those above-mentioned elusive values may be a little higher than our norm.

Many additions to stocks have taken place since our last update. Colonies that spring to mind were Algeria, Memel, Cameroun, Dahomey, Guinea, Sudan and Somali Coast amongst others.

Our main concentration in recent days has been the production of our first published Stocklist Catalogue which will be sent out to all during the next week. It will not only feature our stocklists, but also many pages of illustrations of the better values within those lists. It should also be of much use to those unable to access the internet. Meanwhile best wishes to all for 2025.
   Terry Garcia.

Next update: 20th January 2025