Russell Dyer’s Stamps

The Stamp Collector by Charles Spencelayh

This sub-domain contains information on my stamp collections. I started collecting them when I was in my twenties, but have done nothing with them since I was in my early thirties. Recently – owing to stress in my life – I decided to resume this hobby.

In the past, I didn’t like using stamp albums. These are binders or bound large books containing pages that are printed with the images of stamps on them. My reasons for disliking them was that it was depressing or frustrating to see images of what I was missing. Instead I used stock books made by Lighthouse (i.e., Leuchtturm). Those are books with plastic bands or slots for holding stamps. It allowed me to focus on the stamps I have and not what I’m missing, per se.

My attitude has changed on this, though. I have plenty of stamps, so there aren’t many I’m missing. And it doesn’t bother me to have empty placeholders. I don’t care if I ever get all of the stamps I’m missing – although it is satisfying to fill a page of an album. So, I purchased a stamp album binder and the first set of pages to put in it. I’ve started putting my stamps into my album pages and then scanned them to present on this sub-domain.

Stamp Collections

I have a few stamp collections and the like: Italy, United Nations and the United States of America. Since I want to learn more about Italy, now that I have Italian citizenship, I started adding pages for that album, writing histories for them. In the past several months I’ve added my U.N. and U.S. stamps, but have not yet written descriptions of those pages. There are hundreds of album pages among the three collections. It will take me a long time to write comments about each.

Italy

Before the unified nation of Italy was formed, there were several smaller kingdoms and the like on the peninsula and islands that issued stamps. The country of Italy began in 1861 issuing stamps, first as a kingdom, and later in 1948 as a republic. Additionally, Italy issued stamps for their colonies and occupied territories, like in Eritrea and Somalia.

Although I don’t own all of these, my collection includes stamps from all of these periods and areas of Italy. To start, I have the Leuchtturm (i.e., Lighthouse in English) album, covering the Italian stamps from 1861 to 1999. For the previous states of Italy, and for the colonies of the Italian empire, since Leuchtturm doesn’t offer album pages for them, I’ve designed my own.

United Nations

Since I’ve always had an interest in international affairs, I’ve been a fan of the United Nations. The first stamp issued by the U.N. was in 1951. So it’s an easier collection to own and complete. In addition to stamps, I also have a collection of first day covers, envelops with the U.N. stamps on them and canceled on the first day they were issued.

Again, I’m still transitioning album pages. I have only album pages for U.N. stamps issued in New York from 1951 to 1979. The pages are a little expensive and I don’t have time to fill in all of the pages with the stamps I have and set up the related web pages. So I’m being selective about which sets of pages I buy and when based on my finances and available time and energy for stamp collecting.

United States of America

Being from the U.S. and having lived there most of my life, my collection of stamps from there are more complete – almost all of them for the twentieth century. So far I purchased Leuchtturm album pages from 1847 to 1975. I’ve scanned those pages and posted them here. I plan to buy more pages soon.

Note

For each web page associated with a stamp album page, you’ll find a screenshot of my album page showing the stamps I own and spaces for those I’m missing. Also, each web page has a table listing details on each stamp on the album page. This includes a description of what’s depicted on the stamp, the month and year it was issued, the face amount and other information. Some have temporary comments. This is where I might note that I have purchased the stamp but have not yet received it. For each stamp there’s a link to the Colnect site with much more details on the stamp.