NZ Duplicates A to Z, A2 to C2

The following are my New Zealand duplicates. It's a slow and cumbersome business getting these online without a scanner, but I hope that simple photography suffices. 

Wherever there appear to be a pair of stamps side by side, they are actually different in one way or another. I hope that I will be able to exchange some of these for mainly Japanese stamps that I haven't already got.

         

                                                                

New Zealand batch of 172

Here are 172 stamps from New Zealand. Who wants them, and which stamps in exchange are you prepared to offer me in exchange?

Sure, most of these stamps are quite common, so I have selected the best copies of those that I have dozens of. That way you may obtain better copies of stamps you already have. I have prepared 10 to 20 identical packets to trade with other people. This way, you can see exactly which stamps you are going to get.

They include:

• 38 Christmas stamps, 
• 9 Health stamps, 
• 4 'Officials'
• 59 Pre-decimals (1967 or earlier)

I have advertised this on All Stamps Paradise, and will wait for your reply. Tell me, or better yet show me with scans or photos, what you are prepared to send me. On the 19th of February (my birthday) I shall select the best offers, and let those people know by email. After that, I shall give you my snail mail address for you to send your stamps, and I will then send you your instant New Zealand collection.

I collect WW, so I am happy to consider any offer - either a mixture of different countries, or stamps from one country. You decide. I prefer used and no pre-cancelled, please.

Designer stamps

When an artist friend sends you some stamps you feel obliged to write it up in an artistic manner! Ryoko, to who congratulations are due, had saved up some stamps for me from letters she'd received from around the world. She joins that select group of friends and family who support me in my hobby.

Apart from the stamps and letter there was also an interesting booklet which looks at the background behind the designs of British stamps for the year 1993. Straight into my little library! And the stamps go straight into the soak.

A nice little bunch, ne?

All in the family

The mother-in-law is now in on the act. I couldn't wish for a better one. She has saved the New Zealand stamps on the envelopes that Mami, my wife, sent the family in Japan (disks with photos of our 8-month-old daughter, Sachi), cut them out, and returned them together with a few colorful Japanese stamps too. Isn't that nice?

Even nicer, look! She has enclosed a couple of recent mini-sheets as well. How thoughtful is that? As always, by comparison I feel like quite a boer. No one does social nicety better than the Japanese.

I'm proud to include my Japanese family in the greater family of stamp collectors. A great bunch, every single one.

New New Zealand

Just like the Boy Scouts, I prefer to be prepared. My aim is to have my New Zealand duplicates all sorted and counted and placed into lots ready to exchange with collectors overseas. The above lot represents the 50 NZ stamps I currently have the most duplicates of. This replaces the earlier selection of a few months back.

In addition to these I have a lesser number of duplicates of a greater number of issues - several hundred, in fact. But for the first exchange, especially if I am to be the one who sends first, the above are what I shall send first.

Everything under the sun

I'm up to the number 31 with my exchanges, but that lags the 49 or so emails I've exchanged with Kalkie, a 12-year old from Ireland. We talk about sports, travel, getting into the newspaper, family etc. Sometimes we even talk about stamps!

For our second trade I experienced a first: being sent a few stamps from my own country. I have since received a few from someone else - I forget who from. In the stamps above there are some from Ireland that feature birds which remind me in stye of the NZ bird stamps of several years back. I wonder, which country was first?

Core New Zealand

Over a fairly short period, through bidding in and winning several online auctions  on Trade Me of bulk lots, I accumulated a good number of New Zealand stamps. Mostly the stamps are older - at least half are pre-decimal currency (New Zealand changed from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents in 1967 . . . when I was already collecting as a ten-year-old.

To maximize my 'exchange index' I've done a stock take to identify a basic set of about 50 stamps that form the core of my NZ stamp packets. This is the bunch that I'd like to discuss in this post.

Although the above stamps just happen to be the ones I have the duplicates of, they are an interesting bunch in a number of ways:

1. They feature 3 generations of British rulers: George V, George VI and Elizabeth II
2. They feature stamps from the 1960 and 1967 definites that straddle the year 1967 when NZ changed its currency
3. They feature two European 'discoverers' of NZ: Abel Tasman and James Cook
4. There's a Christmas stamps (issued annually since 1960)
5. There are Health stamps (issued annually from about 1929)
6. They feature two maps of the country (3 if you count the Captain Cook stamp)
7. They show the University of Otago where I got my degree
8. They show two of our national sports: Cricket and Rugby
9. One commemorates giving women the vote (the first country in the world to do so)
10. One shows Mitre Peak which you'll see if you walk the world-famous Milford Track
11. The orange stamp shows a Maori dwelling, another shows the bible written in the Maori language
12. Two of the stamps demonstrate NZ's keen involvement with the Olympic Games
    
13. Several of the King George VI definite stamps highlight that there was a lot of fiddling around with colour and face value. 

Stamp Paradise

In March, 2010, I stumbled across the site Stamp Paradise. It allows stamp collectors to connect online and agree to exchange stamps 50, 100 or more at a time.

I recently resumed the hobby of stamps collecting. I'd given it up as a teenager almost 40 years ago, but caught the germ of the bug at an exhibition the local stamp club set up in the middle of town. Then, at about the time of the birth of my youngest daughter Sachi six months ago, I got into the swing of it again via Trade Me. That and online chess - but that's another story (and maybe yet another blog).

On Stamp Paradise I placed a short ad (search for William Lucas). I had stamps to exchange from New Zealand and Japan, and was anybody interested? I turned out that there were - 50 to 60 people responded in just a few days.

My bright idea is to document this ongoing exchange process on a blog. Could be fun . . . if I can only keep up!