Профил колекционара John Gunningham [Shoebill]

My childhood stamp collection was resurrected about 25 years ago and now i am building country collections for Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, French Guinea, Liberia, Ghana, Mali, Upper Volta /Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo, Dahomey/Benin, Chad, CAR, Cameroon, Gabon, French Congo, and Belgian Congo/DRC. This includes the colonial period as well as modern.

I am an avid birdwatcher and also have an African bird collection going.

I also enjoy non-traditional stamps such as the early die-cut adhesives of Sierra Leone and Tonga, silver and gold stamps, etc.

I have a very large stock of Côte d'Ivoire stamps and covers, and sizable numbers of duplicates from the other countries. I have recently begun to trade and am hoping to find more collectors to swap with. My collection and swap lists are far from complete; I am updating continually.

I have mint and postally used collections in parallel for the country collections, I do NOT collect CTO stamps but you may find them under my swap list.

If my wish list is active without comment that means i need both mint and used. I try to specify on all my swap lists the condition that I have available.

I am starting to standardize my notes on my doubles:

When I have a value from Stampworld (SW) in Euros for example €1.00/0.50 this means that the Mint value is €1.00, and the Used is €0.50. I may not always have both conditions to swap, but it will reduce the number of times i need to consult SW in future.

Generally I prefer to swap using value, and I find that Stampworld is generally close to Scott which is the paper catalog I have access to. My Michel, Yvert, COB and Stanley Gibbons for Africa are all outdated. If the Scott value is much higher than the SW, I may note SCV in $ meaning Scott Catalog Value.

I have recently expanded my scope of interests, and now have stamps which I am not able to be certain about varieties of paper, gum, watermark etc. I will do my best but if you are searching for a specific variety please communicate that clearly.