In praise of the obscure and unpopular

For literally decades, Russia was the only thing I collected. Siberia, Crimea, Georgia, prestamp, lots of other things, all within the vast field of Russian philately. But as we all know, the 21st century saw an unprecedented explosion in the prices of most Russian material.
My good friend Robert Taylor has for many years collected Russian/Soviet postal history, but he also collects Nicaragua. After seeing the fun he has with that, I decided to take a Latin American philatelic mistress as well, and after lots of research settled on Paraguay. Post-WW2 Paraguay is pretty icky. Not only is there the political unpleasantness of the Stroessner regime, the philatelic pandering was blatant and off-putting. I mean, Paraguay issued "Europa" stamps!
19th century Paraguay has other problems. Prior to 1870 the country was essentially destroyed completely and started over from scratch. The first few issues are all but impossible to find on cover and it's not until the late 1880s that Paraguayan covers become obtainable. So after some thought I decided to pick the 1900-1945 period as my playing field.
It was a revelation! If I have more than 2 competitors for any Paraguayan eBay lot I am shocked! I don't know of any other serious Paraguay collectors in the USA, and even worldwide they seem to be thin on the ground. As a result, material - even rare or unique material - is CHEAP! I've bought absolutely unique items for a few hundred dollars at most. Proofs and essays, which I've always liked, are common for some issues and just scarce enough for others to make it interesting. And postal history seems to be a largely unexplored field. What more can any collector want?

Even in the Russian field there are such lovely little playgrounds. Post-Soviet material (say, up to 1995) is invariably interesting, and quite scarce from some countries (I'm looking at you, Georgia), although you do have to educate yourself to be able to spot the numerous forgeries and fantasy products. hey, I'm a Russian Civil War philatelic veteran, that sort of thing doesn't scare me!

Think about it. Tired of being outbid? Go weird!

Presentation card with color proofs for the second Paraguay 1903 definitive issue

Collecting postmarks

Collecting postmarks is an odd little sub-hobby of postal history. In a way, it ignores almost all the interesting bits about postal history (routes, rates, mail types, etc.) and focuses on the markings that are only of indirect interest.
That said, it's a lot of fun! I'd argue that it's often the most natural expansion of a stamp collection, to move into collecting the postmarks on the stamps. Since postmarks on loose stamps can be frustrating, it's often easier and more rewarding to collect postmarks on complete items of mail.
Oversimplifying recklessly, I think you can collect postmarks in four ways: by location, period, type or usage. Location and period are fairly self-explanatory while "type" can be as simple as "oval" or as complicated as "locally produced nonstandard datestamps of the late Imperial Russian period" (and if you collect the latter then good luck - they're fascinating and very, very scarce). "Usage" is the least popular category and includes perfectly boring-looking postmarks used by seasonal post offices. It's often an indirect way to define "type".

As I may have mentioned once or twice, I collect postmarks from the Crimea, pre-stamp to 1945. The late Imperial (1903-1917) and early Soviet (1923-1939) periods are by far the most interesting to me. In the late Imperial period, three classes of Crimean postmarks are a particular headache to find.

Railways post offices include the two Zh.D.P.O.-class offices of Sevastopol' (common) and Kerch' (rare); three stantsiyas which were converted to ordinary P.O.s fairly soon after their opening (Nikita, Sarabuz and Sem' Kolodezei - I've only seen the latter); and regular stantsiya offices. I had never seen a Crimean stantsiya postmark until fairly recently, when a Soviet late usage of the Imperial postmark of Akmanai found its way into my collection.

Sem' Kolodezei as a P.O.

The second class of "difficult" postmarks are the seasonals. Livadiya is the oldest and the most common.Six new seasonal offices were opened in 1915: Isary, Koktebel', Moinak, Otuzskiya Dachi, Sara-Kurort and Chokrak, of which Sara-Kurort was converted to a regular P.O. in 1916. The last to be added was Sudakskiya Dachi in 1917. Sadly, Evpatoriiskiya Dachi, despite its summer-y name, was not a seasonal office.

Otuzskiya Dachi Seasonal office

The final class of problem cases are the "Volostnoe Pravlenie" offices. There were 9 of them, of which 6 were converted to P.O.s in 1916 I have yet to see a postmark of any of them...