Subj: Re. LANSA
Date: 12/21/2003
From: nfollansbee@uci.net

Dear Art,
My main hobby involvement is Mexican pilately for which I have written lots of articles as well as two books and 15 specialized auction catalogues of around 1000 lots each (which is how I make my living), so you can count on me for an article or two for the LANSA journal as time permits. An overview of the Oaxacas would be good, but lets make it something better than that letter. For me, writing about what I learn is an essential part of the hobby and great fun.

I've forgotten if I told you that I got into the Oaxaca currency because the Oaxaca Provisional postage stamps are my biggest collecting passion. The stamps are even crazier than the bills, but without the wonderful feature of serial numbers to make it easier to put things in the sequence of production. I inherited the greatest collection of these stamps ever formed and have since been adding to it and writing it up so that the next collector will have an easier time than I did getting up to speed on the study. Enermously complicated. The collection (not counting stock) consists of over 7,000 stamps including around 170 sheets, plus around 50 covers (rare!). The collector who preceeded me, Hubert Wahlberg, was an increadible philatelist who built his study over a thirty year period. The research is astonishing, and all I can do is add details. But with the currency I found a wide-open field for study, so I have been able to do something with it that is more my own, research-wise.

Nick

Subj: Re: LANSA
Date: 12/21/2003

I did win that big lot of 1 pesos, but the little lot of 5 pesos got away. I am hopful that the seller will provide a list of the serial numbers for those. If I have that info, I probably could do without the actual notes, anyway. Truth is, I don't anticipate finding much in the big 1 peso lot as far as new or rare varieties go and probably very few condition upgrades, but I will have hours of fun going through it. And I am hopeful it will help on my study of the serial numbers. When I realized that the 1p - 20p shared the same sequence of serial numbers (so that the same number will not be found in more than one denomination), I began recording the extremes for each series so as to be able to determine roughly the quantities involved in each issue. A couple of 1 peso series towards the beginning were only about 5,000 notes, but most of this denomination are between 20,000 and 50,000 pieces. Most 5 peso series were in the 4,000 - 10,000 range, 10 pesos 2,500 - 5,000 and 20 pesos 1,500 - 3,000. The 50 pesos was issued in five series of 1,000 notes. The 1 pesos and later 5 pesos series are mostly common except that the 1 peso throughout the whole production used many (over 30) different papers and the plates were often reset making this really the most interesting denomination. Some of these papers are very scarce, though you'd never know it from the catalogues. Pick gives a premium for paper with ledger lines, but most of the ledger line papers are common (with a few scarce ones in the 24 Septiembra 1915 issues. Very misleading. Both Pick and Douglas list a blue paper for 15 Noviembre 1915 at double the price of the normal. It is rare. Fewer than 1,000 out of about 1.6 million 1p are on this paper. So, it can be a lot of fun collecting this stuff.

N.B. The study that Nick mentions, which is extensively detailed and profusely illustrated, is in the LANSA library.