Blog about Serbian stamps

I have started writing a blog about contemporary Serbian stamps. I am not sure if I should continue doing. I need feedback if you find the blog good/useful/boring/unnecessary, specially from stamps collectors. The blog is in English. Thank you for your comments!

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Hi Aleksa, you must be quite enthusiastic to start a blog on the stamps of your country. Credits for that!
I had a look at your blog and the ā€˜ePhilatilyā€™ site. To me Iā€™m still not really sure if your blog has a different angle in why people would come to the blog. You explain in the ā€˜aboutā€™ section that you offer additional info, but Iā€™m not completely sure what this extra info is. Is it that you offer different view? For example a theme view? Maybe you can make this more clear so people know what to expect.

I like the way your blog is presented and how it navigates. Itā€™s easy to use and looks good. The comment section below each text is quite big and the lettertype is big as well. In my opinion it gets too much attention because of this.

Keep up the good work.
Ps. if you ever what to swap stamps, PM me.

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Thank you @edwinc for taking a look and reply. You are right, I will try to rearrange About page. You have good conclusion, the biggest difference is presenting commemorative stamps by themes, not years. For now there are a few posts, but ones that were easy to create in short period, just as example.

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I like your lists of related stamps, like the cities of Srbija (note that you miss the NiÅ” stamp from 2023) and the Dan Marke stamps. Thatā€™s often not easily found out of catalogs. I also like the explanation about the difference between the 2006 and 2007 printings of the definitive stamps. While the basic factsare in the catalogs, getting them clearly shown and spelt out is helpful. I agree with @edwinc that the blog is easy to navigate. And I esecially like that youā€™re linking to the Colnect catalog. I use it myself, currently mainly for my postcard collection (not enough timeā€¦).

Another topic you could use may be additional information about stamp motifs not found in catalogs. Which buildings can be seen on each of the Serbian Cities stamps? You could link them to Wikipedia pages where they exist. Also you could point out funny/odd side facts about stamp motifs. One example I noticed on the homepage of Serbian Post: The souvenir sheet for 140 years of trade agreement and consular convention between Serbia and Germany shown on the ā€œGermanā€ side (with Latin letters) the Reichstag in Berlin, Germanyā€™s parliamentary building, but itā€™s current look with the glass dome, not the original with a very different dome. To make things even more odd, construction of the Reichstag building was started in 1884, one year after the celebrated agreements were signedā€¦ :wink:
https://efilatelija.posta.rs/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Blok_Srbija_Nemacka.jpg

Are you only interested in stamps, or also in the other areas of philately? As I mainly collect used envelopes/postcards, Iā€™m also interested in learning about Serbian postmarks (what types do exist, how did they change over the years, starting probably in the early 1990s when Jugoslavia started to go apart), airmail and registration labels, the postal code system (and how it changed during the transition from Jugoslavia to Serbia), and maybe other things that can be found on envelopes and postcards. Does Serbia print the postal code encoded onto postal items like e.g. Germany and the USA do with barcodes?

One thing I do not like is that Iā€™m forced to accept cookies from Google, there is no way to opt out. You should check Serbian privacy legislation if this is permitted. In some countries (like Germany) itā€™s not allowed and can lead to expensive legal action. Thatā€™s usually the drawback of ā€œfreeā€ services, somehow you always pay for them.

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@shugal Thank you very much for your reply.

I am glad if these things are helpful.
I hope those are pluses comparing to ePhilately site.

This is very interesting suggesion! I would like to try to work that way.

City if NiÅ” stamps are actually not issued as Cities of Serbia theme. On tohse series there was already NiÅ” stamp in 2017. This yearā€™s stamps are not about NiÅ” as city, but about anniversaries of city institutions (Fortress and History archive).

Wow, this is really interesting observation. Designers didnā€™t think of it!

Currently I am into stamps only. I really donā€™t know history of Serbian postmarks. You can see commemorative postmarks for every stamp at ePhilately. For postal code system, it didnā€™t change after the transition, since all mucipalities in whole Yugoslavia had different codes. Postal workers usualy use boring postal labels (stickers) instead of stamps. There are barcoded labels for registered letters/parcels.

I am sorry for that but I doubt I can turn that off, but I will try.
Thank you once more for your comments!

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Thank you for the explanation! I did miss that when looking at the Serbian Post website.

Interesting. I know Croatia adopted a new postal code system, I wonder how postals codes are handled in the other parts of former Yugoslavia.

Yes, they are boring design-wise but interesting from a postal perspective, because they serve a direct postal need. Thatā€™s why Iā€™m interested in these, too.

You are right, you should concentrate on what you are interested in and knowledgeable about first. Later, when you have a lot of content, maybe you get interested in exploring philately beyond the area of stamps. If that happens, please contact me, Iā€™m happy to show you how things work in Germany, which will hopefully help you to see how you can obtain and present similar information about Serbia.

I wish you good luck and success with your blog! :+1:

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