Horror Stories

No, not the Halloween kind, the philatelic kind.

After having some trouble removing a hinge yesterday I got to thinking that, although I see little evidence of it here on this forum, there must be many interesting stories of people who have had mishaps with stamps getting damaged through mishandling. Any to share?

Hi Tom

My personal worse horror story was with a small collection of WW stamps that was given to meonly to find that they were all mounted with Scotch tape! The total collection was ruined.

Apart from that, just a few little hits and misses here and there.

Chimo

Bujutsu

I too came across an old stamp book which was given to a child by his grandfather. The gift was dated as if I remember correctly 1902 - In this book were some great stamps but to my horror all glued down with some sort of adhesive - there was no saving them, the book was interesting enough on its own.

I had another horror story just the other day. I have recently moved my stamp room from upstairs to an area downstairs - My dog has a knack for finding things and having a chew. I came home from work to find about 100 stock cards all on the floor from the drawer to the front entrance. I must've left the bottom drawer open when I rushed to put something back. Lucky for me no stamps were damaged but I did find a couple of expensive cards >£50 on the floor in the mix. Now if only I could teach the pup to sort/soak and mount stamps!

Oh dear !
That nice little dog has grown into a terror.

I'd better not bring any stamps with me next time !

I once had my entire sorting table full of stamps from all over the world (I had just bought an excellent kiloware lot), thinking they were safe from my cat who has a disfigured front claw and therefore can't jump that high. Unfortunately I didn't push my chair all the way under the table, so the rascal had a chance to get on the table after all. I found mayhem when I came home from work...
So now I always have a small box with a bottom of common stamps in which she can play and ruffle around as much as she wants. You keep on learning...

Pets and stamps don't mix! That should go in the "you know you're a stamp collector when ..... you leave a playbox for your cat that contains common stamps rather than newspaper :)!"

London - Holly is still lovely - just a normal teenager.

As a clueless child stamp collector, I was always looking for inexpensive ways to store stamps without paying for the expensive albums or mounts that are commonplace today. Once I bought a "magnetic photo storage album" to store postal cards and covers. Boy, that was a mistake! A year or so later when I tried to move an item, it tore it and/or left residue damage on the reverse side of the covers.

Interestingly, not too long ago, I came across some family photos in a similar album. Same problem! The only way you could lift the photograph off of those pages was to cut them apart, because the "magnetic" storage was just too laden with an adhesive of some sort that wouldn't allow you to take anything out of the album without damage. Fortunately for the photos, I could scan and reprint them; not so for the postal cards and covers!

Great stories all. I have one that might not seem scary to you vetrans but for a rookie like me...

I have only made a couple of stamps sales so far but my first was nearly my last--though you may appreciate the odds were unlikely: I decided to pull a modern one dollar stamp from my father's collection to use as postage to send an order to eastern Canada. Well, I choose what turned out to be the Scott #1181 which the next day, after finally deciding research was in order, I discovered could have been (on another planet?) the barely indistinguishable #1181a that catalogues at over $9000! If it had been, well, that would have been the end of me as a stamp seller for sure and maybe even as a person as the ensuing depression could have been fatal.

I was "breaking down" an old stamp album,
removing the hinged stamps from each page,
then using a box cutter to remove the subsequent blank page.

Stamps had been placed in the crease of the next few pages,
My next cut had neatly sliced some lovely stamps in half.

The one (of many) horror stories that I can't seem to forget involved a demon pair of scissors. I received an auction lot in an envelope that was well sealed with tape. I pulled out the demon scissors, tapped the envelope on the end a few times to make sure all the contents were at one end, and then cut off the opposite end.

I didn't want to do it - the scissors made me. Everything was OK except the $10-12 souvenir sheet. It was neatly severed in two at one end.

Rod, it looks like you and I need to have our sharp instruments taken away.

I ruined a MH US#229 by trying to get the hinge remnant off, I tore a corner....

Same thing happened with me - I received an envelope with a single set of stamps, I tapped them to one side and cut along the edge of the envelope with the demon scissors all was great, my set of stamps were perfect. Little did I know the seller had placed a MS as a gift. The scissors won that fight.

As a young pup I used to keep a tray filled with all of the stuff that wasn't listed in the Scott catalogue. One day the cat jumped up on the table and figured the box was nice and comfortable to use as a litter box. Many of those stamps have since been listed in Scott - Bhutan, Barbuda, Ecuador, Panama, etc. And I'm sure there are many I've never come across again. Oh well. At least there weren't any Bhutan phonograph stamps in there.

I used to go to the library and check out catalogues to help me identify my collection. One time I returned the catalogue without remembering to remove some stamps that were sorted by sticking them in between the pages. So, somebody next in line got a nice batch of Monaco stamps. Oh well again.

Ryan

Indeed Mr. Swab, and who hasn't had a pierced nipple, carrying the
tongs in the breast pocket?

...and Oh! did I tell you about when I soaked
Netherlands Indies?

My horror story started when I joined an online stamp collecting forum. I bagan to spend more and more time on this forum. I wanted every stamp, cover, cancel, revenue and cinderella ever shown on this forum. I bought things I previously never knew existed from people I previously never knew existed. My children went unfed, my husband unloved, my dogs unwalked. Gradually my stamps began to take over the house.
The nightmare continues.....