New Member From Sydney, Australia

Some background information about me!

As a child I was a fairly avid stamp collector. I took up stamp collecting because, in Australia in the mid-'60s, petrol stations often handed out free packets of CTO stamps to their customers. My father passed them on to me in the back seat of the car and encouraged me to take up collecting.

Shortly afterwards, this nice old lady who lived behind us heard about my new enthusiasm for stamps and gave me the bulk of her collection, which consisted mostly of vintage Australian, British and Empire/Commonwealth stamps, but included a smattering of issues from almost every country in the world. While she regaled me with homemade ginger beer, she taught me the fundamentals of stamp collecting and how to use Stanley Gibbons' Simplified Stamp Catalogue 1954, which I still have among my possessions today.

My passion for stamps vanished in the summer of 1970/71, when I got into rock music in a big way. Only earlier this year (March 2010), when I was moving house and I came across remnants of the collection of stamps the old lady had given me over 40 years ago, did my old enthusiasm flare up again. As I was overcome with a debilitating illness that left me largely housebound and in pain much of the time, stamp collecting appealed to me more and more as a means of distracting myself from the terrible onward progress of my mysterious illness. Stamps were also my prime entertainment while I spent two weeks in hospital.

As the year comes to an end, my affliction has faded into a distant memory, but stamps have come to preoccupy me as nothing else has done in a very long time. Collecting, as most collectors, will admit, is an addiction and today my life largely revolves large around the stamps I'm buying and selling.

Over the last few months I've spent much of my time learning about Chinese stamps. However, most of the sets that I do not own already are simply too expensive for me and it's unlikely I'll ever be able to afford to own them. So I'm downsizing my collecting to Scandinavia, esp. Norway and Sweden.

I also enjoy going through lots of British Empire/Commonwealth vintage stamps, if only to check for deviant watermarks. I haven't found many so far - just one inverted and one sideways - but it's been good fun looking!

Jimjam: the story behind the stamps is often better than the stamps themselves. Thank-you for sharing that.

Welcome, Jimjam. Glad to hear that your illness has passed.

You're welcome, cynical!

tomiseksj, my new illness is philately!

Thanks for sharing a great story JimTwo!

jimjam,
Welcome I have met many collector that had given up the hobby only to come back full-force later in life.

Another Aussie



Welcome Jimjam2.

Thanks for the welcome, guys.

It seems that this is a very friendly place to be. I'm very much liking it so far!

Welcome here! I am also new and have been collecting seriously for more than 35 yrs.

Hi and welcome Jimjam.
Are you a fan of the engraved sets from Scandinavia?

Anthony

Welcome, Jimjam - I'm sure you'll enjoy this friendly forum.

I enjoyed the story of your collecting!

jimjamtwo

Thanks for sharing your story with us it is quite inspiring.

Dianne

Welcome to the forum! I am glad that your illness has passed but your collecting has endured. Thankyou for sharing your story.
My husband was born in Sydney, it sounds like you are around the same age, perhaps you have the same taste in 1970s Aussie rock that he does
Have fun!
Look forward to heaing more about your collection.

Welcome jimjamtwo.
Glad to have you here.

A good yarn you spin. Nice.
Thanks for sharing it.