What's In Your Stamp Bag?

Do you have a bag you take with you to bourses and club meetings, and to keep key items contained at home? Here is mine:





I like the physical bag I have. It is a $350 flat-bottomed hand-tooled Italian leather case that I bought at a luggage store that was going out of business. I paid $70 for it -- otherwise I'd never have been able to afford it. It is full of little pockets and has five large accordion divisions.

If you're looking for inspiration, here is a list of what's contained in my five pockets, front-to-back. If you have ideas of what else should be in there but isn't, please tell me!

Pocket 1:

• Two pair gold-plated 902 ("Rolls Royce") stamp tongs


• Two magnifiers of different strengths


• Precision scissors


• Large angled scissors


• Bottle of Harco watermark fluid


• Bottle of Ronsonol (for watermarking), stored outside the bag while I'm at home


• #2 pencil


• Small LCD calculator


• Package of corner mounts

Pocket 2:

• Envelope of Lindner stamp hinges


• APS stamp


• 2 ink pads in different colors


• Watermark tray


• Package of assorted mount strips


• Linn's Multi-Gauge (in sleeve)


• Guillotine mount trimmer


• Empty glassines

Pocket 3:

• Some small items for trade


• Some small envelopes of worldwide stamps to give away to kids


• Anything I'm trying to sell to bourse dealers


• Space for bourse purchases

Pocket 4:

• Color photocopies of specific catalogue pages (such as Gibbons' South Australia) on heavy stock


• George Rogers Clark plate block checklist

Pocket 5:

• Reference book: Collect British Postmarks, Seventh Edition


• Reference book: QEII Specialized Definitives Stamp Catalogue, Volume 2

What's in your bag? And what am I missing?

mcgeesorg said:




Stamp album(s) or stockboards ...etc


Cheers

james said:




Ha! Those are on shelves, obviously.

Oh! Unless you mean to store bourse purchase. Yes -- those are in pocket 3.

With a bag like that, I think you are a spy, in league with Philby

Mr. Gadget?

Crikey,
I take a supermarket plakky bag
a pair of tongs, little slips of paper and a pencil,
all jammed into my lunch box, with vegemite sarney's.

My budget in cash in my wallet.

I readily admit it -- I enjoy the tools of the trade as much as the trade itself.

mcgeesorg,

With the stuff you have, I think you're well equipped & ready ...

Nice bag with a bargain price

For me, I have a bag but for my Banknotes collection & its supplements. So, I don't think that you'd be interested in knowing what's inside.


Cheers

I must say, how significant the use of stamp tongs
has grown, from my first clumsy attempts.
Absolutely indispensible, I cannot do stamping
without them.
The first six months I got by with blunt, dime store horrors.

I believe my first pair, age 8, was from a child's "beginner stamp kit". I remember cursing my clumsiness, as apparently all the experts used them admirably. Only later did I realize that they used proper tongs, and I used cheap horrors.

WOW! That's what I call organized. You have me inspired.

Off to staples I go to find a bag.

Dianne

Oh man, I LOVE a thread like this. So interesting, so thought-provoking, great fun...

Thanks McGee

C'mon Kirk,
flattery doesn't evade the question..
what's in your stamp bag?

Rolls of $100 notes?

You got me Rod. I got to excited I forgot to answer the question.

First I have to mention that I rarely go anywhere -- it's rural here, so there are very few dealers, shows, etc. But I do have a simple bag (nothing fancy like McGee's) -- just a couple of divider/pockets.

-- Copies of catalog pages. I never carry a catalog because I try to keep them as mint as possible and they're heavy.

-- Stockbooks. I have 5 different colors of the small lighthouse. They're about 5x8 inches and only have about 8 pages in them. They're my favorite books for staging, shuffling, organizing, etc.

-- Tongs and a magnifier.

KS

P.S. I've also used a 'portable file box' as a traveling office. It works well, so long as you don't have anything larger than a standard manilla file folder. They're good for research/library trips (also good for genealogy and students) If you aren't familiar with a file box, it looks like this ... http://www.staples.com/Staples-Hand...oduct_759398

To bad I don't have a camera!
I use a case in plastic with a nice padded blue cover that clipped around. Yeah more like a plastic tray. Looking for the brand I found "National Postal Museum-Canada". I have this since the late 70's and still look good. I just bring to stamp club or dealer what I want to exchange or sell sometime an album or a stock book. But this tray I have no clue how it got in my hands. Bad memory is a killer!

I lead a simple life. Like Kirk I live in a rural area and there aren't many places to go. When I do go to my stamp club, or sales, I've got a small green stock book labeled 'postzegels' (got it last year at an auction full of Cuban stamps) which I use to carry my purchases/trades, my delapidated 1974 Harris catalogue which I use to document what I have (very low tech), a pair of tongs and a pencil. Travel light. I haven't started trading at the club yet, but will figure something out to carry trading material in. I really should start taking my loupe. I have found I've needed it.
All carried in a shoulder book bag my wife had left over, far too much room.

Yuck ! I tried that once and it was awful. I had to quickly down a teaspoon of Marmite to get to feeling better.

I take an old fashioned briefcase when I go to the UK. It is great for all the stamp stuff and for keeping items flat. The main reason for using this though is because it is the only piece of extra luggage one can take on a BA flight without any weight charges. So I can get quite a few Kilos of stamp stuff [like Vario pages,magazines] to bring back. It is extremely useful.
It cost me nothing. They are old-fashioned and are not seen much these days. So someones cast-off was my gain.

Londonbus1....also a bit of a cast-off !