How I Started Collecting Stamps

Dear Friends,
Last week I was writing to a fellow collector how I started collecting elephant stamps, this made me think of writing a blog.. please do have a look into this..
http://ourelephantss.blogspot.in/20...-stamps.html
http://ourelephantss.blogspot.in/

Regards
Sandeep

I am very much attracted to elephants since the time I could remember, and I dont know why it is so. The love for elephants grew along with me and it even influenced me in selecting the college for graduation , thus I selected The town of Thrissur (central kerala , South India) for my studies, the town of Temple festivals and Elephants.
To remember elephants and to show it to my friends back at my home town of cochin , I started taking photographs of elephants. this made me interested in photography. I started sharing my elephant photographs online in webshots. This gave me some contacts with elephant lovers from different parts of world.
One day in 2002 I received an email from Michael Don Knapik of USA asking for my address, he told me that he need it to sent me a gift for my efforts to share the elephant photographs and I sent him my address. One Fine day I received this wonderful book written and autographed by him."EVERYTHING ELEPHANTS : A Collectors Pictorial Encyclopedia" The book is a wonderful creation by Michael and it gives a lot of information regarding what all you can collect regarding elephants below the sun, and their approximate market value.
On going through the book, the idea of collecting elephant stamps struck me, it was one of the cheapest stuff I could afford as a student. and the other items such as statues were costly.
Next day I went to a local stamp dealer and purchased some elephant stamps, also I got some elephant stamps from Jessica of USA, whom I met through yahoo groups, These two guys were my inspiration for starting my elephant stamp collection. Some thing I found common among we guys is that we were giving importance to elephants and not stamps.. and I always tell my fellow collectors."I am not a stamp collector collecting elephants but an elephant collector collecting stamps".

I told Michael that I like his book and started collecting elephant stamps, his encouragement was unexpected, one day to my surprise he sent me a lighthouse binder and sheets for storing the stamps. Initially I felt sad on seeing this, I thought he could have given me some stamps instead of giving me this binder, but as I got more into the stamps I found he was right. I could preserve my stamps in good condition only because of the binder given by him else my stamps would have got damaged due to lack of good stock book. He also gave me a list of Elephant stamps published by ATA.
I Joined my towns philatelic club (Religious stamp exchange club, Cochin) and got a chance to interact with the senior members there. am still one of the active member of the club and we meet every month, which is mainly for the auction. The guidance and the materials obtained from the senior members helped me to grow the collection. Another source of stamps was exchanging with guys from all over the world.
After my college days , I joined shipping on 2005, which keeps me regularly away from collection as half of the time I will be out at sea. Before Joining the sea I thought that I will be able to collect lots of stamps one I join shipping, but the effects were reverse.. All my swaps stopped, as I couldn't follow up the swaps. Even though the ship visited several countries, the time I got to go out to land was limited due the faster cargo movements. And once I started to work on oil carriers they rarely came to port as most of cargo operations are done out at sea .. Over all it is not economical to spend 20$ for a taxi to buy stamp worth 2$, and also you are not sure what is awaiting you at post office.
I did some sales and purchases at ebay.. which I found to be most helpful in building my collection. (couldn't believe what I bought from the club at 10Cents got sold for 20$ next week) but I had to stop the sales as I was not able to reply to query by the buyers regarding the delivery of stamps once I am back to sea.
One day when I came back from ship in 2009 I got an email regarding death of Michael due to Cancer. it definitely made me sad. Michael ! "May your Soul rest in peace". My Elephant collection is still going on , with purchases from ebay, local stamp exhibitions , and swapping with some friends. My laziness or may be the wait for better material is not allowing me to convert my collection into an exhibit. Any how lets wait and watch..
Sandeep easwaramangalam saseedharan

Please visit my elephant photographs at

http://picasaweb.google.com/ourelephant
http://community.webshots.com/user/sandeep_es
http://community.webshots.com/user/sandeep_e

I read your blog with great interest & wonder , I marvel at the magnificence of elephants as presented by you. Thanks for showing us your blog & photos, I shall continue to follow it avidly.

My wife and Daughter loves elephants! Who don't really? Such wise creatures and have the ability to touch your soul with just a look.

I like this sentence (I love the whole blog but this little "quip" was insightful- lol)

Interesting Sandeep

While I do not collect elephants on stamps per se, I found your posting quite interesting.

To me, one of the best elephant stamps were the large stamps issued by Laos. I thought that they were quite colourful.

An another note, I noticed in your blogspot you mentioned a problem you had getting some elephant stamps and that problem was that an elephant stamp might be just one stamp in a set of six or more. I can appreciate your problem here because I am faced with the same problem collecting the martial arts on stamps. A lot of them are in sets too and collectors / dealers do not want to break them up, which is understandable. Not only that, a lot of people confuse martial arts with Olympic sports. Having said this Tae Kwon Do is now accepted in some Olympic circles.

I guess the hunt is what we appreciate the most.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Thank you friends for all your comments.

Hi Sandeep,

I've got some stamps that might be interesting for your collection ( souvenir sheet from Antigua in the shape of an elephant, two stamps from the Netherlands, kind of children's drawings).

If that's of interest for your collection, let me know, I also could send photograps if needed. Do you collect the stamps unused or used?

Regards from the Netherlands.

Klaus

P.S. If that's of interest for you I could make a list of stamps depicting an elephant, so you'd know what's out there.

Thankyou KalausR for the offer, I will be interested in the Elephant shaped stamps..
I am very happy to see that I am getting good connections through this community.. I will sent you a mail KalausR.

Thanks for sharing your personal story with the community.
Interesting read.