Here I am 76 years old with too many hobbies and too much to do but stamps are my oldest hobby and I'm getting back into it. I've been collecting since I was a kid in Germany. There were from all over the world but mostly US stamps up in the attic which my dad had received from friends in the US when he was a kid. Most were the same and nibbled at by various animal life but they were intriguing never-the-less as they came from that far away world out there. Stamps were my first lesson in history and I eventually majored in the subject.
Anyway, I've been roaming the country since 1998 in a motorhome and have spent little time in our NJ home where all my "stuff" was. It came time to move to Florida and in packing I found my enthusiasm again. Here was a stack of GPS magazines from the 60s. I wondered if the Germany Philatelic Society was still in existence. I made contact and rejoined. Isn't the internet wonderful?
So here I am learning to use
ebay to fill holes and buying all manner of stuff that I could never afford in my early years. First of all I wanted to organize my plate blocks and won a bunch of Minkus albums to put them in. Of course, they mostly filled already. The blank Harris album set which I bought was discarded as the paper is much to thin to be used as an album. Now I find Minkus is out of business and volume VII and on does not seem to exist. Still researching the matter. Last night I won my first block using AuctionSniper. Been losing auction items as a matter of course in the last few seconds and now know why.
Anyway, my main collection lies in German stamps where I have been getting First Day of issue cards and stamps via subscription for too many years to remember. I have oodles of US FDC which I prepared way back when and had thoughts of becoming a stamp dealer in my old age.
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One question I have about joining trades and sales etc - it says you have to be a supporting member or something like that. What is that?
Fred
Posted 07/13/2013 09:25 am
