A Labor Of Love

Greetings! Although I've already put up a couple of questions in the forums, an introduction would be fun too. :)

My mother and uncle and grandmother were all avid stamp collectors, and their collections rolled together (to my mother) over the years... and ultimately came to me in the form of 3 or 4 large moving boxes. There were many albums, thousands of loose stamps, hundreds of glassines and stockbooks.... It was totally overwhelming.

Many of them were in terrible condition, and perhaps a quarter of the collection ended in the trash because of mildew, or having become hopelessly stuck together. But after a lot of thought, I realized I couldn't simply get rid of them. In almost every early memory I have of my mother, she is "playing" with her stamps.

So I decided to at least save what I could. I've spent the last year sorting, cataloguing, and disassembling the old albums into new albums. The vast majority of the collection is Classic WW. She had a huge emphasis on Germany and Great Britain, and most of that is in good condition. She also had a very large US collection, but I haven't even begun to look at it yet.

And after all this, I've discovered that I really like them. I went so far as to bid for a box of loose stuff at our local stamp club a month or two ago, and found all sorts of "treasures"... which has led to a bit of a passion for early Great Britain. So now I'm creating my own mess.

Anyway... much too long, very sorry. But I am still learning and still unraveling, and expect to be asking many many questions. Hopefully everyone will be patient.

Welcome and no need to apologize. Not only is your introduction not too long but it is heartwarming to hear of a family hobby finding a home in the family. It sounds like you have good support in a local club, so all that's left to do is to wish you more stamp collecting enjoyment than you ever imagined possible. Keep us posted.

Thank you for the kind words Hieronymus. I often wonder what my mother would think of my having taken it up after going out of my way to avoid it for decades. LOL!

She would smile beatifically the way mothers are wont to smile.