What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Cleaning up stamps in various boxes on the floor so the piles are not on the floor. I repurposed some bookshelves to use to store but making little progress.

I took a moment to calculate how much money I saved by not doing a multi-day visit (or any visit for that matter) to the Boston show and it ended up being four figures. I will be buying a new laptop with that money which I will have long after the first overpriced Show meal would have been digested.

Waiting on some more Machins from one of my Favorite UK sellers.

Looking at the purchases I bought at our regional stamp clubs room auction. I spent the equivalent of about $77US, £55.39 actually without any buyers premiums or surcharges. Good condition stock books were probably the best selling item. For some reason there were many lots from the Ascencion islands and they mostly sold. UK, & US lots were mainly common stamps and didn't sell well. Around 84% of items sold.

Just this morning, I completed checking off the letter T in my 1947 album version of the spreadsheet. All that remains is the letter S (almost 4500 spaces to validate and catalog). Including the U.S. stamps, I should be somewhere around 25,500 spaces filled out of the 35,000+ spaces in the album, assuming my coverage of the letter S is about 70 percent. I'm still waiting on the missing U.S. pages so I can get a more accurate count of total spaces.

I started searching for pre 40's stamps. I have a bunch of holes that need to be filled.

I've decided that I will keep my German and Australian stamps. Canada, US and Great Britain are all going to auction after 16 years of buying. Dropping them off in two days and it will be a little tough. Nothing is making me sell.

Attending Boston Show 2026 every day thus far with intentions of completing out the week.

Added 62 stamps from 27 different countries to my collection from a mixture that was included in an order from my favorite dealer. When I initially looked at it, I didn't think it would be that productive, but I guess I think I have less holes than I actually do. Well, I have a few less now. On to the next stuff to process.

Mounted a few dozen, perhaps a bit more, Washington-Franklins across my Scott National and Steiner based U.S. collections. This was after better organizing and revalidating my small hoard of W-F stamps. It was good to put the National album back together again. I've also put all my supplies away and plan to take a break, except for finishing up the spreadsheet for the 1947 International.

Spent time with loot from the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show, verifying watermarks in my Mexico airmail collection.
Found more than a few that were mis-identified and added them to my collection. Still awaiting the arrival of a couple 1934 Pro-Universidad mint stamps to arrive, the 1 peso definitive (Scott 704) and the 5 peso airmail (C59).

Spent a couple hours on the net trying to identify some signatures on a cover I purchased.

Spent yesterday and this morning adding items that were purchased at Boston Expo in to my albums. 2 really nice tupenny blues from 1854 and 1855, some GB ephemera into my Great Britain album. Ate a peach. Added covers and overprints recently acquired in an Ireland auction to my Ireland albums. Viewed photos that my daughter took from Boston Expo and continued to organize /add a backlog of material that has been purchased since 2018. Quite a task,but wonderfully rewarding. What a great hobby !

Not today, but just yesterday - I purchased 21 MNH topical sets from one of my favorite dealers on Hip Stamp. I'm closing in on close to 1100 sets now. Today, I've been searching inventories of other dealers on Hip Stamp, trying to get an idea on what to focus on next. Great hobby!

On a side note - I'm pretty much a beginner collector. Its nice, because I discover TONS of "treasure" often. Since I'm fairly new, its an unknown world out there, and its exciting. Its the joy of starting a new hobby, I feel. Happened when I started comic books as well, 40 years ago.

Happy collecting to all of you!