What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Still busy integrating the "Blue" I picked up at a show in Indianapolis into my red (maroon).

Today I worked on Niger, Nigeria and quit half way thru North Borneo as it needs a good scrub on the perfs and to check those imperfs as likely forgeries.

Went to NAPEX in McLean, VA and spent a bit more than I planned. Most notably, picked up some Belgium back of book Parcel Post stamps that are harder to find/more expensive that will fill a lot of holes in that area. This will probably keep me busy until next year's show. The show is still on today for anyone in the area who is interested.

Mee too, or in my case a lot more than I planned.

Working on used US 37 cent flag stamps. Made album pages for all the varieties I now am aware of and am looking for 134 different stamps, digging through kiloware. The trench warfare of stamp collecting.

I received a "lot" that included a variety of items. Included were early special delivery, postage due, parcel post postage due, special handling, used blocks of 4 for #833 and #834 and #1612 (I didn't have these), multiple used singles #834, #1053, #1295, and some other items. I haven't identified everything yet. But, what was a pleasant surprise was this variety of #QE4 that has the A and second T joined at the top:

Still processing a simgle blue into Minkus although I'm at least 2/3 of the way through. It was pretty loaded I'd estimate I've outright added 1,500 and upgraded maybe 150 so yeah it was a good buy.

Nothing fancy but finally starting organizing my ASFEC collection as said earlier. It will be more than a single stamp per country since I want to include stamps that have maps and flags plus country leaders. This includes colony and independence stamps/

Since I am starting on Vario pages and did not to define a detailed structure (space) and have a lot of empty Vario pages I am just grouping by A. B. C so I can expand. I will inventory soon. I started with my spares collection and will go through unmounted next.

I use labels on right side to help find the letter easier. Cutting the labels has been a chore to do quickly but evenly.

Finished off this page today, old blue keeps giving!

Another in the books so to speak. Still raiding stamps from the blue. M-Q arrangement with Iran (Persia) present as a bonus beginning thru the 30s.

Nice.

Spent a few hours over three days binge reading the thread titled "Pushing 330,000 All Different Worldwide Stamps In One Collection" created by Floortrader a few years back. Consumed all 155 pages. A great inspirational read with many tips, tricks, suggestions and such provided by Floortrader accompanied with many good posts by those participating in many of the various discussions.

I also landed a 4 volume Scott Natl recently that's moderately filled I'd estimate a few hundred in face. I didn't really buy it for the stamps, I wanted to catch my Natl up to date and this is also a more modern set with hinged binders, 3 hole punched with dust cases.

I'll be posting some progress as I move some of my US collection into its new home.

Listened in and bid on a few items on Dutch Country / SAN today. Didn't win anything.

Continuing to integrate stuff into my new national simultaneously. I wouldn't recommend multi tasking as I accidentally moved a page of ducks into the sell album that didn't belong.

I read the article in Linn's about the Boston judging mess.

Recently, I have been moving my collection from Scott International Binders to Steiner pages. It is a five year plan as I collect the world up to 1965 so that there is a great deal of work to be done. I am wondering if others find themselves in the situation that I do, where I have become far more particular about which stamps are making it onto the new pages. The process is slow to begin with, but I have been impeding my progress by being more particular. Do others find themselves in a similar situation when converting their collections, and if so, what are some of their updated demands?

Ike,

Years back I came across a collection where they had used tape a real thin and short strip at the top but sticky tape none the less. This wasn't average cheap stamps either Id say more in the dollar,5,10 per stamp stuff.

Anyway, at the time I fought the urge to throw the whole collection away but I relented since it filled so many holes. Fast forward to a year or two ago any time I see one of them I remove and dispose whether I have a replacement or not.

In my mind if anyone sees a taped stamp they would automatically assume the entire collection is bad. While I have no idea how many might be lurking I feel that I've funneled them down to a very few. Surprisingly for the most part they're hard to spot since they don't typically show a stain thru the front they're mainly just a little thicker at the top.