What Was In Your Mailbox Today??

What gorgeous Austrian stamps!

I got several batches of stamps I had ordered from eBay today, most having fun stamps on the envelope. My man in the top row always uses at least one Bugs Bunny.




One of my favorite things from today's haul is a batch of lenticular stamps: a set of 10 airmail stamps from Umm al Qiwain with dolls wearing traditional costumes from various countries, and the other a batch of 3 from Bhutan showing classic works of art. I haven't gotten a chance to really research any of them yet.

Today I got my first piece of mail ever from the Republic of North Macedonia. It contained four picture postcards and two QSL cards that I bought on Delcampe, and it took 36 days to reach me in California. Here are the stamps on the envelope.

34 German stamps to fill some holes. Brings me to almost exactly 80% complete for base Germany, Berlin, and DDR to 1965. (604 still left out of 3016 spots in my Germany scott specialty album). The second volume with all the locals, states, and occupations has a much longer way to go. At the point where the last 20% will be more expensive to complete then the first 80% was.

Hello.
They told me that WOPA gave away stamps for signing up. I registered, requested them and today they arrived. Are these. The promotion is still open.
Regards.

Wow, I hit the "what's in your mailbox" jackpot today. On a day when California is getting drenched from one end to the other, and you wouldn't wish your mail carrier to be out there in all that rain, he brought me some great goodies. One item was this interesting cover, issued to celebrate the bicentenary of New Town Edinburgh, and bearing the 10 shilling Wilding definitive that pictures Edinburgh castle. In 1967 this would have been a fair bit of money, probably 30 times the first class letter rate of the day, and perhaps an hour's wages for the average unskilled worker, so a not insignificant amount to spend on a fairly frivolous cover, which is why it's unusual to see such a high face value stamp on an ordinary letter.

Also in my mailbox was a shipment from Nordfrim consisting of the 2021 and 2022 year packs of Danish stamps for my Denmark collection. I'll have to print out the Steiner pages for those two years.
Finally, while technically not in my mailbox (since it was delivered by UPS and not by the US Mail) was my latest purchase from EPL Apfelbaum. In a recent post I talked about their frequent sales, and their most recent one was right at the end of 2022 and everything was 80% off. This purchase was a huge collection of Scandinavia in four KaBe albums. There was one volume of Norway and Denmark. Since I already have Denmark almost complete, there was nothing in it that I technically needed, but there were quite a number of the common definitives from the early 1930's, the Caravelle issue, and the wavy line issue that were MNH and therefore catalogue at a huge premium over the used price. Those will find a place in my collection. This volume, as do all the other volumes go up to about the mid-1990's. Then there is a volume of just Sweden, one of just Finland, and finally one of Greenland, Faroes and Iceland. I haven't counted everything yet, but there must be thousands and thousands of stamps, souvenir sheets and booklets. Almost everything from the 1940's onward is MNH and so there is a nice boost to the catalogue price for the earlier material. All in all a nice purchase and a solid foundation in case I wish to add to the other Scandinavian countries I wasn't already collecting

Continuing to fill some back of book Revenue stamp gaps.

Scott R62a

Now you're going to make me want to get back to U.S. Revenues!

Received four stamps in the mail today, all unused and hinged. U.S. Scott 26, 113 (with a nearly pristine grill), 207, and 279 with vertical watermark.

I added a Fujiera set,

A possible auction descriptive

Rarely seem, highly collectable, post office fresh, must have for every collection, choice centering, pristine gum, found in unsearched hoard.

Now, on to the imperfs!


John

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That's a coincidence. Went to the local library last night to hear a talk presented by an actor pretending to be Orville Wright and actress playing his sister Katherine. It was set in 1925. I learned a lot. He died in 1948.

That's a great autograph on an appropriate stamp.

I got this R19a and an R40a in the mail yesterday.

17 packs of mounts! including badly needed 31mm. Still waiting on 21 more packs.

Barely a cent I must say....