What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Thank you Cjd

So, Bobby, can you explain the French Paid,
how it may have arrived on the stamp?

Just a French confirmation, no further impost is due?

..and how did you find the French Pmk ID?

Hi Rod,

The French handstamp is normally applied to the front of the envelope, to indicate no further payment required, but every once in a while it lands on the stamp itself.

I found the postmark at this site:

http://marcophilie.org/index.html

Right, Thanks.
Yes, one of the planet's great philatelic information links.
Superb!

Well, today marks the resumption of remounting my WW collection onto Steiner pages.

I've been going country-by-country in alphabetical order. In 2020, when my job was on hiatus, I made it up to India. Then, the project somehow lost momentum. My job's been a nightmare lately, though, and collecting stamps seems to be the one thing that releases my mind from all that malaise.

Seems that the further I go along in this process, the percentage of of stamps encountered that require a soak and press prior to remounting is going up. Fortunately, I've discovered that I can press multiple layers of stamps in my Thor press, using cheap-and-cheerful blank index cards as blotters.

I spent about four hours updating Windows 10 on the long-unused hobby desk computer last night and today before I could get started again. What a pain.

I put in an hour or so every couple days to work on my custom Machins.

In my 3 screen set up, AlbumEasy is on left, my master spreadsheet in center, and a proof (PDF) of page is on the right. I usually have a copy of Adminware's pages and Deegam's Machin Handbook.

That's a frighteningly high-tech and tidy room!

Nice setup, angore!

My new set of Scott International volume 1 albums came in today, so I started taking stamps from the feeder albums to put in stock pages until my mounts get here. (I don't like the look of hinges.) I'm realizing one of my feeder albums either used those old PM mounts that are sealed on all four sides, or hinged stamps on or above the top perfs. Not an issue for used stamps - I'll soak those, but it makes cutting hinge remnants off mint stamps a tricky situation.

My other feeder album has all the stamps hinged smack-dab in the middle of the stamp, so I have to be real careful not to tear or crease them when removing them from the album page.

I'm seriously considering giving up on the feeder albums and buying all my own stamps for the new set. Most of them aren't worth the time. Learning as I go...


Edit: I wish Scott was a bit more clear on which stamps I can and can't soak

The hinges aren't peelable?

Not from what I've seen so far. At least, they haven't been peeling off the album pages very well at all.

I use the pointy, dangerous tongs, generally speaking, but when dealing with strong hinges, I use the spade-tip tongs, too.

I run the spade tip sideways up the back of the stamp, to the crease of the hinge, and then I clamp down and pull the whole thing off the page, straight down. I've never had stamp damage doing that. (Sometimes the page tears.)

I'm left with a pile of stamps with attached, folded hinges.

At that point, I can either use a moistened Q-Tip to try to moisten the hinge and see if it pulls away, or, I can grab the stamp at the hinge crease with the spade-tip tongs and use another pair of tongs to tear off the "extra" portion of the hinge along the edge of the spade tip, leaving the attached part on the stamp. Not ideal, but efficient.

Thanks for the advice; technique works like a charm!

I finished sorting the loose stamps from that huge box of stamps from the giveaway a few weeks back. The stamps on paper are only separated by U.S. and non-U.S. and there are multiple thousands of those! I don't plan on doing anything with them in the near future, so they will be put away with the several hundreds of other stamps on paper that I have somewhere.

Next part is the fun part. I get to go through country by country and see what I don't already have. As I do this, I'll be casting aside the many hundreds of damaged stamps, unless they are the only copy I have. I'm waffling on whether or not to just throw them away since they have zero value.

And still waiting on backorder from Amos. I need my mounts!!!!

Sounds like hours and hours of fun!

Myself, during my current transition to Steiner pages, I've made it my policy to discard damaged common stamps whenever I encounter them. I've probably thrown enough away already to fill a cigar box.

Just do it! I've have the sad experience of looking through many inherited collections full of damaged stamps. I don't want my heirs to present a collection with junk to an appraiser, dealer, or another collector after I've passed. You probably don't want to, either.

A faulty stamp that isn't common and still looks presentable may go into my album until I acquire a better example.