Let's Talk About Profile Pictures!

Wow! Really interesting to read all your stories! Thanks for sharing all this!




you owned?

That's twice as many copies of that variety in multiples on cover than I thought existed. (The lower cover looks very familiar). Nice.
C.

Mine is the "man on the mast" variety of Unitrade/Scott #158iii issue. I was already enamored with the beautiful colour and design of the famous Canadian Bluenose stamp but the obsession with that little blue dot turned into a long hunt to finally find one in my price range. It is funny to think how that speck, which is technically an imperfection, can drive one so deeply into a hunt to own it.

That's really awesome, stamps101! I really like that variety too! Thanks for sharing it!

The top cover came out of a large postal history holding. That cover had been out of sight over 30 years, and I was very surprised when it showed up. I was already aware of the well-known ex-chipg cover.

I have a display class exhibit entitled "GENERAL HENRY H. "HAP" ARNOLD -- His Life and Times Revealed Through Philately." His military career spanned from the dawn of aviation (he was trained on the Wright B Flyer in 1911) to the dawn of the Jet Age (brought back plans from England in 1941 for the Whittle jet engine, and observed Yeager flying the Bell X-1 in 1948). There is a plausible (but unproven) legend that aeroplane on the 1912 20 cent Parcel Post stamp depicts Arnold flying the Wright B Flyer over College Park, MD. Below are two images of pages from my exhibit detailing these events.

For those following along at home:
https://cgpostal.com/5cent/5cent.html

Hard to believe that my last update to that page was 19 years ago.

C.

Edited to add - Haven't looked at it in years. Boy, there were some great covers in that collection. Thanks for reminding me about them. C.

The picture, blcjr, used as the vignette model, one of many taken for that purpose, was of an airplane on the ground. It was not being flown. The town of which the plane is shown flying over was added to the stamp during design.

Parcelpost is right. As I say in the exhibit, the image on the stamp was based on photographs taken "at College Park, MD." I did not mean to leave the impression that it was based on photographs of the Wright Flyer in flight. And there is no evidence that I know of that in the photographs used to create an image of the aeroplane that Arnold is shown in the cockpit. But a legend did develop that the image was of a plane in flight with Arnold at the controls, and the Arnold family considered the Parcel Post stamp a part of the family lore. There are plenty of pictures of Arnold from that time in and around the Wright Flyer, both on the ground and in the air. (In scanning my exhibit page with the picture of him coming in for a landing with his iconic grin--supposedly the basis for the nickname 'Hap'--the image is askew. I need to fix that before exhibiting again.)

Really nice story, blcjr!

I added the first few U.S. Scott #11/11As to my stamp collection in 1984 and started studying and plating the issue in-depth in 1998. So a stamp from the 1851-57 3-cent imperforate issue was a natural choice for me as an avatar image.

I acquired the stamp I use as my avatar at a stamp show in 2016. The dealer that sold it to me had it labeled as a #10, and priced as such.

I knew the stamp was actually a #11 (about on tenth the catalog value of a #10) but it was a gorgeous stamp, and I really wanted it. I carry a small #10/11 color set with me to all stamp shows and stamp club meetings for comparing colors with dealer merchandise and the stamps of fellow collectors. I handed the dealer a display card with three #10As in it and told him his stamp was a claret #11 and asked him to compare his stamp with my orange brown #10As. He compared the colors and kindly adjust the price to one appropriate for a #11. I thanked him and gladly paid his adjusted asking price.

The stamp is one of my favorites. It has fresh deep claret color and a face-free cancel. It was printed from plate 8, the least common of the #11 plates. The position is 64L8.

Really nice story, Classic Coins! I agree, this stamp is absolutely gorgeous! The left margin is the biggest one you can get for a "center" position. And the condition of the stamp is certainly the best one you can get for a used 3c Washington. The color is fresh, and the design, (including the frame lines) are really clear and make it easier to plate. Thanks for sharing your story!

I already paid a #11 misidentified as a #10. I didn't have a lot of experience, and paid at least 8 times the correct price.

I sold my US collection as well as my collection of Russia and 34 red boxes of 102 cards along with cartons of stamp stuff and am now stamp free. I like talking about and researching philatelic topics, but it has been freeing to not be in constant financial transactions and enjoy philately without any pressures to find a thing, buy a thing, sell a thing, preserve a thing, insure a thing etc. Take the $$$ away and it is more relaxing than it ever was for me. I was buying and selling for 50 years.

Oh I see. This kind of break is often important!

My profile picture is nothing that I'm really proud of or like and has nothing to do with stamp collecting. It's just a reminder of a time in my life that I'll never forget.