Over the decades I've shifted from one collecting focus to another, back to general collecting, out of stamps into coins or currency or sports cards and back, and hither, thither, and yon. Having project-ADD (after the initial enthusiasm over starting something new, I tend to get bored or burned out... so I change to a different never-to-be-completed project), I bounce around as the mood fits.
Back in the 1990s I went through a phase where I sold myself on the poorly-thought-out notion that "someday" I'd be a stamp dealer, so I should start putting my worldwide miscellany into dealer sales sheets in those small binders, yadda yadda yadda. I spent a veritable fortune on supplies for that... but spent time categorizing and filing stamps that, in retrospect, were of such nominal value that there's no way one could ever make a go of it as a dealer.
Why did I waste my time on that? Hell if I can remember... it seemed like a good idea at the time. *shrug*
Anyway, getting to the point of the matter, I have several bookshelves scattered around the house with bunches of these 6x9 binders with stamps in them, and last night I was looking for where I had put the binders of used Sweden, as I remember having done up quite a bit, and I'm now looking for SOTN world cancels... for which this is perfect.
So I'm going through one bottom shelf, and I find a series of about 7 binders full of U.S. revenues that I had forgotten I had ever done or owned. I was like "Huh? Where did these come from????"
None of the material looks familiar at all, yet the sheets were in my handwriting, so I must have looked at the stamps at one point. My guess is probably 15-17 years ago is the last time I ever looked at them... which is well before I ever started collecting revenue stamps.
It's all low-value material... *BUT* it's from a time when I didn't know a thing about plate varieties, cancels, silk papers, or anything about U.S. revenues.
So essentially it's a brand new collection to me!
Merry Christmas!
Posted 06/13/2013 3:24 pm
