Have You Returned Back To Stamp Collecting?

I gave up collecting stamps back in the mid 80s when Canada Post seemed to be releasing new commemoratives every week... or even faster. I'd no sooner have the last batch of stamps mounted when, POOF!, there'd be four or six more to go out and get. The empty spaces in the front pages of my album had been reduced to the point where even filler stamps would be fairly expensive to obtain. I wasn't much into varieties, and so my interest waned and I moved on.

It wasn't until recently that I brought the album out again. It was a puzzle involving stamps that prompted its unearthing and flipping through the pages brought back all kinds of memories. I then discovered that it was considerably cheaper to obtain post war Canadian stamps nowadays than it had been decades ago. While I had switched from hinges to stamp mounts at some point before I quit, I still had a large number of hinged (sometimes very heavily) mint stamps. It was quite surprising to discover that in many cases I could replace them with pristine copies for, at times, the face value or less. And as for the replaced stamps, well, they're just fine for postage.

With the explosion of listed varieties since my venerable 1985 Unitrade catalog was published, my stash of doubles that I stored away in glassine envelopes way back when has also seen the light of day again. Many stamps have moved from envelope to album page in the process. It feels more than a little strange to say this but stamp collecting is quite an inexpensive hobby for me right now!

I first started collecting around 1990 when a friend brought some stamps to my house. I collected for about a decade, until my late teens, when I packed my collection up and stored it. Fast forward to 2009, and I am in the process of finishing my master thesis about United Fruit Company. Having come across some postcards and covers from the company during my ever-continuing search for something I could make use of in my thesis I decide to buy myself a cover and a postcard as a memento of writing my master.

Little did I know what would happen next...

When the two letters arrived I couldn't stop looking at the stamps on the covers. Sure, the stamps was used out of period as discount postage, but that didn't stop me from remember the feeling of collecting stamps from when I was younger. In fact, if it had been those rather boring forever stamps I probably wouldn't have looked twice. I spent the next few weeks endlessly looking at stamps on ebay, reading articles and blogs about stamps, and joing the now defunct MyPhilately-page. I even stopped by a stamp shop and picked up some supplies. Then, as my time as a student came to an end and I had the chance to dig out my old stamp collection that is exactly what I did.

And I haven't stopped since.

Sure, there have been periods of time where I haven't touched my stamps. But I've never stopped collecting since that day in 2009 when my love of stamp collecting was reignited in a big way.

I took a break from collecting about thirteen years ago when I decided to make a career change from teaching to working in the healthcare industry as a DBA (and later transitioning to software development).

I recently made the decision that it was time to resume the hobby as a way to decompress. I am working on picking up a set of 2016 Scott catalogues and have been enjoying sorting and re-discovering stamps I had purchased back in the 90s.

I began in my early teens in the 60s, after a pointer from my older brother.

I remember attending Jacques Schiff Jr auctions to buy EFOs (quite a hoot to get treated like a grownup!), going to some major show or other where I got to chat with Pat Herst, subscribing to Mekeel's, buying sheets of 1/2-cent Franklins for the plate blocks & postage, and performing the magic trick of turning plain #6 envelopes into FDCs. Wow!

It all went away when I went away to college, but I always kept thinking of what I would collect were I to return.

Over the years, I got an idea for an artsy-sciencey topical collection (never happened) and, after various stints in selling, an idea for a collection focused on the commercial usages of pre-printed postal cards (that pile grows & grows).

In the end, what I most enjoy are seeing the wonderful efforts other people are making - exhibits at stamp shows, and lectures at clubs - and spending hours going thru bargain boxes of WW covers & postcards, pulling out enough stuff to compensate the dealer at an hourly rate at about what it would cost me to take someone out for a movie & a meal.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I stopped between 1992 and 1995 but have otherwise collected from the mid 1970s to today.

I got back into stamps about 1996, after a hiatus of close to 20 years. Have had a couple of breaks since then when moving country or whatever.

I collected Canadian stamps in my teens (45 years ago) and my crazy dad collected covers flown on Zeppelins. He died 2 years ago and I inherited his collection which brought back great memories and a splurge on ebay to find more Zeppelins.