A Funny Tale...

Please feel free to move this one if it doesn't fit...

So we went to visit my in-laws for a few days a while ago and they were doing the 'let's figure out the will so no one will have to worry' thing that's acutally as smart as it is somber. On hearing that I'm a stamp collector my dad in law mentioned giving my sis in law a big box of his foray in to philately from years ago. Unfortunately, they had a huge house fire and the box was one of the many, many things lost. Sad as it was there wasn't anything that was valuable in the box except a couple of nice album binders made of leather.

dad in law gave up a listing of the stamps that were in the collection (he is always smart and anal retentive enough with ALL his collectable) and handed it over to sis in law for the insurance. Well, a few weeks later she gets a call from her home insurances' fraud department over her "claim to own several rare and possibly unique stamps", including a handful of Jennys, blue Mauritius, a binder full of US 1-300 and so on, so on.

Turns out that whomever was in charge of turning over the inventory list didn't look at description, just the scott numbers (sis in law collects coins and stamps so has insurance for them through a specific agency FOR stamps and coins) and didn't notice they were all described as REPRODUCTION/SPACE FILLERS NOT AUTHENTIC

It was all quickly ironed out and the insurance agent was very happy that the millions on the claim form went down to a few hundred, including about $20 for the cheap repros.

So now it's a joke the last few weeks about the scandalous fortune lost to fire and an impatient agent and how close we all were to being millionaires.