The Stamps We Set Aside

Okay, Artful, now you're on-topic.

I suspect that we all have stamps that we could not identify, and set aside.

Q/ Now that you've got a scanner & a forum membership, have you resolved all of your set asides?

Q/ How had you kept your set asides? Did they get their own page in an album or stock book? Their own desktop glassine envelope? A spot in your wallet, so you would have them with you at your next club meeting or stamp show?

Q/ Did you ever mail-off a set aside, or a photocopy of a set aside, to another collector? Dealer? Did that help? Did they send it back?

Q/ If you buy collections, how did that guy keep his set asides?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I buy the odd collection, and whilst these are generally without "set-asides" when they do crop up, they are always tucked at the back on their own page.

I've got a few that I've never bothered to post here. Some are still in a glassine marked "un-identified" or sometimes I'll put them in a stockbook and kind of lump them in with the general area I think they belong to. If they have Cyrillic writing, for example, I'll put them in with Russia, Greek with Greece, etc. Many times I'll figure out later where they really belong. I'll buy a collection that has them clearly labeled and identified, I'll see an ebay listing for the same stamp, I'll be perusing Scott and stumble across it, or something along those lines. This pile is actually much smaller than it was a year or two ago. As I become more familiar with "offbeat" issues, fewer and fewer new stamps will go in there, but stamps will continue to come out as I ID them.

I have envelopes full of is this stamp. Most I figure are some remote back of the book revenue issues that Scott doesn't catalogue. Or local stamps. As someone pointed out to me, one of my unknown stamps was a sales sticker put on an Italian phonograph! That is so amazing to figure that out! Now can someone tell me what a "phonograph" is? A sound writing?

What we older people call a record-player.

Oh boy I prefer forget the pre-Internet stamps adventure. All true I get my collection from my Grand-Father, who get it from his Bishop uncle, he never teach me anything good as he never purchase a catalogue, he was just purchasing full sheet and corner block from post office in US and Canada. For my grand-Father a stamp had no value if it was not in a block.

I feel extra old right now.