Hello everyone.
My name is Doug but I have gone by the handle of slugore online for many, many years. My grandfather, William Harrison, was an avid collector. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some here that have covers or stamps that came from him or he touched at some point in his life. Unfortunately, he died when I was but a baby and I never got to sit and listen to his stories of stamp collecting and his beloved collection.
As a kid, in the 70s, I dabbled a little in collecting and enjoyed removing the stamps from envelopes that my mother had set aside for my eldest brother and I. My brother had had the fortune of knowing our grandfather and had started to collect. I joined him because I always looked up to him and wanted to do whatever he did. For whatever reason we both stopped collecting before we ever got really serious about the hobby.
Decades later, my mother gave me my grandfather's collection. From what I can tell, the meat of the collection is Canadian. It spans from a #4d all the way up to the early 70s when he died. There are a few blank spots in there I am sure. There also seems to be a British Commonwealth Book that goes back as far as the One Penny Red but seems to end just after the coronation of QE II. There is even a small box of covers that I am sure need to be looked at further.
I have gone through it several times, first just to try to get an idea of its worth and to catalogue what was there. But since then I find myself returning to it more and more often and getting lost in the pages wondering why he had collected certain pieces and realizing what joy it must have given him to find whatever he was looking for... whenever or if ever he did. I guess it brings me closer to him and I like that.
Two weekends ago, I cracked the pages again. This time, with my 5 year old daughter and she has now started her collection, with seeds from some of her great grandfather's stock book (at least what I hope was his stock book). Her thing is animals. Perfect for a kid. This last weekend we went to the post office and she acquired her first collector sheet. It was the recent year of the ram and year of the monkey collector sheet from
Canada Post. We put it in her book together and talked about it for a while. Something I wish I could have done with him.
And now I'm here. I think I'm going to be looking more deeply at this collection of his trying to see how to make it mine, or more appropriately, ours.
I look forward to chatting with you all and getting to know you and your collections as well as learning a whole lot about this very intriguing, very personal hobby.
See you on the boards!
-Doug
Posted 03/08/2016 10:50 pm
Welcome Slugore
