What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

So I tried to post this and got a warning was not trying to sell anything but was suggesting the person try out local club auctions.......Mrita75, also look at joining a local stamp club close to where you live if possible. My local club is not the norm we have around 75-80 active members, that is due payers and a meeting can have 45-50 members a meeting. My club does have a club auction and we sell around 100-125 auction lots of stamps a meeting. We due have members that do drive 1.5 - 2 hours one way to attend a meeting and most carpool to the meeting, these individuals will usually meet along the way to the meeting. Just a thought... it also allows individuals to talk about stamps and interests while driving.

Geoff: thanks for the tip about the Ellsworth book. I was not aware, but note that today, Feb. 20, is the publication date. I will pass the link on to Eddie and will look myself for the book next week.

When I first did Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains back in the 1990s, I noticed a lot of memorial plaques both in the high pass to the west of the peak and in the hut below the peak. The Red Army stopped the Germans' eastbound push in the vicinity of Elbrus back in WW II. The Germans were trying to reach the oilfields in Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea.

Sadly, the hut burned in 1998 and a French climber died. Almost all the memorabilia was also lost. Elbrus, at 18,510' (about 5,642 meters, I think), is the highest peak in Europe by its location being a few miles north of the main ridge line of the Caucasus.

Steve - thank you. The author is, I think, an American, so the book may already be published over there. I just read reviews last week. Baku was certainly a much fought-over place.

Going through several small country lots that have been in the to do pile for several months. Added a few Austria to my big blue.

I was out bid on a couple of items on ebay.

On wednesday, I was sorting some stamps on a Barcelona charity shop where I work as a volunteer, finding a few stamps for myself.
Yesterday, I got some stamps (Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Denmark) from an approval list and choose some more Swedish ones on another one.

Dublin yesterday as two new stamps for the Centenary of the War of Independence were due to be issued.
In fact only one stamp was issued.
The entire decade of centenaries is of course a sensitive subject and the two stamps were supposed to represent the beginning and end of the war. But the stamp representing the end of the war thru the "Government of Ireland Act" was withdrawn.
The pre-issue publicity indicated that the stamps would be in se-tenant form (8 of each stamp in a 16 stamp sheetlet) but I bought a block of four of the issued stamp yesterday which suggests that the issue was completely re-vamped.
There was a near-similar case in 2014 when a stamp was withdrawn from counters about 25 minutes after it went on sale in larger post offices. This means it is a rare stamp but is not catalogued by Gibbons. It looks like this 2020 withdrawn stamp has not actually been sent to post offices. We will only know if it shows up in the next few days.
The position of First Day Covers, pre-prepared might be different.

There's a murky representation of the cancelled stamp here, I think showing the effects on the map of Ireland of partition

https://commonwealthstampsopinion.b...amp-not.html

I said earlier "beginning and end of the War". To be clear that was the intention of the two sets of two stamps in 2020 and possibly any intended issue in 2021.
My own understanding is that the main problem is not the depiction of a border itself but rather a stamp that commemorates a British Act of Parliament. The provisions of the Act provided for a border so it is relevant in the context of commemorating the Act.
The more contentious issue is whether the Act should be commemorated on an Irish stamp.
Now obviously these two problems overlap but Id think that the graphic is a bye-product of a more obvious question.
The article linked references the recent election but again this is a sideshow. The bigger re-think on the border has been in the context of Brexit.
I should also point out that as of yesterday, the first issue of "The Collector" for 2020 was still available at the General Post Office in Dublin.
I have not been able to find the first issue for 2014 which had the details about the Citizen Army issue. Actually later in 2014, I did find one in a craft shop in the west of Ireland under a sign saying "please take one" and when I explained the story about the issue to the elderly lady who owned the shop, she grabbed it right back out of my hand and said "I better keep it".

After a hiatus of many months I could no longer fight the urge to wade through a heaping helping of WW material and so I purchased eleven large cartons of said stuff to work through. What have I done. Again.

Awesome Rogdcam - I also needed a WW stamp injection - I have some WW coming my way (not 11 cartons - but enough for this novice to handle. Now I need to figure out the best Junior WW album for me. I realize that I won't be satisfied with my stamps in Vario pages.

Since I have run out of a lot of stamps to mount, I spent some time over the last several days adding catalog data in StampManage and submitted them back to Liberty Street.

Do you think a Junior album will be large enough? Back a month or so, vario pages were fine...

I am discovering that l have a lot to learn with album selection - it is not as straightforward as I thought (I know I will make mistakes a long the way - and that is ok).

I learned that I have to look at a lot of different options and ask a lot of questions. To date I have the Mystic Album for my US stamps - which I like. And soon to arrive are Scott Mexico Pages 1856-1978 and a Scott Universal Binder. Anyhow, back to your comment, I won't pull the trigger on anything yet - all of the commentary and opinions eventually help me make a decision. Maybe I am not thinking big enough regarding that Junior album....Up next, is getting my behind into a Stamp Store so I can see options live! :)

Yesterday picked up three sets of the Croatia version of the joint issue with Ireland and arranged for used versions to be sent to me later in the summer by a neighbour who is going on vacation. Also attended an International Coin Fair (there were postcard dealers there).
Picked up around ten Irish FDCs from the 1960s/ 1970s. A few years ago I would have dismissed FDCs as a waste of money. Certainly the 1930s FDCs will always be beyond my reach but the average price for an addressed FDC from the 1960s and 1970s is around one euro. I actually prefer the addressed FDCs to unaddressed FDCs as it shows these FDCs were once valued by collectors. In some cases it is clear that the collector was a youngster and othe cases clear that the FDC was owned by a collector who collected over twenty or thirty years.
Sometimes buying these FDCs feels like rescuing and re-homing an elderly cat.
Also picked up about 35 Irish postcards from the "Golden Age" (say) 1900-1922 (the pre-independence era). Cost about 25 euros. The postcards have competing values (the theme, the publisher, the town or village) or in my case, it is about the "English" language postmark. Again there is an element of history involved....these were the text messages of over a century ago.
Teenage girls sending messages to meet at the local shopping mall is not as 21st century as it sounds.
Likewise a lot of these cards seem to be sent by serving police officers to friends in other police barracks.
It is amazing how these cards were probably treasured for a lifetime and maybe the lifetime of direct descendants and pass thru a family and end up in a box in a Collectors Fair.