What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Two Austrian postal cards from 1892, written in Volapük, arrived in today's mail. After I added them to my inventory, I went through my entire inventory of Esperanto, Ido, and Volapük covers and postcards, adding catalog numbers for postal stationery where possible and ironing out some formatting inconsistencies.

Started editing and cleaning up my Hipstamp wants list, removing items no longer of interest and adding new items. Will take awhile. Wish I got hits more often, but alas I seem to get about 1 hit per month, if that.

I also wrote a comment to Hipstamp staff regarding the over-the-top number of unsolicited emails I am receiving, especially from sellers with whom previously I have never done business. I continue to unsubscribe to the ones I don't want to receive but it's gotten out of hand.

It has been a difficult start to the New Year as Covid restrictios have bee tightened.
I think this is the third lockdown and will not likely end until mid March.Currently travel is very restricted so most of what I have been doing is "house keeping", setting up spread sheets for inventory. ..eg Irish stamps, Irish FDCs,Irish booklets,Irish vintage postcards. Also Irish and USA coins.
Any purchases made have been online and trying to find pre 1971 Irish staps authentically used on mail and postcards.
Also some Blogging.

Checked up the contents of a letter that arrived today.

Continued to interfile into a new album of Showgard 2-row stocksheets the contents of an old US air stationery collection I obtained on the cheap some months ago together with three recent dealer orders that I'd placed to address the most prominent lacunae. Getting these all into Scott no. order (these are UC-nn and UCX-nn), making sure I understand the identification of the different numbers and minor varieties/types and dies of stationery.

Although not big numerically, it threatens to take up two full 1 1/2 inch D ring binders. Airmail stationery is new to me. Fun to be ploughing through this and bringing order to the situation.

A certain amount of static electricity on these sheets attracts hair shed by from the family dog who has tried repeatedly to climb into my lap at the computer/stamp desk today. His 52 lb frame barely fits and he is not welcome today....

Finished another page for my first issues of the world collection.

Looks good! I assume you are a member of FICC?

This morning I double checked my reorganization of my "Scott International Part 1" album. I had recently moved pages between the two volumes that I use to even out the country distribution. Seems I keep acquiring stamps which were in Part A of my Volume 1 (1840-1940). Now countries from the US - Hungary are in Part A and Iceland to the end in Part B.

I have also acquired interleaving and added that in between many of the populated pages - it makes looking at things easier by far and seems to "calm down" the stamps on the pages - the seem happier and I know I am.

I have been bidding a lot, and losing a lot, on E-Bay lots. Last night I was about 1 for 10, and I think I overbid on the one I did win!! Go figure.

Lastly, I have been teaching my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter about stamps - she now tells me things like "go work on your stamps grandpa" or "let's do stamping."

This is starting to feel a little bit like a philatelic diary.

Today, I soaked paper but mostly hinges off of my used collection of Dahomey. I slipped and included a hinged, but gummed, low value into the water along with the others. :(

I found out that my Scott Modern Postage Stamp Album (which is where I mount my duplicate or triplicate items) does not include an entry for Dahomey. But Harris's Statesman (the triplicate or quad album) does. Not that there are illustrations, but that's where most of the extras from my latest Dahomey purchase ended up.

One Benin (predecessor to Dahomey) ended up in my Lincoln Album (19th century only) but also dups).

A question for all of you - what do you do with dups, trips, even quads? I have such a hard time not putting them somewhere, so I feel I have too many albums. It would be better, I am sure, if I had someone here all the time (or a bunch of you) telling me whether you had that one or not.

What a great hobby!

Bobby

Hoard a page or two, then place on ebay for 99c
Pass the joy around.

I "finished" Benin! I put it in quotes, since my Volume 1 Scott International only has ten spaces for the country, when there are lots of varieties which would be needed to actually be complete. But that is one of the things I like about 1840-1940 collecting in this album. I can complete countries without spending a fortune .

I also looked up Benin again in my philatelic atlas and realize it is part of what is now called Dahomey on the west coast of Africa.

Not sure what came first, my interest in geography or stamps, but they certainly compliment each other. The only place I have been in West Africa is Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo. But on a different trip, I crossed the continental divide between the Congo and Nile rivers.

Added a couple of stamps to my Canada collection - something I add to occasionally as a diversion.

Added quite a few stamps to my Hungary collection. Mounted several from the 1920s, a few postage dues and a couple of officials. Added more to the stock book as I continue to search for certain Scott numbers that are hard to find. Why? I prefer to mount stamps by complete row as much as possible. I'm amazed at the low catalog value stamps that are difficult to find.

I spent 30 mins or so cataloguing a lot for sale on E-Bay trying to decide how much to pay or bid, I should say. Does anyone have a rule of thumb? 1/3 CV? 1/2? Of course I know it depends on how badly one wants the material being offered.

Tor - I have an extensive Hungarian collection, with many dups. I am happy to look to see if I have the stamps for which you are looking. I am new on this board, so am limited, by the rules, to trading so far, but I will get there some time and believe I can help you out.

What I call EV ( ebay Value) is rarely more than 1/3 CV, and often quite less. Most ebay material is common and of ordinary condition, not the VF condition that CV presumes. On less common material EV can approach 1/2 to 2/3 CV if the condition is good or typical for the item.

I only snipe on auction items. It it is an item I want badly, I will snipe 3X what the bid is in the waning hour or minutes of the listing. That doesn't always work, but it does about 90% of the time. If I get it at a bid that is near the 3X limit and it seems like I lot, I comfort myself in knowing that someone was willing to nearly what I paid. If I lose the bid, I figure I've been spared getting in a bidding war with someone who wants it a lot more than I do.