What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Today I joined the ATA and put in my first order for Topical Checklists... Hopefully there is a fairly quick turnaround :)

Non Philatelic.

Took a rest from the stamp tongs,
Got up at 5am, and waited for the garbage truck, at the back fence
handed him a big box of "Maltesers" with a "Merry Christmas"
He retorted "Will make me fat!"
"Give 'em to your lovely wife"
"No way" he replied

Yes, I gave our postman a box of chocolates yesterday. He's quite plump, so there was no demurring on his part! This year has been the first time in a while that we've got back to seeing the same postman every day.

Found about 15 items I want to bid on next month. So much for cutting down on spending in 2022.

Casey, you shouldn't jump to conclusions.
I had intended to curb my appetite for new acquisitions this year, but time after time I found myself bidding nonetheless. My experience during the past year has been that my continued interest in spending money at stamp auctions has been accompanied by the increased willingness of others to outbid me at every opportunity. Consequently, I have seen a substantial reduction in spending, yet my appetite remains unsated.

I have found myself giving up on many, many lots this past year. At the same time I've thought 'does that idiot really think that's worth $150?'. I won't overpay just to beat someone else. It has to be a good move and money well spent 90% of the time.

Cleaned up my stamp/record/ railroad room today. Put a bunch of accumulated lots into bankers boxes and just kept out the 3-4 I want to actively work on (recent Hipstamp purchases). Put a few DDR onto pages and refreshed my awareness of the differences between the 1953 definitives and the 54/55 redrawn types.

I have been reading the latest Deegam Machin Handbook (HB5) and noticed that many of the sections have been rewritten. Most of the images have been improved. The only gripe is the way the handbook is designed (many PDF's with lots of links) that the links do not work on an Android tablet. I like reading from my tablet compared to a standard PC.

What it still does not do is help as a quick identifer. One has to study the listings and determine what could distinguish between issues. You often have to back into it by knowing other details such as direction of print, printer, gum, phosphor, perforation type, etc. For example, I now appreciate that one cannot compare litho and gravure printed directly on some characteristics because each used different phosphors, papers, etc.

This means the step by step method to identify will vary dramatically by issue on what other characteristic will be used to eliminate the possible candidates.

Bad news is that I do have rotator cuff tendonitis caused by excessive stamp collecting activities! Good news is that I don't have to stop, just slow down a bit and let it heal. Of course, I also have to engage in some kind of physical therapy to get my full range of motion back. With the somewhat of a green light, I started to prepare a bunch more countries for mounting: Monaco, Mozambique, Mozambique Company, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Nicaragua, and a few more.

Recently I took my hodge podge of a stamp collection out of their totes, started putting it in some type of order, bought a kiloware on ebay to get the juices flowing for the hobby, and joined an awesome stamp forum.

redoing my son's collection which belonged to my father...have done this more than once...oh well it still fun

By design? Or because of some other, unfortunate reason?

Time to get serious for a "Stamp For Every Country" collection and will try to get Number 1s for more modern issues. I have the bound version of the album but decided to use the AlbumEasy source files so I can add postal entities since the ASTEC collection only covers mostly recognized agencies.

I have not decided the exact layout yet so will just gather the issues from what I have to help me decide. For my country list, I will start with the table of countries in StampManage (around 987). I want to make it flexible to upgrade.

Spent some time recently adding to my Stanley Gibbons Windsor albums - penny reds and various pre-decimal QE2 issues (regionals, Machins, etc...)

Downloaded AlbumEasy and working with that a bit to create some custom pages.

Dabbling at collecting Belgian stamps by postmark, one per town pre-WWII.

Today, New Years Day, I have started a new post , "Post Your Leather Post Cards"; Looked up about a dozen stamps and have started to cleanup/rearrange my computer wooden desk top because I have worked myself down to a user Space of about 18" X 12" !! I'll get it all cleaned up and not know where anything is!

Have a GREAT New Year everyone!!