What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Thanks folks
It was in Bioethics, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Congrats on the new degree, DCStamps. And welcome back to the land of the philatelically obsessed.

Since we moved to the north of England things have been a bit chaotic and it's been difficult to organise things enough to make time to spend any time with my stamps. But for the last few weeks I've been looking at some countries in my New Ideal albums that I've not touched yet, Austria, Bavaria, Germany and Portuguese colonies have all come under the searchlight, with Czechoslovakia and Russia next. Yesterday I soaked a couple of hundred Bavarian stamps, they're in a Desert Magic drying book, and I also hinged into the album some stamps from Carinthia I got in the post from an ebay seller. As these are all big countries occupying quite a few pages they're making a significant difference to the stamp count, I've added about 750 stamps in the last three or four weeks

The New Ideals had got a few stamps in when I bought them and are now looking much better with several countries missing only the stamps that are out of my price range. But as time has gone by I've got more discerning about what I'll put into the albums and how I view what's in there already. The original owner was a bit slapdash, and I find misplaced stamps all over, and not just wrong watermarks but even wrong colour or value. And they didn't bother to put them in straight or even neatly in the boxes so I now find myself checking and rehinging almost every stamp as I go through too.

Sorry, I've rambled a bit there!

crispinhj, Nice to have you in the discussion! As far as I'm concerned, ramble all you like. I love reading about what everyone else is doing.

@crispinhj - Welcome!
I absolutely agree with Stampman2002 - ramble all you like!


@Micahel - Welcome back to the fun. I was starting to be concerned we had lost you. Looking forward to follow your blog - and congrats on the bioethics degree.

Jon

Happy to have you here, crispinhj

Thanks for sharing your activities. In this thread, we all live vicariously through the stamp projects of our friends.

KirkS

Today I finished mounting the Ruanda-Urundi and Rwanda stamps I had on hand (I found some more after my last post), and mounted some Dominica stamps from a retired circuit book I acquired a while back.

I have started to make/update a 'have' list (just a simple list) by catalog number of each country as I add stamps to it. I never seem to know what I have 'in the book', so this is a start of getting organized to improve online purchasing and avoid duplication. The US is the only country collection I have which is complete enough to justify a 'want' list, as the 'have' list is usually much shorter.

I also made a list of each country I have in the album and made an assessment of the state of each country collection (beginner, intermediate, etc) as a reference to use at shows. I'm off tomorrow and home alone with no car (in the shop). Whatever shall I do? :)

Today I printed Steiner pages for my Belgian precancels..........and figured out I don't have nearly as many as I originally thought.

I also did a lot of reading past issues of Linn's and APS. Linn's is getting to be a quick read for me.

Ken Lawrence had an interesting story on Aden, Rousseau, etc.

Thanks for the welcomes I received from several people. I've spent the past few days reading this topic at odd moments - I too enjoy finding out what other people are doing and their approach.

Our recent move has galvanised me into trying to make a certain order out of chaos and for the last few days, I've been going more or less methodically through albums, album pages and packets of stamps that I've accumulated over the past six years or so.

As a result, the New Ideals have had almost as many stamps put in during the last month as I managed all last year. One "problem" I've encountered is that I've found I need to take out a lot of the stamps already in the album, as over time I've become more discerning. Some stamps were so poor I've just put them to one side or added them to the packet of stamps to be soaked and cleaned one day, others have been cleaned and put back in. I was surprised to find that in adding almost 1000 stamps, I've used over 1200 hinges.

The next thing in the process of reorganisation and condensing is to take album pages of stamps from countries I don't want to take beyond the snapshot that is in the New Ideals and make up lots to sell on ebay........ something I view with a certain amount of trepidation.

Today I packed up a few favorite covers and some stamps that I plan to bring on vacation, perhaps to sell, maybe to trade.....

We are visiting Edinburgh, then several towns in Germany (friends and family all over the place, but primarily Munich and near Koblenz and Stuttgart). Planning on checking out some antique shops, flea markets, second-hand shops and the like, as my wife needs some shopping time after visiting all those family members :-)

I mapped out stamp stores in Edinburgh and Germany, two "Tauschtagen" (collectors trade fairs), and, weather permitting, I will visit Christoph Gaertner's auction HQ north of Stuttgart in Bietigheim-Bissingen.

Ending up in Lisbon we catch a flight back to USA on February 7th. Any interesting philatelic acquisitions will be duly reported on here upon my return!

--Jim Wentzell
stampguyaps177-681

This thread remains one of my favorites, thanks everybody for sharing your activities


Ha ha, I often get that same realization when working with countries I have not visited for a while.

Recently I've been making my own pages for classical commonwealth, completed Australia until 1953 yesterday. Here's an example of the new home for my 1913 Kangaroo's.




Will hopefully look better when printed on light cream paper. When I have mounted the few Kangaroo's I actually have I will probably get the same kind of experience as spain-1850 had with his Belgian pre-cancels

I too like this thread, as it encompasses many different areas.

Blaamand, nice Steiner pages....I am in the midst of deciding which computer-generated pages I will use and stick with. The decision has been delayed for years :-). As I am planning to delve deeper into Australia, specifically the pre-decimals and flyspecking Roos and KGV issues, I am really torn as I don't want to have TOO many empty spaces, yet keep some extra pages for plate flaws, varieties, and so on. For Austria until I determine the paper types of the early issues my Scott Specialized / Austria will do.

Not much stamping being done by me today (flying tonight) except wrapping up some scans for ebay lots I am preparing for my return mid-February. There will be a few pages of early US that were in a stockbook that I separated by page...here is just one of the neater pages for a sneak preview:



--Jim Wentzell
stampguyaps177-681

Thanks! To avoid any confusion, let me point out those pages are not Steiner, but personally made from scratch in Powerpoint. However I am using a Steiner-look-a-like frame so that my own pages might blend in somewhat with the proper Steiner pages, so I understand mine might be mistaken for Steiner at first glance.



Ha ha, I recognize that dilemma, been there. I opted for including more ID'ed boxes for varieties than I most probably would ever need, rather than getting varieties for which there is no space at all. Yet at some point one need to set a line, can't include spaces for absolutely everything. So I'm including a few 'optional' boxes (the boxes with only corners marked and with no ID below, bottom page #2) with each series for any other variety/rarity for which I do not designate a separate box. Additionally I have prepared an old-fashioned quadrille for any other stuff I do not find room for!



The later page might cheer up good-old-style collectors on this forum that persist on using using pen and paper only