What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Last night I attended the Holston Stamp Club 5th Thursday bourse. I searched through some old dealer stock pages of early US looking for unidentified double transfers, split grills, plate flaws, ect. I found a 88 with a split grill, a 280a lilac brown variety, and a 157 with an experimental grill. Of course, I got them out again this morning with better lighting, a more thorough comparison with catalogs and found that I had made 2 mistakes. The 88 was in fact a 94 with a split grill. The 157 turned out to be a 135 with a poor grill impression. The top row of grills was complete but very faint thus making it to wide for an experimental grill. Also the fact that there is no secret mark pretty much guaranteed that it was a 135. I enjoyed the search and am happy with the stamps.

Read up on gum roller ridges as they appear on U.S. stamps so that HOPEFULLY I won't have to post a question here :-)

Last night worked on B station cancels for my Belgium Parcel Post and Railway Cancels collection. Added stamps to existing pages and created new pages for Bastogne, Blandain, Beernem, Braine L Alleud, Bortmeerbeek and Braives. Had one I couldn't figure out from my list, Biers--. Maybe Bierbeek...time for the microscope. Today: C stations!

Could be Bierset-Awans (Rail Line 36)

Today I learned that the daughter of a man who designed a dozen or more U.S. Stamps lives up the block.

I have done exactly that! Stamps have very much taken a back seat for a while I did bits and pieces of work on our house and my sister's kitchen and did stuff a couple of days every week on the Heritage Railway I volunteer on.

I went through four or five of the shoe box sized boxes of world wide stamps sorted by country into glassines and packets. I usually divide a country's stamps up by era if there are enough to warrant it. I then combined odd packets from each box and put them where I could into boxes for single countries or groups of countries. Very soothing and enjoyable.

But I did discover an astonishing number of middle period and modern stamps from Spain - enough to have to find a box for Spain alone

I had a busy day of it. I visited Stampex in London this morning (busy, as the picture shows) and spent too much money. On returning home I finished a couple of displays for a Saturday meeting of the South African Collectors Society ("Postal stationery forerunners in occupied German South West Africa" and "Postal censorship during the military occupation of German South West Africa"), baked bread at the same time (1.6 kg bauernbrot, a very easy yeasted milk bread) and this evening sorted out a large lot of Estonia postal stationery I bought recently. Posts to the appropriate section of this community coming soon, once I get some sleep...!

Here are my 2 cents on philately for the XXI century: http://estampillascr.com/blog/tips-...xxi-century/

Spent a quick 45 minutes going through some unsorted Syrian stamps and pulled a complete set of the 1956 airmails in vfu condition.

Tonight I was checking the perforations on some of my MNH U.S. postage dues to make sure I had the right stamps in the right album spaces, and I discovered that my J83 is really a J73. This is good, because (a) I didn't already have another J73, and (2) a J73 is worth considerably more than a J83.

My want list of MNH U.S. stamps from 1922 to 2000 had Scott values from 2016, so I went to the library today to update those to 2019. Some of those values didn't change (especially among the Kans. and Nebr. overprints), but the majority decreased. Not a single stamp that I need in that date range increased in MNH catalog value. #613, which is only known used, remained at $40,000, and only #596 increased: $150K to $175K used, $100K to $130K precanceled. You will note that my want list includes things that I will never, ever be able to own.

Returning to my previous post, the J83 that I thought I had (and certainly paid for) catalogs in this shade and condition at $0.60, whereas the J73 that it turned out to be catalogs at $42.50. Quite a significant difference!

I created a custom page for some GB minor varieties and finished up mounting stamps from South Africa. This is not one of my favorite ones as they issued dual stamps so many Steiner spaces are for attached pairs. I have not had the priority or interest to redo the pages to individual spaces since I have used samples and no interest to get attached.

I found a stamp club close by and attended my first stamp club meeting last week. I am excited and planning to rediscover this old hobby of mine.

This recent purchased arrived. I was expecting a bigger book - just over 4-inches tall. It is concise in size too.

As with my other SG books, printed on white low gloss paper with nice inages although they are smaller than other books due to book size.




actual scan.

Spent a couple of hours last night sorting through some early 20th century Hungarian issues, pulled out a nearly complete( just one low value)used set of the first overprints of 1920.Not a set of great value, but will fill a page nicely.