What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

ClimberSteve, I heard Sescal is going to good. I want to go but its still not sure yet.

ClimberSteve wrote:




I'll also be there on Saturday. Not bringing much money to spend, but you never know what I may find. The auction items are always fun to look through, and the auction itself is usually interesting. The exhibits could take up some time also.

I visited London this weekend, so I stopped by the stamp fair at Charing Cross. Picked up a collection of Nicaragua, one of Senegal and an album of British colonies in the Caribbean. Not a bad haul.

After life took over from stamps a few years ago (finally sold off my horror movie posters for a nice profit, and spent the summer having my younger brother come up to Indiana and he watched a lot of my movies while I worked, then we drove off for his first visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. After that, we hit the Monster Bash convention outside of Pittsburgh, and after decompressing, drove back out to California to see the rest of the family and drop him off at home. Spent some money, but we enjoyed the summer very much. That fall, he ended up in the hospital - he had several issues related to being massively obese and then medically 'worked on' to lose the weight. Still don't know what they did. It wasn't surgery, it wasn't diet, but he was a lot thinner and didn't have a lot of energy. So late 2015 he goes in a hospital, then seems better, goes home, feels better than he had in months, buys a ticket to go see KISS in Las Vegas... and passed away in his sleep due to organ failure that night in early 2016).

Not long after that, we were able to leave Indiana and move to Austin, TX. Wife is an accountant and couldn't find work in Fort Wayne, so move was welcomed on all sides. Had to move again this year, as the owner of the house we were leasing just decided he wanted to sell, and told us on the 5th that we had to be out by the 30th in March.. so move again. Just now getting unpacked from boxes everywhere, so as for Stamps, I'm just now getting to the following:
1) Make sure I found all the stamps I have (so they are not sitting in a box in the garage that hits 100+ degrees nearly every day here in central Texas)
2) Once that was done, got shelves up so I could get the albums up, and the 'stamps to be mounted' (many from 2015, when I sold those posters, had money, and life hadn't gotten all sideways) are all in one area so they can be worked.
3) Lurked around the forum here for a few days, since I hadn't been here for a long time. Added some families to my prayers who lost board members here since I was last here, and rejoiced with others who were able to overcome their afflictions.
4) Have been doing a LOT of studying.. Also reviewed my 2015 decision to stop my US Collection at 2014 after the smoke has cleared (Neither of my main 'final straws' - the not-so-upside-down inverted Jenny stunt the USPS played, nor the 'You don't get it unless you buy this $69 book' Circus sheet - received major Scott numbers).. after looking at what I'd missed in the last few years, outside of the conclusion of the Civil War issue, and the 'Classics' sheet of 6, I didn't see anything that really spoke to me, so guess I'll keep my US 1847-2014. Nothing says I can't pick up a nice new one to use for postage if I want. More than enough stamps I need will keep me busy. Aside from US, I still have the Album Pages I downloaded when I joined Steiner's great site in 2015.. so I'll continue to work, when I need a break from US, with working on the World 1840-1964 collection (why 1964 and not 1940? Few reasons.. mainly, I like to way, philatelically-speaking, the world changed in 1960 with the liberation of the African nations.. Also catch Queen Elizabeth's coronation, John F. Kennedy, the start of the Space Race, and least of all, it was the year I was born).

Well, that's enough I guess. When I get to actually mounting the stamps I got back in 2015 (hint - I got a lot), I'll try to get some photos into the 'most recent purchase' thread.

Allan

jallan7982, since you're in Austin now I recommend ABC Stamps in San Antonio. The owner, Steve, is a nice easy going stand-up guy and has a great selection in his shop. He was my go-to dealer for 15 years before I moved to Colorado and we still do business now over the phone/through the mail.

San Antonio is a bit a of a drive from Austin, but if I find my way down south, I'll surely stop by and check them out. Thanks for the tip. Need to get a handle on the stuff I already have before I add anything else to the pile!

Went to Indypex today. Attended a first-day of issue ceremony for the new purple heart commemorative stamp and bought a lovely stack of maximum cards.

sat and poured over stampcommunity forum posts.. and emailed some chaps in thames thats nz thames to go see how I can put this collection into a better folder?! basic steps for moi. oh and planned how id go about studying and cataloguing these beauties. (used by the way only a few non used) No matter the value I Love them!

Placed on my albums some nice used Swiss and Swedish stamps recently bought. Both collections, start to look fine!

National Stamp Exhibition in Dublin. Three Day event and I was there on Friday and Saturday.
Took two stamps off my wants list.
The exhibits/competition were a nice balance between "worthy but dull" and "fun and interesting"
THe Hobby continues to die a slow but inevtable death. The three stakeholders...Post Office, Dealers and Collectors (organised and individuals) have painted themselves into a corner and can see no way out. The Gender and Generation gaps make it impossible.
Glimmer of Hope perhaps is that PostCrossers/Snail Mailers (they also had a meeting on Saturday) can seize the initiative.

Bought a few Canadian ,John MacDonald 1927 stamps ,on ebay. Great value on wonderful stamps. He is somewhat out of favor now in a country where he is a forefather.

Dropped in on the local Philatelic Club on Monday. Walked out with a metal-spine, piano-hinged stockbook for five dollars. In it are about 16 single-sided manila stock sheets. Those sheets had a mix of used U.S. specimens - about 15% of which will be useful (and that ain't a bad proportion, considering). The contents included some Washington Franklins (I can use about a dozen of them) and a good number of early airmails that I will use as upgrades to my used collection. Also included: lots of BoB stuff, including revenues that I've historically not paid attention to, but might start soon... There was, of course a large contingent of 1930-1970 stuff that has no immediate use. Pleasant surprise: the previous owner was apparently unaware of faults in one stock sheet's construction. This allowed stamps to migrate down between layers where they were hidden - and forgotten for who knows how long. Among these was a smattering of Washington Franklins, including an imperforate. Oh yeah - there is a pair of 30c definitives: one is Scott 165, the other is 176, and now I have to figure out which is which. In all, the book provided a lot of specimens to be added to various segments of my collection.

Today I spent a couple hours working on sorting the first pound of a four pound off paper worldwide mixture I bought a while back. The first pass is to separate out any U.S., on paper, and obviously damaged stamps.

There were also a few stamps entombed in mounts with all sides sealed. These will take a bit of careful work to free. Normally I'm able to slice open mounts with my pointy tongs but these don't offer an opening. I haven't seen this before.

Dale

For the last couple of weeks, I've been plodding through three large stock-books of Cuba, the residue of a couple of large lots I bought a few years ago. I got most of the material into albums at the time, but, of course, there was a "too hard" pile of Spanish period stuff, which I've now tackled. Not sure I can be bothered with the later definitives. Next thing is gradually to sell the swaps on ebay, which means negotiating the horrors of the Kennedy embargo - managed to list the first lot as "Spanish Colonies" at the third attempt.

Today I found out I won a stockbook of mint/used Mexico stamps for a very reasonable price in a weekend auction. I was after the Exporta issues in the lot, but the rest will be interesting to go through, as I have lots of holes in my Mexico collection. Tonight I continued to sort and mount a few stock pages of stamps I bought last time I was at my local stamp shop. Filled a few spaces in my Belgium pages, and added several new station pages with stamps to my book of Belgium Parcel Post and Railway Cancels (Antwerpen Waas, Merelbeke, Barvaux, Tongeren, Anzegem and Verviers). Also added some more 1982-1990 dollar+ denominations (Architecture, National Parks) to my reference collection for comparing shades and printing varieties. Fun stuff.