The Biggest Downs Of Your Stamp Collecting Experience.

I know at least one person who forgot that there was one more item in the envelope before he clipped the stamp off the corner.

Do you know anyone who has not made this mistake at one time or another?

txstamp, your experience with the "student stamps" remark by a elitist reminds me of one of my most down collecting moments as well. I was living in SoCal in the late 90's and getting back into collecting. At the time I was striving to complete my boyhood Minkus All American album up to 1940 for the definitives, commemoratives, and airmails; I was getting pretty close, lacking only things like the Zeps and high value Columbians, etc. This is of course a basic album; more of a type set really, but it was very enjoyable to try and complete it at that point in my collecting experience. I went to a major show in Anaheim (I think they called it a Mega Show) and was showing scans of my album pages to a local dealer I knew at his booth. The dealer in the next booth, who I did not know, came over, took a quick look, and said "commercial grade stamps in a crap album". I can and do laugh about it now but it really was an unnecessary and hurtful remark. Needless to say, I never did any business with that dealer! I did complete that album before moving to the more comprehensive Scott National a few years later.

I reiterate, what's wrong with these ***bone heads?***

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I have occasionally dropped mint stamps on the floor. I have trouble bending, so I try to pickk them up by hand from my chair. Those damn things can be brittle. More than once I have simply broken one. Finally learned to always use tongs.

Don

Our three girls are adopted. When the twins were about 4 years old, I heard one of them call from the upstairs room where my stamp collection was housed at the time. "Hey guys, I have stamps!" she yelled.

I've never run up a pair of stairs so fast in my life.

After reading these stories, it will be sooner or later that my twins will do something. They will be three in December, but so far so good. They haven't messed with any stamps or covers. The worst damage I've ever had was a few cheap covers nibbled by one of the cats when they knocked a box over.

The biggest downs I have had with stamp collecting comes from the fact that I'm younger than most other collectors. Only on occasion do I run into another collector the same age or younger (if you don't count the little kids brought by the grandparents). I've joined clubs, made friends with other collectors and dealers alike. However, because so many of them are so much older and as nature takes its course...well you know. I've lost more philatelic friends than I have lost family members, co-workers, and anyone else I grew up with combined. I'm glad I've had them and I've learned so much from them, but on the social side of stamp collecting there's a lot of loss to bear.

On that note, my uncle was my stamp collecting mentor, and our annual trip to the stamp show was always our special day together, first FRESPEX, then (after I moved to the Bay Area) WESTPEX. It was a heavy blow for both of us when his health would no longer allow him to go to stamp shows, and he finally passed away in 2006.

I have three stories.

(1) I started collecting mint stamps on my eleventh birthday in November of 1958 and the local Postmaster (Southampton, Ontario) said that he and I would check all stamps prior to issuance looking for errors and varieties. As a Post Office employee he could not buy any we found, but I could. He would arrange the sale under my name and we would split the profits equally. I was too young and inexperienced to even grasped fully what we were doing.

I was chosen to be a Page Boy in Ontario's Parliament - a great honour for a small town 12 year old. I reported to Ontario's Parliament Buildings in Toronto for the new parliamentary session beginning on June 11, 1959. I was there for five weeks before returning home.

Fifteen days after arriving in Toronto, the 5 cent St. Lawrence Seaway stamp was issued and a full 50 stamp pane of inverted stamps was sold out of that Post Office.

I would have been one of the richest residents in Southampton as the value of each single stamp almost immediately reached $5,000.00, once the word was out.

The current catalogue value, if all fifty stamps were sold individually, is $625,000.00.

(2) In mid-December of 2012, Canada test issued computer vended stamps in eight cities across the country. Collectors became aware of the test in early January 2013, while I was snow-birding in Florida.

As a sister lived in London, Ontario where a test kiosk was located, I asked her to buy me ten stamps of each postal rate stamp possible. She successfully obtained the domestic, USA and international letter rate stamps (61 cents, $1.05 and $1.80 respectively). Unfortunately neither she nor the Post Office employee could figure out how to buy the "parcel" rate stamps ($1.22, $1.29, $2.10, $2.95, $3.40 and $3.65). To date, no $1.22 stamp has been found (mint or used). Current catalogue values are: the three letter rate stamps - $100. each, $1.29 - $800., $2.10 and $2.95 - $1,800. each, $3.40 and $3.65 - $2,000. each.

(3) Without being asked, my sister mailed three envelopes to me. A domestic 61 cent to my Ontario home, and a USA and a international stamp on envelopes to me in Florida. I sold them last year to a dealer for $200. and he resold them to the Saskatoon Stamp Store which is asking on it's web site $1,500 - as it's used in period and only the second set they are aware of and "very rare". Their item number is 121922.0 under the "cover" category.

BlackJag

I feel so bad for you. Your first story though..

Having to sell items of my collection because I needed money at the time, and will never be able to acquire them again.

Spain That is a hard thing to accept ,hope things in the future turn positive so you can replace that lost and find better material to bury those past memories .

Some things may be replaceable, some not. One particular item was 1 of only 5 in existence. Oh well, I just surround myself with stamps and I will be OK....

Along these same lines, perhaps by biggest "down" is the fact there are no clubs or dealers in my area, and I don't know a single other stamp collector that I can meet with in person. I'm sure there are some collectors where I live, I just don't know who they are or how to find them. The only dealers or collectors I've met in person have been at shows, the nearest one being a nearly 2 hour drive. It would be nice to have some connections like this, just to get together and "talk shop" or to make trades.