Nice Accidental Philatelic Windfall

I teach judo (and high school) and one my judo students' mother used to teach at my school.

She notified me a friend had a stamp collection she was trying to get rid of in advance of a move after selling their home. As a courtesy, I said I'd be glad to talk to her.

Long story short, she didn't want to move the collection and they are decluttering. She put the collecting in a box and left it out for me no charge. Ran by Friday and picked it up.

2 worldwide albums with a number of hinged stamps. A pack of usable Dennison Hinges. Quite a few stamps on and off paper, but organized by country. A few covers. A few other little items. Very clearly an older collection that hasn't been worked on in years.

Nothing of value, BUT I told my judo student's mother that the big thing is somebody cared for, and took care of, this collection. I'm looking forward to digging into it and seeing what's there and how I might integrate into my collection.

I'm thinking the albums might go to my girls...

Those hinges are a score!
Don

Thanks, ec--I have to say how nice it is to turn on the computer and find a story like this.

Beat me to it about the hinges. :-)

I wear philately on my sleeve and as such, I have had several collections just given to me like this. The previous owner wants it to go someone who will be able to do something with it. Usually the stamps go the APS for their give away programs, a few have been added to my formal collection. Always fun to go through the collection and see the mindset of the collector. Breaking it down and putting it to use is just good philatelic karma. Giving something back to the hobby that has given me so much.

Very Nice!
I hope you enjoy the stamps.
Thanks for posting this.

When I was a kid, I never would have imagined a day when the reaction to getting a stamp collection like this would be "WOW! THOSE HINGES!!!"

erilaz,

Yes. General agreement there on contents of the collection. As to the hinges, well, I use Dennison's exclusively. But they are not $.29 anymore.

Jack

I just find it hilarious that seasoned collectors in this day and age are drooling over something that used to be commonplace supplies that even poor kids could afford.

My own biggest "philatelic windfall" was in the form of supplies. My uncle had an excellent collection of U.S., Great Britain, and Canada/British North America, worth many thousands of dollars, which my cousins started selling off even before he died, in order to help cover the costs of caring for their parents. When I found out about this, I e-mailed them about my uncle's collecting supplies, especially mounts, thinking that they probably wouldn't be able to sell them. I didn't get a response, so I assumed that they were already gone. Several years later, one of my cousins asked if I had any use for the two desk drawers full of black-back Showgards in a wide range of sizes, which were still where they'd always been. Of course I had a use for them! And if he had asked me even a few months earlier, I could have saved a bundle, since I had recently made a push to buy mounts for several odd-sized things that had been lying around unmounted for years.

Nice. The Scott's Modern album was my first world-wide album as a kid.