Stamp Collecting During The Coronavirus Pandemic

And why a targeted approach is what is really needed.
Don

You can't target a virus. All it takes is one person to potentially infect dozens or even hundreds. TESTING is what is needed.

Living on one of the worst covid-17 hitted areas of the world (Barcelona, SW Europe). We're ending our 5th lock down week, with about 4 more ahead.
This has, off course, affected my stamp collecting activity on many ways. Some are bad, others good.

Bad:

.- With post, virtually stopped. There's no way I can get my purchased lots. With about 6 on the way and serious doubt if I'll ever get them, I've told my sellers to stop any shipping until things return to normality (let's hope that by June)
.- Our weekly stamp market as well as other not-internet suppliers are closed until further notice.
.- I manage to work from home, but I've lost some customers. So, my stamps allowance has to be lower. We, don't get any extra money from the governement.

But not all is so bad:
.- I've time for mounting long neglected collection, for reading more books and internet information, for surfing at fòrums...

But the average balance, is not good. A lot of people nearby are going through harsh times, and the future don't look good. This is not being pesimistic, but to face the things as they are.

Continuing the shutdowns is not an option or there will be nothing to reopen and go back to. Monitor hotspots and deal with them specifically.

In MA a huge percentage of deaths from COVID-19 have been in nursing homes and the like where the population was not protected because the protocols sucked.

Patient zero in Berkshire County MA where I live called from home for an ambulance after having COVID-19 symptoms and after the threat of COVID-19 was well known. He had just returned from China. He was picked up by EMS who took no PPE precautions other than gloves and was delivered to Berkshire Medical Center (BMC) where no special measures were taken either. The EMS crew tested positive afterwards as did over 167 staff at BMC who were then quarantined. Their numbers were added to the case count which factored into the Governor's decision to shut things down statewide.

The same happened in Springfield MA where over 300 hospital staff at one location ended up positive.

In my town there are zero cases and yet two small businesses are closed. For good.

Hospitals in MA are furloughing nurses and doctors because elective procedures have been cancelled. Some hospitals are near empty. People who need care are not seeking it out of fear.

Time for the panic to end.

I work in Grocery Retail so not had a huge amount of free time in the past few weeks to do a lot with stamps.

On the flip side, all the overtime, combined with extra pay bonuses from my employer (both a lump sum in March and now an increased hourly wage for the duration of the crisis) and now the US$1200 stimulus check means I have some extra coin in my account that I will be able to devote to the hobby once things slow down in 2-3 months or so.

Next week I have a vacation week from work, which I am being allowed to take. So my collection will get a bunch more attention than it has over the past few weeks.

Just because some areas have been more fortunate than others is no reason to assume that it can't develop very quickly there. The lockdown is a very large part of why it has not, and to think otherwise is to ignore how viruses work. If you don't think so, read about the 1918 flu epidemic. And don't make the mistake of thinking that we have come so far in the last 100 years that we are now suddenly invulnerable.

Pardon me for returning the thread, more or less, to its original topic...........

I'm a long time, professional, unpaid, activist in the broad based outdoor education, recreation, conservation field here in Colorado. Land management planning processes have slowed down some, but aren't totally stopped. Seems like I'm as busy as ever, but Zoom has replaced the in-person meetings. I have had some extra time to work on stamps, catch up on reading, and getting to some projects. No yard work for a while due to getting 6-12 inches of snow overnight here in metro Denver.

On the subject of stamps during this time .

The stamp market is made up of many different type of collectors ,no statement can cover every part as a blanket statement .

I see three major parts to the "STAMP MARKET"

At the beginner level and bottom feeder buyers The market is very active,especially on ebay so people are in lock down and looking for something to do .Their buying is supporting dealers ,this is the grab bag buyers

The Specialist market has been in a long term down trend and this market has not changed in this situation ,been going down since 2008 and it is quiet right now .

The big money buyers who spend thousand of dollars on stamps ,mostly at public auctions is still a question mark because it takes much more than one month or more than two or three big auctions to call this market . But you can bet the business owners ,Lawyers,Medical people and upper management people are starting to see a slow down in income . So I think the better stamps are going to take a hit and auction house are going to be taking lower prices realised for months to come .

Thanks for your responses. I just finished my second job preparing taxes (our office closed April 15) and will now have some time to put away stamps. I checked out two Scott catalogues from the library before COVID-19 that aren't due until June 1, so I should make some progress. Stay safe and healthy!

I noticed I've been getting out bid a lot lately. TOO MANY collectors are sheltering in!

I've turned to my coin collection.

Jack Kelley

Sorry to hear about your story Cursus. I lived in Spain in the 1980s and early 1990s and expanded my Spanish stamp collection. I purchased and still own a Filabo Catalogo de Sellos price guide. I hope we all make it through this.

I have been so busy that I have not been able to work on or purchase more stamps - I know that I will again, but I miss it and my regular time on the forum. My normal world (yes, yes, I know I am VERY lucky and privileged) was get my kids ready for school in am and start my work day around 8am. I worked from home quite a bit, office a few times a week and my Husband always dropped the kids and went to his office job. Because my Job is very demanding, I had help 3 times a week to help with kid pick-up and the house. I took care of dinner and homework support but, I had time to spend learning and enjoying the stamp community.

Obviously that routine is scratched (yes I still pay the person who helped me even though they no longer come to my home). so now, I still work all day from home with multiple conference calls and projects a day, I cook or prepare all three meals a day and also between meetings (or during meetings) I have to homeschool my two boys...and no alone time - I mean, I should not complain at all - I am so lucky that we have our health and our jobs. My City (county) has a lot of cases and some tragic deaths....so yes, this has impacted my world and my stamp routine.

On a good note, I am saving some money by cooking so much and not taking any vacations this year - so if I can squeeze out some time for myself this weekend, I might look to purchase some of the French and Mexican stamps that I really really want :). Anyhow - probably too much sharing, but I figure u guys are family and I needed to vent. Nora.

For many years I have been a avid buyer and accumulator of stamps, which is a lot less time consuming than actually curating one's collection. I always figured the time would come to assemble my material into an actual collection, but time for those activities has always been scarce.

In the 1990s and 2000's I traveled constantly for work, and a plane is no place to work on one's stamp collection. But I could buy on the road, whether carving out a precious hour late in the afternoon to visit a brick and mortar shop, or order stuff from Linn's or price lists received in the mail. And of course ebay got my attention in late 1997 to compete in the evenings with hundreds of emails I had to catch up to after 12 hour days in the field.

Now as a small business owner, I am still extremely busy but no longer traveling though I don't have the pure energy I had in my 30s and 40s. So I still do much better acquiring material vs. actually putting it together as a collection.

Once I understood the realities of Covid it became clear I that I had to do my part for the business remotely. So for the first time in many years, I actually do have extra time to organize things. In the past 4-5 weeks, I have done more to organize my collection than I had in the previous 5 years.

My approach is to get all the material arranged alphabetically so that when I start building Vario pages, I will know where all the stamps are for a particular country. This is not as easy as it sounds. Some items are in 102 cards, some in medium stock cards, and some in very large stock cards. And countries are often mixed in the same stock card so many of the stock cards have to be broken down into 102s.

Since working exclusively from home, I have moved from about 5 red boxes with no organization to 12 red boxes completely alphabetized. Some of the medium and large stock cards are down to 1 country, but they need to be alphabetized. Still have many that need to be broken down.

Once I get to the point where each stock card has no more than 1 country in it, the only other task will be to break down some collections bought in auctions. Fortunately, these are almost all single country collections. When I finally know where to find every stamp from each country I collect, I will start assembling material in Vario pages. Will I get all the pre-work done during my period of sheltering in place? Possibly. But the pandemic has definitely changed how I collect and I'm having a lot of fun seeing things come together.

A COVID 19-related postmark for Captain Tom Moore

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-engla...rts-52433007