I'm seeing quite a few complete sets of British Colonials posted online recently. As I complete Long & Noble Crusade 2.0, it's nice to sit back and enjoy someone else's collecting, sorting and arranging. I'll likely never have complete sets' high-values come to me, but here they are for reference:
Working Stamps
Friday, 29 November 2024
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
What's Wrong With Stamp Shows, Part 2
- Widen the show format to include coins, ephemera, postcards?
- Call it a collector's show? Because stamp collectors and all collectors have 'the gene'.
- Have a no-rules exhibition with...no rules. Absolutely no rules.
- Who knows what a vermeil is and why does anyone need one? I looked it up and have no idea.
- What about an online exhibition or bourse? Young people do not attend in-person events.
- Fees for exhibitors can run into hundreds or a thousand-plus dollars.
- Does everyone have to be a secretary-treasurer? We are overtaxing ourselves with too many organizations administrating a static number of collectors.
Monday, 25 November 2024
The Punk Philatelist
Finally, I've found another one of the few stamp websites that isn't all about ancient and obscure bits of paper that cost an arm and a leg - The Punk Philatelist. Part of Punk's manifesto reads:
Punk Philatelist is out to prove that stamps and other philatelic stuff are not just dusty things for old people to collect before they die, but a fascinating and vibrant expression of pop culture. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Punk hit the internet in 2015 with a manifesto:
How the hell has it come to pass that the cool young people are wearing gingham dresses and crocheting and trimming their beards with scrimshaw knives, while remaining oblivious to the joys of the wonderful olde-schoole world of philately?
The site is colourful and conversational, with a great sidebar full of links. You can also watch the team in action on their YouTube channel: Stamps Aren't Cool.
I shall return...often...to read more.
Saturday, 16 November 2024
Mawkish, Cloying, Treacly
I got watching this Silk on the Web video. I'm listening to it right now, albeit in another tab, while I'm blogging this. He inherits a small glassine envelope and a pair of stamp tongs from his grandfather. Of course that got me thinking back to any gooey, overly-sweet, nostalgic moments or memories I similarly had from my early years of stamp collecting.
As the title of this blog says, my brother, sister and I would "work stamps" with my Dad. It was his term, of unknown origin, which in no way implied it was work. Not labour, maybe a labour of love. A way to connect with his kids. "You can't go wrong with British Colonials, you know." Something to do on a snowy afternoon before Al Gore invented the internet. (He did, you know.)
His approach must have been semi-serious, but I did not feel that working stamps was overly stressful or scholarly, much less work. I still enjoy seeing each stamp I encounter, even if I don't keep it or need it. I really enjoy sorting through them. Who knows what will turn up next? And, among my (so-far) five Traveler albums, not my original one because I opened the binding and added binder rings to expand it.
I have 'inherited' three stamp collections. One from my Dad, one from my maternal grandfather including my Mom's, and one from an overseas penpal. I always thought my Dad's was THE stamp collection. The one by which all other collections were measured. It was not. I've realized that I have collected many more, nicer stamps than he had, although he certainly bested mine when it came to age, including one set his father bought to commemorate my Dad's year of birth. My penpal's collection was interesting, based on only a couple of countries. My grandfather's was full of old, small definitives from many years ago. Some unhelpful person had valuated then removed some of the higher catalogue-value ones. My Mom's little cardboard-cover album contained what she once told me were my grandfather's doubles - the ones he didn't want. She stuck them in her album with some sense of duty, it seemed. Something they worked on together as the attenuating ash dangled dangerously from the end of his lit cigarette.
Silk on the Web promotes not the monetary value of our collections in the above linked video, but rather the enjoyment, the pride, the relaxation, the educational, intangible benefits of stamp collecting.
In an upcoming post, I'll include some non-sentimental photos of these collections I've 'inherited'. Like any stamp collections, they are kept or disposed of based on the emotional connection to the person who curated them. And it doesn't have to be for any of those mushy, melodramatic, dreamy reasons.
Saturday, 2 November 2024
Stamps as Interior Decor
Friday, 1 November 2024
100 Bucks o' Fun at the Kingston Fall Stamp Festival
Wednesday, 11 September 2024
Long & Noble Crusade 2.0
Still evading me is the will to albumize large, daunting country baggies like Bulgaria, China, Poland and Russia. I did interleave some Poland, Romania and Prussia, finding Bulgaria and China too daunting and early in the alphabet. I guess you could say I'm Stalin, er, stalling! Either way, I'm on my way to breaking out the fifth Traveler! The Crusade continues...