Sunday, 30 July 2023

Summer Exchanges

Subscribers to TradeOnlyStamps biweekly newsletters received word that the site will be shutting down effective December, 2023. Now, for an awesome and well-maintained website that's been up for 25 years, with a huge member base, offering to transition to site to new ownership, I find it hard to believe that won't happen. But we'll see. In the meantime, I'm taking advantage of TradeOnlyStamps' continued success by making some summer exchanges. 

After posting my ad for topical packets I'd prepared, I received several responses and I'm shipping out packets for good exchanges! One of these involved Jose Resrrepo from Toronto. I was only expecting 100 stamps in return for two of my packets, but Jose went above-and-beyond due to a recent acquisition of Australia. Look how carefully he packaged the stamps, taped in tissue-paper bundles (top photo). Most were Australia, some were my wants. The Australian stamps were bundled by face value i.e. 33 cents, 34 cents etc. I was able to find three new ones and improve several suboptimal cancellations on stamps already in my Australia colletion.

50 FISH (2 packets**), 50 BUTTERFLIES (2), 50 BIRDS (1), 50 AIRPLANES (3), 50 TRAINS (2), 50 SHIPS (3), 50 CATS (1*), 50 DOGS (1** includes a few sheep/goats!) I've created fifteen nice topical packets featuring all-different, large commemoratives. Some packets have a very few small*, or a few CTO**. If you're a topical collector who would like to add to your favourite topical collection, you'll like these packets.

I also received some U.S. stamps. It is a pleasure to check for duplicates in a country that I've already albumized. Better cancellations can quickly be replaced, and ideally space has been left for new
additions. Working U.S.:
A fortunate acquisition - mint block of four carousel animals.