Eric to Eric Inhericance

Since I launched this blog back in February, its journey has been what the marketing types might call a 'soft launch'. As in, who would ever find this blog? Telling someone you're a stamp collector can be daunting. And dangerous. The danger being that they now believe you're a bigger nerd than they had previously thought! Then, throwing caution to the wind, I added this blog to the top of the sidebar of my main Canadian railway blog, Trackside Treasure. Until now, there was absolutely no evidence that anyone really noticed or cared, and the blog view statistics bore that out. Did I say bore?

I'm OK with keeping it quiet, even boring. Sorting stamps ain't exactly the Super Bowl - definitely not a spectator sport. Not everyone finds the careful exploration, examination and arranging of these microscopic, monumental and amazing works of art interesting at all. Until now. Fellow rail enthusiast, model railroader (and fellow Eric) Eric May sent me an email enticingly entitled 'SURPLUS STAMPS'. Oh, I thought, great! A small packet of old stamps heading my way. He had found some older stamps during a basement reorganization. Startlingly, Eric's subsequent email referenced getting a hernia, lifting with the knees, and "should have included a protein bar". 

While going out to retrieve the recycling box six short days later, imagine my surprise when my peripheral vision perceived a Large Canada Post Flat Rate Box. If it fits, it ships, with a maximum weight of 5 kilograms! The 1944 Germany semi-postal set issued for National Hero Day caught my eye:

I didn't have any trouble lifting it, I had trouble believing it. If I was any kind of YouTuber, I would have done an un-boxing video. No time for that! I unglued the flap, and out slid a substantial 1959 Illustrated Around-the-World Stamp Album binder album produced by the Educational Book Guild, and a smaller 1975 Harris Explorer World-Wide Postage Stamp Album. That's not all! Some Canada Post millennium material, several covers and two small stamp packets were also in the sturdy, well-packed box. The stamps likely belonged to Eric's wife's grandfather, and that no-one in the family had taken up philately, a common situation.

I seem to have a thing for old stamp albums. Maybe I was born in the wrong decade. Or century. Most of the stamp illustrations represent stamps I'll never find. And that's okay. I see that as the progression from albums in which you feel compelled to cover each illustration and fill each space, to ones where the collector can print his own pages, making each one seem as full as desired.

What really caught my eye was the extensive explanations of early U.S. commemoratives. And many of the spaces had been filled! Some intriguing covers:

A simple, sample spread from the smaller album:

Now the big question. What to do with this amazing gift? I hope to incorporate the early US pages in my own collection, which my paperback US album is really lacking in. I will add many of the stamps to my own collection. Others will be shared with fellow collectors, as Eric had suggested. I have to thank my fellow Eric for his generosity. I'll leave the last words of this post to Eric, who generously declined any payment for his postage costs. 

"Don't worry about the postage, your blog posts provide more than enough entertainment and education."