Who is....Alex?

Alex Trebek's long career getting the stamp of approval that is so richly-deserved!

 

The Start of (Round 2 of) a Long and Noble Crusade

I began my Long and Noble Crusade in March 2024. My goal was to albumize as many stamps, organized by continent and country, from my 'Keep' baggie as I could. After all, that baggie had been bulging and burgeoning for years, and procrastination was no longer something I could put off any longer.

I reached Germany by April, then Libya and Mongolia by about June. I took some sidetrips as engorged envelopes for several sizeable country collections arrived, like Finland, Germany, Norway and Switzerland, most earning their own albums.

Now it's fifteen months and four stamp shows later. That means the ever-popular 'Keep' baggie is expanding again. It's about time to embark on Round 2! Unlike last time, I plan to cherry-pick a 'best of' selection to share with the five or six of you who are actually reading this*. And there are some goodies, trust me!

As I sort the stamp-show material, largely (and very affordably) from Roy Lingen's table, as well as circuit and exchange keepers, I'm using a four-divider tray labelled with Post-its. This will easily help me direct the final disposition, as well as making sure I'm not mixing keepers with traders. 

This round, I have the advantage of several countries that have been albumized. This makes checking for doubles among newly-received stamps SOOOO much simpler. Also, if it's just a few stamps received, I can easily add them to pages I've already begun for each country [in Round 1]. Still escaping me is the will to albumize daunting, large countries like Bulgaria, China, Poland and Russia. I've already bit some big chunks off like India and Japan. I'll get there. I think.

* Of course this blog exists for my own documentary purposes as well, to track my progress, save some super stamp sites for future reference, and just to post pictures of stamps! But due to this blog's soft launch and low profile, I'm not kidding myself that Working Stamps is as fully seen as it is seen fully!

My Simple Second-Hand Stamp Secretary

In one corner of our family room sits a simple stamp secretary that I've found very useful for my stamp mail. Previously, I used a photo-box for this purpose, but it always looked like a photo box with a bunch of stuff stuffed into it. This simple stamp secretary actually looks like a piece of nice furniture. Google shows me this for secretaries of the non-human variety:

Someday, I'll have a Smithsonian-quality room called The Stamp Room. Lined with oaken shelves, it will contain all my albums, my rack of tongs, a soaking set-up, a roll-top desk, boxes full of stamps, an easy chair, brandy and snifter, smoking jacket, well you get the idea. Until then, this secretary can be placed on any table in the house and look useful as well as ornamental. How did I come by it? I normally self-ban from thrift stores. But one day, in a weak moment, I found myself inside our local Value Village and this little wooden number called my name. Seven bucks later, I had it home and safely stowed on a shelf. Like dollar stores, thrift stores show us things we didn't know we needed to buy! 

Then, one bright and shining day I had an epiphany that this second-hand secretary just might be useful for the sending of stamp mail. That's likely what it was intended to hold - paper items. So I got it down from the shelf it was stowed on to actually use it! Let's look inside:

Back-to-front and left-to-right, I have current postal rates (always too high!), my book of exchange partners, notepads, postcards and envelopes, pens, address labels, mint stamps, and in the drawer, Canadian stamps for exchange, stamps I need, and stamps to soak (before they go in the stamps-to-soak boxes!).

Then, when the mail is ready to go, close up the doors until next time!

To Soak or Not To Soak....

Today's mail brought a nice mailing from TradeOnlyStamps exchange partner Michael Ravis of West Virginia. Michael's note said, "Enclosed are Forever-rate stamps that can not be soaked with water - so that is why they have the backing of the envelope. I saw that there is a way to remove the backing but seems like too much time, compared to the old-fashion way with just water." 

The self-adhesive stamp wave has caused ripples through my soaking process. There's nothing worse than immersing a handful or two of on-paper stamps only to realize that the self-adhesive ones are NEVER going to come off the backing paper. And now you have a bunch of wrinkly-paper stamps on your hands! Or worse, ripping the layers of the wet stamp apart creating misery.

To try to paper over this problem, I created my own DNS list - Do Not Soak. I haven't found an official list  anywhere, and this list has worked so far. It's on a post-it note, stuck inside the lid of my tea-box of world stamps to soak. So far, Canada's self-adhesive issues have not been an issue.

I know there are chemical solutions for sale that break the adhesive-to-paper barrier, but they cost money, unlike scissors.

So, knowing a stamp is self-adhesive, either by my list or the appearance of its perforations, I happily close-crop around them, keeping paper and all together. I still use stamp hinges, but I suppose tape or some other paper-to-paper glue or adhesive would work equally well in my album.

Two quadrilled pages of recent self-adhesive U.S. stamps-on-paper, mounted by year of issue, from my U.S. album. Looks like I already have one or two - no problem, duplicates will go on to another collector in my small network!

My U.S. album's homemade cover (above). I recognized Gerald Ford's likeness by Michael Deas. I featured Michael's creations in this previous post.

85 Bucks o' Fun - Kingston Spring Stamp Festival

My subscription to Canadian Stamp News brings me a listing of upcoming stamp shows. So I'm constantly reminded of them, especially today's show right here in Kingston. Over the years, I've gone, not gone, gone again....depending on the backlog of material I still hadn't dealt with from the last show. Due to my diligence and downright enjoyment of dealing with the last show's material, I was refreshed, relaxed and ready to receive more material when this morning rolled around. Being only ten minutes from the show, free admission and ample parking, and the possibility of finding yet another Scott Traveler album. (Success!!) got me rolling out of my rack with relish. I even correctly titled this post in reference to the biannual occurrence of the Kingston Stamp Club shows. 

At the admission table, I picked up a postcard publicizing the 75th BNAPS show, to be held at St Lawrence College, my old alma mater, in August. Good thing there's free parking and free admission. The air will be rarefied, lofty and high-minded. I hear the dealers don't bring in boxes, they bring in briefcases, maybe chained to their wrists like the [BNAPS] Blues Brothers! Provinces and pre-Confederation, perhaps not for the provincially-minded like me!

My first stop, as always, was the club Consignment Table. I'm being more careful this year to acquire fewer routine definitives and less on-paper material. (Success - success!!) In all (below), seven consignment lots of Bahamas, Canada, worldwide and three partial stock sheets of Aden! All abetting my collecting interests. That's Aden and abettin' all at one table! Actual, several table-feet of tables chock-full of goodies. I narrowly swerved to miss acquiring a $40 shoe-box full!

Dealer Don said he had a Traveler album somewhere, and he was right. There, among several boxes of assorted albums and stock books, I spied its cheery red-and-white spine showing through like a diamond atop a garbage dump, shimmering and shining in the fluorescent-tube church-hall glow! Unwanted and untaken seriously, I scooped it up at a bargain price. It's a 1964 edition (top photo), with all pages, binding and even including some stamps inside. My fifth Traveler! I also got two packs of Dennisens from the hall-corner denizen Don! 

But the big philatelic phinds of the day were to be found at Roy Lingen's groaning tables of baggie-based goodness! (Success-success-success!!!) Roy's Discount Stamp Shop site deserves a look! Listen to his philosophy: "We are collection liquidators -unlike most stamp dealers, we do not try to stock any particular area or type of stamps. We buy collections and break them down. We never know what the next collection will bring to us. The key to our site is that we start with reasonable prices and then aggressively discount anything that doesn't sell." And that's where I come in...

As a self-described bottom feeder, rather like a collecting carp or a marauding mudcat, I monitor the murky bottom of the philatelic world for fun stuff to sort, soak if necessary, stock-book, spread around to neighbourhood sidewalk libraries or OXFAM, swap with exchange partners, and save. Roy did not disappoint. Fifty percent off all these 15 bagged lots? WOW! That's nothing over $10 a bag, including some nifty packets of Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands. Roy made me a deal I couldn't refuse and I got a summer (and fall?)* of entertainment I couldn't deny. Thanks, Roy! 

*As two fellow attendees reminded me, I should be done with my dizzying disposition by October - in time for the next Kingston stamp show. Challenge accepted! To the tweezers, mes amis!

 

Summer Stamping!

Summer's here and the time is right for stamping in the streets. I submitted my membership request for this new online club:

I emailed the Canadian Stamp Dealers' Association for a few copies of their My First Stamp Album. I plan to place these, along with stamps from my starter packs, in free sidewalk libraries in our neighbourhood. The albums do not include hinges or stamps, but I will be enclosing both in each of the five copies the CSDA kindly sent me.

The second issue of the American Philatelic Society's online magazine StampEd is available.

This Saturday: Kingston Stamp Club stamp show. I have some leftover birthday money burning a hole in my pocket. I will be visiting the club consignment table and Roy Lingen's booth.

August 23-25: The BNAPS is holding their annual convention and bourse (we need a better word - how about marketplace or mall?) right here in Kingston. Free admission to some events!

The North Toronto Stamp Club hosts some excellent circuits, keeping postage costs for me low within Canada. I'm already part of the Worldwide and UK circuits, though I was finding my UK collection was decent enough to make a change. A quick email response from club president Klaus Hintz had me selecting some new circuits: Caribbean, US and Topical (aircraft).

Let's Finnish This Thing!

My remaining box of big countries with big envelopes with big numbers of stamps yet to be albumized contains some that may never get done: Hungary, Poland and the ones on the Czech list. Just the volume of issues and the presence of so many CTO's makes it daunting. But during my recent levelling of my albums, it seemed to make sense to break out the Scandinavian nations. So I did. Denmark wasn't too daunting, so that envelope got emptied and the stamps albumized. Then I got that Helsinking feeling that Finland would fall next. And it did.

Going in, my first Finland page looked like this (above). I had to reposition a lot of the definitives onto a second page. I took all my Finland stamps from the envelope and organized them in a spiral stock book to check for any duplicates before albumizing them (below). Some incredibly colourful modern issues!

The homemade cover of my DFNS (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden) album shows what may be the footprints of an ardent nearly-frozen philatelist trudging the trek to a completed album, hand-lettered with some representative issues in the front of my display-front D-ring Value Village find-album:

I used a set of numbered tabs, illustrating the cover page with maps from a re-homed album.

Just a few more to go, then I'll be moving next door to Sweden!

Stamp Collecting Starter Packs - the Sequel

Back on March 6, I published a post all about the Stamp Collecting Starter Packs that North Toronto Stamp Club member Lisa Tam described in the NTSC's March 2024 newsletter. Well, I'm happy to report that all four of the Starter Packs have found their way out of the free neighbourhood library just around the corner from our house!

On our neighbourhood walks, I put one pack in the library per week. (OK, one week we didn't walk due to the unseasonal weather!) And one by one, they all disappeared. I have no idea where they went or who has them, or whether the library owner just removed them and trashed them (boy, I hope not)! I have to believe they have found a good home. So, of course it was time to produce more. This time, as a sequel, I built six packs, each containing 60 stamps. About 20 topicals (space, animals, sports etc.), 10 US, 10 Canada and 20 worldwide including some CTO. The assembled pack contents on my Michaels lap/sorting tray:

Using Lisa's printed pdf backer sheet that I colour-printed and cut, I also included a sky-blue yardstick piece (since I didn't do two-sided printing) and stapled the 'Casper Crystal Clear Self-Sealing Bag' from the dollar store all together. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll place these in the library in our walks and see what happens!

Levelling the Album Playing Field

Ever since I began my Long and Noble Crusade a year ago, I've been albumizing stamps. First from the Keep baggie, then from the sorted-by-country two-row box of glassines, and recently, from recent stamp-show-finds sorting, and most recently some Keep baggie British Commonwealth! I ended up with a 1.5 inch-thick file folder of album pages (below) ready for mounting in my four Traveler albums (top photo).

Some of my own pages, designed in MS Word, mounted and ready to go in albums. As my Dad used to say, you can never go wrong with 'British Colonials'!

I knew that my albums would be bursting if I added all those pages. And since I haven't come across a fifth Traveler album, it's probably best to hold the line at four albums for all those smaller country collections.So, like the breaking-out of my Germany, France, West Indies etc. into new albums, I decided to remove Switzerland, Netherlands and Scandinavia for separate albums in future. I then went through the rather laborious, though enjoyable process of removing ALL pages from ALL albums, so they could have the new pages interleaved and all four albums 'levelled' so the covers wouldn't be under pressure! I added some reinforcements to punched holes and double-checked the order of the pages. Broken-out countries (below - left) with two albums' worth of loose pages stacked at right:

Feeling empty as a drum:

The removal complete, all pages stacked at right totalling about 5.5 inches of compressed height. I toyed with various ideas of levelling: actual levelling with a level, weighing, etc. I wanted each album to start and finish cleanly, country-wise and thickness-wise. 

A variety of original Traveler pages, photocopied pages, pages from more than one album, pages I printed myself, and Canadian Wholesale Supply pages - all of varying sizes but each needing two holes punched to go into the original two-post binders. Only one of the Travelers is my original one - other three have been bought at stamp shows, and the fourth has a plastic, not cardboard binding with posts inside.

Levelling underway! Each album's about-to-be pile of pages was a compressed height of 1.5 inches. Ish.

The finished products! All punched, put on album posts, screwed in and ready to shelve:

You can see the basic cardboard albums are looking well-used. And that's the way we like them!

Finally...Cigar Box Time!

At last October's Kingston stamp show I came home with some good buys including a cigar box that I bought from the Kingston Stamp Club consignment table. A quick peek revealed two things: it was quite full, and it had some GOOD stuff inside.

I decided that it would be the denouement of all the baggies and stock pages I had to go through. OK, I have a stock sheet of British Commonwealth and a stock sheet of French colonies to go through still. (I'm angry at the latter because I spent some time last month straightening out in my mind the French colonies: Afrique Occidentale Francaise, Affars and Issas and many, many more, and then that rogue stock sheet found its way to the top of the pile.) So that stock sheet is now officially delayed...

Most of the winter's stamps went to get soaked, sorted, and various dispositions like traders and donations.  The cigar box's turn had finally come! Before the sort began:

I did an initial sort, removing what I didn't want to keep. Then it was time to sort the British Commonwealth, a lot of South Africa, South-West Africa, Mauritius and more that I would be keeping for my collection! Lots of Denmark, Norway and some unusual US. 

I often use a Michaels lap desk for sorting. It has an edge around it and is high enough to reduce neck strain. Before (above) and after (below) - from top left: RSA/SWA, US, Denmark, Norway, everything else and at bottom right British Commonwealth new and B.C. older:

Not to mention the cigar box itself - a real work of art and surprisingly difficult to open. That's probably what kept it safe and sealed all these years until I purchased it for the princely sum of five bucks. I'm not going to count the stamps, nor estimate the number this 'stogie stow' contained. It was a ton o' fun! Thanks to the collector that squirrelled these away and put them on the consignment table!

Stamp Collecting Starter Packs

I'm really enjoying my membership in the North Toronto Stamp Club. And I don't even live in Toronto, north or south! In the March, 2024 NTSC newsletter, this article by Lisa Tam (below) caught my eye. We have several free sidewalk libraries in our neighbourhood, and these stamp collecting starter packs seem to be a good alternative to James Patterson and Dr. Seuss. I got in touch with author Lisa Tam and printed off four of the starter pack backing cards. I also put together four packs' worth of topicals and Canadian stamps for eventual placement in those little wooden repositories.

The finished product (below). I printed Lisa's backing card on paper instead of cardstock. I cut some orange card-stock, and used the clear self-sealing backs to form a four-layered sandwich which I stapled twice at the top. I think this makes a bright-coloured, inviting package:

On yesterday's neighbourhood walk, I 'seeded' the first neighbourhood library. I'll be interested to go on our next walk and see if it's found a new home! 

UPDATE: All four starter packs were taken from the free sidewalk library closest to our house over the past month. I put out about one per week, and the weather didn't allow us to walk for one of those weeks!

Thanks to Lisa for this great idea, and to Jean Wang for not only including in the NTSC newsletter which she edits, but also helping me get the in touch with Lisa for the downloadable pdf to print!