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!
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