Schlossing and Schussing through Switzerland

 

I stopped my 'long and noble crusade' to albumize accumulated stamps in March, taking a summer hiatus around the L-and-M countries for the summer. I made two exceptions, due to arrivals of large numbers of stamps for Norway and Switzerland. This means that of my Mom's penpal countries (Australia, Great Britain, Norway, Switzerland, (East) Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland, only he Grand Duchy needs updating still, because today I finished Switzerland. My Swiss collection went from a very neutral 170 stamps to a much more positive 810 stamps on 23+ pages.

My collection starts with older definitives and commemoratives, some newer definitives, a pleasingly quite complete Pro Juventute and somewhat complete Pro Patria and Europa CEPT pages, then commemoratives from 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 etc. francs (above) and all the way up to 200 francs. 

Interestingly, one of the stamps is the 20-franc 2000 Jahre Basel issue showing Munatius Plancus overlooking his prosperous cityscape along the modern Rhine. One of a handful of stamps printed on the cover of my H.E. Harris 'Traveller albums!

Generalize? Specialize?

The topic of whether to collect everything, or to specialize in just a few things, has been discussed in stamp-collecting circles since at least 1894. In that year, an article in the Canadian Philatelic Weekly by Lewis G. Quackenbush began, 

"Though I am still treading the old paths and gathering in impartially the issues of all five continents, as well as the islands of the sea, I find it useless to shut my eyes to the fact that specialism is gradually strengthening its position. The methods of specialism, however, may be infinitely varied, and thus there are immense opportunities for discussion as to the most fruitful fields for philatelic study. No one can dictate what shall be collected."

His concluding sentence, dramatic but not definitive (no pun intended) continues the philatelist's inner angst and hobby-wide discussions on this topic. I intend to keep this post alive, adding thoughts and reasoning behind both positions as I come across them. 

The illustration at top shows the province of the generalist. Australian Kristie Corr decided to create a home feature wall as a pandemic project, beginning in July, 2020. In-progress photos:

Reminiscent of the early years of stamp-collecting, tiny definitives were glued to walls, pitchers, vases and many other objects as a form of self-expression by folks who had no artworks to hang on their walls. The number and type of stamps available at that time begat no specialists. In a field such as medicine, specialization is everything today. No medical resident worth his salts would dare to stand in front of a hall of colleagues and present a talk on 'Cancer'. More likely, a tailored topic relating to a specific target organ, highly-specific research or even personalized medicine would receive a much better response. 

If I say I collect 'worldwide', the specialist might consider me a gourmand or a generalissimo. But to my general mind, specialists are like surgeons or snipers. I can honestly say there is no stamp I won't consider for my collection. My current interests include:

• British Commonwealth
• polar philately
• maps, militaria, flags, medals
• transportation
• stamp-on-stamp

70 Bucks o' Fun at the Gan Stamp Show!

 

I attended the Gananoque Stamp Show today, held in the upstairs room of the Gananoque Royal Canadian Legion branch. All the dealers I noted were selling stamps, no supplies. That's fine, because I wasn't really in need of supplies. In fact, my one and only buying stop was at Roy Lingen's table. Roy had two big banker's boxes of grab bags. They were slippery sleeves of scintillating stamps, I must say. I started putting ones that interested me aside, and soon had a pile rivalling K2, if perhaps not Mount Everest.

Winnowing of the winning windows of wondrous stamps continued until I had 70 bucks' worth! Look at those prices, nothing over $5 made it into my shopping bag. This is going to be hours o' sorting fun! 

I even indulged my British Commonwealth and polar philately interests with a couple of small packets. I've always considered myself a collector, not a buyer. Sitting at a table setting out to BUY specific stamps doesn't seem right to me. By buying these grab bags, I feel in some way that I'm being a somewhat-discriminating collector, sorting while looking just for what I want to collect and passing the rest on to others.

The show seemed well-attended, with overflow parking in use. Roy asked that I include a link to the Kingston Stamp Club, whom I note are holding their annual Stamp Festival this October 28 at Crossroads United Church.

Before long, we were heading east to the Gan McDonald's for some sugary and satisfying sundaes on Saturday, noting licence plates from Ohio, Vermont and Quebec while driving.

Joining ISWSC

This past year, I joined the International Society of Worldwide Stamp Collectors and I'm participating in their ISWSC Swap Circuits. For a few US dollars and the cost of one-way postage, 100 stamps arrive about each month. Each member removes some of the 100 stamps in the envelope, then replaces them with like stamps. Five ISWSC members' names are on each circuit, after which it is returned to a volunteer swap circuit manager. It's been enjoyable.

ISWSC members might have a challenge contacting me, as both my postal code and email appear to be incorrect!

In April, 2023 I participated in the ISWSC Grab Bag, whereby I sent two packets to Ramona Finley of the US - the Grab Bag co-ordinator - and got two other members' packets sent back. All participants had a chance of winning a free packet as well. There were 18 participants with 57 packets exchanged.

ISWSC puts out a colour, 40+ page newsletter via e-mail. It contains excellent articles and lots of information. 

My membership has definitely paid for itself!

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.

75 Bucks o' Fun! Kingston Stamp Show

The Eastern Ontario Stamp & Coin Festival was held today at Crossroads United Church at 690 Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard. I hadn't attended the October stamp show in a few years, last one being at Christ Church Anglican, Cataraqui. Before that, the usual location was held at Edith Rankin Memorial United Church in Collins Bay. This event proved that the numismatists and the philatelists could...collaborate...to coin a phrase!

I had three goals in attending the show:

• Buy another Harris 'Traveler' album (above - five bucks!)
• Do some damage at the Kingston Stamp Club consignment table (below)
• Grab some inexpensive grab bags (also below)

All three missions - Accomplished!

I didn't take any photos at the show, so allow me to paint a mental picture for you. Imagine a church hall, with tables and boxes everywhere. And people standing around talking or looking intently through the contents of the boxes. That's pretty much it!

The Traveler album was in great condition, front cover slightly swaybacked, but that's how they seem to age. My three Travelers, including my childhood one, don't get the chance because they're full of pages. As this fourth one will soon be! Some stamps inside, with reuseable stamp hinges.

The consignment table did not disappoint. Somes examples below, both from the consignment table and from Don and Roy's tables. Though $10 was my big grab bag/consignment purchase, most were $2-3.

Once I got home with my two reuseable grocery bags of goodies, they were emptied into a photo-box for summertime sorting! Duplicates will go to Oxfam. Some necessities, from Don and an Ottawa-area dealer, who had mounts at reduced price - $5 each. Cheaper than Amazon, though I provided the free shipping! The Discovery stamp album is from 1959 and had some interesting stamps that I removed. Others were glued in - or licked - and will require oaking. The large brown stockbook was quickly converted into envelope-size stock cards for stamp exchanges by mail.

All for $75, including free admission. 

TradeOnlyStamps Salvo!

In this Saturday's biweekly TradeOnlyStamps (TOS) email newsletter #855 (screenshot - top photo), I found five possible trades I'd like to make. I thought it would be neat to keep track of all five, what I sent, what I received (in photo form), just to give an idea of the efficacy of these trades. I've blogged about TOS before and it works just about as well, and maybe better as the other stamp exchange schemes I blogged before. I titled this post a salvo because when we used to play the game 'Battleship' years ago, one variation of game-play was to call five shots in a row and see where they fell, before the next player took a turn. I sent each packet upon receipt of a confirmatory email message from each trader.

The five traders were:

• Charles Reid from New Westminster, BC. Charles wanted 50 1980's US in exchange for the same number of Canada or worldwide. I got out my US catalogue to make sure the doubles I was sending Charles were indeed released in that decade! Sent: May 29, 2023. Received: June 12, 2023. Charles sent a nice selection of worldwide including sports, Philippines and Papua New Guinea iin half of a manila stock page. I immediately took up Charles' offer to continue exchanging!

Cristian Dinca from Bucharest, Romania. Cristian had a wide variety of wants, including Central and South America, the Middle East, Eurasia and Jamaica. I was able to put together a nice selection of all of these. Fortunately, Cristian expected up to 30% definitives. What is a stamp collection with no definitives? It's not realistic nor representative of a country's philatelic prodigiousness. Sent: May 29. 2023. Received: TBA (Checked with Cristian in mid-September: sent but not received.) Cristian kindly offered to send a replacement pack, and here are his photos of his first attempt:

and second attempt:

• Avi Krauz from Israel. Proposing 100 small Canada for 100 small Israel, I knew I had lots of Canadian definitives from all eras, and gathering that many was no problem - accomplished from 1970's to 1990's. Didn't even dip into the earlier Queen Elizabeth or KGVI! Sent: May 29, 2023. Received: June 19, 2023. Avi placed a nice selection of stamps on the envelope, including one showing Adam, Eve, the snake and that famous fruit they shared! 

• Jean-Francois Wodarka from Canada. Proposal was 100-200 worldwide for same, depending on catalogue value. I selected 100 worldwide large. Sent: June 2, 2023. Received: June 16, 2023. J-F's exchange contained 100 stamps sorted by country, sets or pairs, and damaged (*) with a nice Carmichael P-value stamp on the envelope.

• A.S. Banga from Australia. Interested in a variety of topicals ranging from butterflies to basketball and COVID to dinosaurs, I was sure I could find 100 to send. In exchange, naval ships and aircraft and maybe more were proposed. Sent: June 6, 2023. Received: July 13, 2023. This trade was a bit disappointing. A.S. returned 50 of my stamps, saying they were from countries he had a direct connection to, like Russia and Bulgaria. He sent 50 Japan, suggesting further trades and requesting 2000-2023 Canada and Western Europe. Not what he originally advertised and I will not be taking him up on his offer, since he didn't return what he said he would.

Bonus trade! A few days before this salvo, I received an offer from Carmen Scicluna of Malta to trade 100 worldwide for 100 Malta. Carmen's envelope was sent May 24 and arrived June 7. What an awesome collection of statuary and other Malta issues, including a masked COVID theme!

*I have encountered this before when collectors return stamps they deem damaged. Upon inspecting those that J-F designated, I found no rips or tears, just some minor discolouration perhaps due to cancellation, and a few missing perfs. As an aside, this type of return is disappointing. Another collector must have sent me these stamps, and I must have accepted them. I do not inspect each stamp with a magnifying glass, and I guess my acceptance of slight imperfection is more yielding than some collectors. I do wish that these 'damaged' stamps would find their way somewhere other than back to me. Returning them does not come across as very gentlemanly. End of rant!