Standing Up my Soak Box*

I have been checking out two stamp forums lately. Stamporama is extensive but requires a registration fee after the first month. Meanwhile, over on the Stamp Community Forum, an equally extensive site awaits, at zero cost for registration. However, access to buy, sell and exchange takes 50 posts. OK, challenge accepted!

A community member commented on the daunting contents of his soak box. This resonated with me because I was not daunted, diving into the soak box and filling two five-foot paper towel sections with the results! Most of what's shown here is on-paper from stamp show purchases, and some from incoming stamp mail. First was worldwide, then my less-full Canada soak box.

As usual, I soak en masse, in this case in two Tupperware pans of warm water, then spread to dry on paper towels. Once dry, I carefully dump them off the paper towels (to black plastic tray, above) then press in large, hardcover books, then the fun begins once the flattened stamps are dumped out and sorted.

Here's my sorting hierarchy:

• stamps for my collection or further triage
• stamps for specific collectors: space, music, triangles, topicals
• stamps for envelopes of in-demand countries' duplicates for exchanges i.e. UK, Scandinavia
• stamps for the duplicates box for exchanges of worldwide
• stamps for Oxfam

*You read that right! Not standing on my soap box, though I've regularly done that and will continue to do so, sometimes preaching to the converted.

Philately: An Aging Population or an Asian Population?

In the most recent Canadian Stamp News, John Sheffield, the retiring executive director of the Canadian Stamp Dealers Association (CSDA) gives a revealing interview in which he notes that at one point, the CSDA counted 280 members. There are now fewer than 80, and the organization can no longer hold a financially-viable stamp show. Then he shares his memories of the halcyon days: collecting stamps as a young paperboy, going to the local stamp store with his father and becoming a full-time dealer in 1988. CSDA shows twice a year at the Toronto convention centre and in Montreal, and annually in Ottawa. More people are getting out of the business than are getting in, with age and death drawing down the numbers. He suggests the biggest challenge facing Canadian stamp dealers is relevance.

Well, how relevant is this? In the same article, he notes that in Asian countries, stamp shows are attended by hundreds of thousands of people, most under the age of 30. Taiwan alone can count 2.7 million collectors, about 13% of the population. The recent five-day Taipei 2023 (top photo) attracted over 180,000 attendees! In a 1997 article from Taiwan Today, a Christie's dealer says, "A lot of children love collecting, but they get distracted as they get older, although one day they may come back to it. At this point, most collectors are middle-aged men, at least that's certainly the case at auctions." Interestingly, there are many more women collecting stamps in Asia than in the North American old-man market. While we're at it, let's change the names of stamp shows to leave out the -PEX suffix. Who knows what an ORAPEX is anyway, and does that encourage new, inquisitive collectors or just leave them walking away, scratching their heads?

Sheffield says the biggest change in the stamp industry has been the internet, opening up gaping new worldwide markets. Indeed, those who had an internet presence were able to weather the pandemic's economic downturn, all while thousands of collectors had time at home to return to their stalled collections. "The future must be embraced by stamp dealers of they're going to go the way of the dinosaur", he dryly notes. Hey, here's a suggestion for dinosaur dealers: instead of dying with your stock in hand, sell low to those willing to buy thereby kick-starting a resurgence here in Canada. 

But will they?

Finally, some Fun in Philately!

This most recent video from Stampcat features Lisa interviewing Conor Biggs and his new book which includes very short poems and stamp images. Speaking of humour, an LOL moment occurs when Conor is speaking about his stamp collecting journey and the closed captioning turns "I found stamp collecting" into "I found stunt collecting". Fun!

I'm not so sure about the 'little book' part because in the interview, Conor notes that the book profiles 100 stamps and weighs one pound. Regardless, I like his attitude, his good-natured swipes at those who only want to look at inverted watermarks and the like, and his obvious intention to keep his hobby enjoyable!

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!