Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Me? I’m going through the last of my New Zealand collection, one of the countries I dropped. I now only collect seven major areas: USA used singles, Ireland, Japan, Venezuela, Vatican, Austria & Scandinavia.
So where are you today? Wherever it is, I hope you’re enjoying every minute.
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I've got a snow day today! I'm sorting and organizing my early Guatemala and Uruguay, checking for forgeries, filling in holes and organizing them by their specialized catalogues. Lots of holes in early Uruguay, many low to medium cat values that are nearly impossible to find!
Steve
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I just started to reorganize my Early Mexico collection. Early Mexico is quite a challenge, and a watermark nightmare!
I am going to put together an Approval Book with my extras, for anyone interested. I have so many voids though, not sure if I will buy more...just reorganize for now!
Modern Mexico can be a challenge too, some of the modern series, such as Exporta, Tourism etc... can provide plenty of "fun" if you go beyond the most basic category list. Try printing Steiner's specialized pages on Exporta for example.
I also am taking a crack at Early Bulgaria, again for the fun of reorganizing an area I had not worked on for a long time. Bulgaria early stamps are less expensive than Mexico, so I may well try to fill the voids.
rrr...
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I am working on Denmark today in my used block collection...
Linus
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Just started a US mint collection of plate blocks and First Day Covers
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Going through my duplicates of Germany from 1960 onwards sorting into MNH, MH and Used.
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Argentina. Official Department stamps.
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Mexico! - Hidalgo Issues 1856 and 1861 tto reorganize by District, Sub-disgtrict, Cancellations and varieties of color and some with Pre-printing paper fold, etc. For this I designed special album page for each District with basic information about the stamp quantities issued.
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05:01:08pm
Cuba - transferring my Cuba collection from where it always was (Scott's International Vol I, II and IIIA ) to the new pages I bought on line last year. It is a huge amount of work since my collection, except for the impossible to find Puerto Principe Issue, is quite close to complete. When the transfer is complete I have to decide whether to change my end limit from 1955, where IIIA ends, to 1958, where my new pages end, or just ignore those last three years. I have no idea yet what I'm going to do!! Except that I have decided I'm going to fill at least two pages a day until it is done!!
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07:00:13pm
Still working on updating Cuba and putting it in a new setting. I have a hint for Cuba collectors, the stamps are very brittle!! It must be the type of paper. After demolishing one stamp taking off a hinge I decided to leave all hinge and hinge remnants on when I mount them in black mounting. They look much better that way and whoever the next owner of the collection may be he/she can decide whether or not to get rid of the hinges! Thankfully the stamp I destroyed had no major value. Before anyone comments, I don't have the patience to steam or sweat off the hinges. I am very careful and very very rarely have a problem!
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I was catching up on Linn's and Scott Stamp Monthly readings.
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JUST FOR FUN Here’s a map of our philatelic destinations from the past few days
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Thanks, that's so cool! May encourage others to respond. I don't expand the coverage at all since I was working on US revenues and US First Bureau 2 cents.
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12:17:01pm
Great idea Theresa! Maybe the powers that be could find a way to leave this open a bit longer than usual so you can update the map occasionally. Without looking for it, I know they shortened the period we can edit, but I can't remember the limit!
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No worries - I’ll just upload a new screenshot. The time limit won’t matter.
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So nice to see what fellow collectors are working on. Good idea, Theresa! I'll be mounting some Vatican and Hungarian sets today.
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For the past few days I have been sorting through a half dozen 10 x 8 envelopes of USA stamps, some soaked some still on paper. These have been stuck in boxes for the past 20 years. It started as a result of looking for the plate number coils and has developed into a general sort by type (definitive, commemorative, airmail, etc) going from large envelopes to smaller bags and envelopes while I decide if they should be mounted, stuck in stock books or just put back into boxes.
Nothing valued at much more than minimum, unless I start really flyspecking.
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01:23:54pm
At least we are educated enough in World geography to know which countries are where! In today's education system, unfortunately geography does not seem to be important. I don't want this to be construed as political (so I won't name names) but I seem to remember a World leader a while ago agreeing to not really knowing where Finland was in respect to Russia. I don't mean this as a political statement, only as a sign that the worst is yet to come!!
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Nothing new. More than thirty years ago, there was a TV program om Dutch television showing where people went on holiday and what they did there. Each episode the presenter went to a holiday park or hotel somewhere in a warm country and asked the Dutch people staying there if they could point out where they were on a blind map. The results were hilarious and also shocking. Most had no idea...
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I was looking at my BOB plate number blocks and as pleasantly shocked to find that I actually owned these two.
USA Scott# CE1 and CE2
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I am hoping to work on some stamps of Hungary, if there is know more interruptions.
Doug
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In my to do pile from a accumulation of stamps sorted into envelopes by country I bought at a antique mall a few years ago, I am down to a couple a envelopes each of India and Netherlands.
Also, keep in mind from a younger person's perspective - things like geography and history are liberal arts, and your elders told you liberal arts are bad to study because you cannot get a good job as a liberal arts major - you need to study computers or business or medicine. Then the elders want to hold the lack of what they told you is worthless knowledge against you. Just like the old people who gave out the participation trophies in the first place and then make fun of the younguns for having the trophies. The kids cannot get a break. 
Josh
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Last week I bought a lot that had three nice cover albums full of US first day covers.
I spent some quality time with the book that was 1920s through 1939. All different, mostly cacheted and few Artcraft. Some really neat covers! I transferred at least 2/3 of them into my collection, upgraded a few and put the remainders in my eBay pile!
The second book is mid 1960s with mostly non-Artcraft covers and the third is just Fleetwood's 50 state flags of 1976.
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i was collating U.S. FDCs by decade...such fun.
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OK Stamporama! You’re being challenged! The Stamp Forum currently has much more of their map colored in! (I’m active on both sites). So don’t be shy! Post where your stamps have taken you today!
Here’s today’s update of our Philatelic travels.
FYI I’m using a free mapping program for iPad called Mapchart. It is very glitchy, so I’ll only be adding countries that I can click without having to zoom. This is just for fun so …
Here’s a sneak peek at the The Stamp Forum map.
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Still preliminary sorting of USA, only a few more envelopes to go. Not sure I'm winning but the envelopes are reducing but poly bags increasing.
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04:57:28pm
Just finished transferring Cuba from Big Blue to a book of it's own. Found a few that I thought I had that I didn't, a couple I didn't even know existed and I few I had that I thought I didn't have. Stamp collecting is always one huge mystery that doesn't always agree with our want list!!
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Taking some time to get a few piles of GB machins in order over the next few months. Come to think of it, a few months is probably not long enough!
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"Just finished transferring Cuba from Big Blue to a book of it's own. Found a few that I thought I had that I didn't, a couple I didn't even know existed and I few I had that I thought I didn't have. Stamp collecting is always one huge mystery that doesn't always agree with our want list!!"
The best part of getting old! Opening boxes and finding things you swear you never saw before!
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11:00:37pm
I'm working on Canada - start to finish. I'm not touching my other countries until my Canada is finished. So right now sorting through mounds of stamps. Already have my BoB in their own stock books. Also my "not so bad" start up collection of tax stamps (sorry the real word is not coming to my mind at the moment).
I've basically got a good layout of my collection in stock books so I can see what's missing. I still need to get some Edwards.
Not looking forward to the tagged stamps. Hope my light still works for them.
It's fun. It actually was my friend's idea when she was helping me organize my albums. She said pick a country. I said Canada? She said great, so that's what we're gonna work on for the next few years lol
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I received circuit books from APS today for Norway, so that is my project. Some of the books included Sweden and I noticed some Slania stamps so that adds to the project! It is still January in Minnesota so I'll be kept busy indoors for a while.
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Delighted to see your post, Kelly!
Keep on posting everyone - I’ll update the map in a few days when we have more “travels” to log.
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12:47:25pm
Just got a good sized order of Congo from Torbjorn today so that will be my work for an hour or so this evening. It took only from March 27 to today to get here from Sweden, not bad!! Congo is not a main collectible, just a country that I like, especially the old stuff!!
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Finally finished that early Canada Approval Book, No. 28007. Going to put some early Canada high value stamps on Ebay before the new eBay "International Shipping" program kicks in. Grand daughter arrives and stamp collecting stops.
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Just finished soaking a bunch of pre cancelled Prexies and a few airmail USA, cd of love songs on the player bringing back some old memories, time for a cuppa.
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Great Britain
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02:38:28pm
There was a time when I contemplated collecting GB and when I had a serious look at what that entailed I decided to pass and collect a few other areas that I liked instead, I think they were Ireland, New Zealand and Australia (after the states). I was terrified that I would get interested in the Machins(sp) and that is a never ending hole. I realize that makes me a wimp, but I can live with that. Best of luck to you! I think collecting GB is tantamount to collecting the US and that's a job I really enjoy but I really only need to do it once. No offence to the GB collectors out there was meant by any of these comments!
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Finally reorganized my Portugal Ceres, with the new Scott Numbers.
I printed the Steiner pages. There are a few unaccounted slots for stamps not in Scott. Anyone run into this and figured it out?
Also, the color descriptions are quite widely different than Scott. One can figure it out in 99% of the cases, but there are a few exceptions that I cannot make sense of. No one seems to standardize these color descriptions!
rrr...
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rrraphy:-
You say that you have used the "New Scott Numbers". When did they change?
I have the 2017 catalogue. Did they change before or after that year?
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I am not sure Ian.
Maybe someone has a Scott Catalog that shows when they announced the switch over.
My album was following the 2012 catalog (I think) but I now have a 2021 catalog, and it has the new numbering scheme. So my guess somewhere in that time frame. One could easily check if your catalog has the new numbering system. Check if it has a continuous listing for Ceres 1912-->from scott #207 to 298U with the perforations (15x14, 12x11.5) separated.
Some sellers still use the old numbers, so it is a real confusion out there. I am aware of one seller who lists both the old and new numbers (where it is possible). Anyway, big effort to do the transformation. and I wonder how many in my duplicates were let go instead of filling what is now z blanc spot!
rrr...
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This weekend:
1. Costa Rica - a few stamps to put into the albums;
2. USA - some marginal markings, used, to put into the albums;
3. USA - I'm putting together a presentation on President Ronald Reagan for the United States Study Group of the Ottawa Philatelic Society;
4. Indonesia - a few stamps to put into the albums.
David
Ottawa, Canada
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rrraphy
Thanks
My 2017 catalogue does have the numbers in the order that you mention. (from scott #207 to 298U)
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I have a 2014 Scott catalog with the new Ceres numbers.
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Apart from Mexico as I mentioned before, I'm thinking of continuing my collection of the St. Vincent Classics, I love those Queen Victoria designs, beautiful engravings!
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Yay! We’ve visited 5 continents!
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Right now I'm having fun going through a box of postal reply cards addressed to the Chicago Telephone Supply Company from the 1912-16 era. I'm finding this interesting as these were the pioneering days of the telephone and folks were getting their first one!
This must've been a thriving business as the orders came from all over the country. Lots of small town postmarks!
In the spirit of "you can't keep them all" I've been listing a lot of them in my eBay Store. It's all for fun!
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I've just got back to working on my Pitcairn Islands album.
Then I have some Rattlesnake Island stamps that I acquired recently to mount.
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I'm currently organizing my accumulation of Ethiopian stamps. When I dug everything out I was shocked at how many little collections and glassine envelopes I had set aside over the years. It looks like I'll be able to put together a nearly complete collection from about the 1920s to 1970. I don't seemed to have any of the early overprints (that Scott says are heavily forged) but otherwise have a good representation of everything, and several hundred duplicates. So hopefully at some point later in the year I can get back to doing the odd approval book so I can pass my extras on to someone else who is interested.
Eric
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Evaluating how the new eBay "Internation Shipping" program will effect my Ebay International sales. At Stamp Club Meeting last evening, some thought it would bring about big changes. Others thought that it wouldn't change anything. It's being interpreted differently by collectors. Someone is wrong.
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Today it's Cochin for me. An old favourite of mine spread over several rather disorganised pages so in good need of attention.
Thanks to Calstamp for some very nice additions!
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I've been putting off organizing Russia in my Worldwide Airmail collection for sometime now. I finally had a chance to get some pages made to mount a few. Here's what I added in the last three days...
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07:27:15pm
Over the next week or so I will be transferring my collection of Danzig from Vol I of Big Blue to a special set of Danzig pages provided to me several months ago by a helpful SOR collector. It'll be a big job, I have to label the stamps on the pages first! But it'll be worth the effort when it's done!!
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Just a few weeks ago I decided to add Croatia during WW2 to my list of collections. Why? Because I found a souvenir sheet and a few other stamps in a lot I bought, and then as some weird act of serendipity I noticed an approval book put online by Kenneth Emling that had lots of Croatian stamps of which I purchased quite a few. Yesterday they arrived and for the first time in a long time I had the joy of adding a lot of stamps to a collection (most of the time it is just a few each time). From almost nothing to approx. 33% in just a day
Thanks Kenneth, for this Croatian kick-start!
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11:30:19am
Also thanks to Kenneth Emling I have a nice little lot of Philippines stamps to add to my albums this evening!!
Now ... time to go upstairs and give my diabetic cat his first (of two) insulin shots of the day. And maybe, since I just did my small amount of house cleaning for the day (breaking down a bunch of boxes and cartons for re-cycling), I'll go to bed and read my latest book for an hour. I discovered a new mystery writer, Donna Leon, and grabbed a few of her books at the local book store. If you're into murder mystery and haven't read her yet, give her books a try - excellent stuff!!
Edit: I know this doesn't go here but ... I just finished transferring all my Cuba material to a new spot and there was one stamp I knew I had, but where the heck was it? I just found it with my Philippine stamps when I was putting in the stamps I just got from Kemling. I knew It'd show up sooner or later! How many times do we say that?
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Ever since the second round of Covid I can fully relate to this. There are days when going to bed at the middle of the day is so tempting. The energy level is slowly getting back to normal but sometimes it feels like I have become 20 years older in a week. I suppose it is something that we all will have to get used to, it is not going away.
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05:46:26pm
I got a very pleasant surprise when I started to transfer my Danzig stamps a little while ago. The pages they were being transferred to were Scott pages and had the numbers already there. Makes my life much easier!! Many thanks to whomever I got them from. I really think it was someone on SoR, I must start writing this stuff down!!
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I'm remounting on Vario pages a collecton of World Wide Christmas Seals I purchased several years ago on this site. Some pages are turning brown and I noticed some stamps are turning some pages brown. I'll remount those stamps on 102 cards to keep them away from the rest of the collection.
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I picked up a small topical collection "sports on stamps" incorporating them into my worldwide albums.
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I'm sorting a load of Berlin stamps I bought on line. Mostly cheap, and it has a beginning and an end. What's not to like?
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My most recent purchases have included stamps for a Lighthouse USA hingeless album set that I found prior to a recent move in a box under the stairs. It is organized quite differently than my typical Scott album which has prompted some additional learning. It frequently has stamp varieties in the albums that are listed in Scott with a small letter after the number which needed a bit of review. Even got to pull out my Micarelli book for a purpose that I haven't looked at for over twenty years! I worked on updating a list of stamps in Excel for the album and currently show 234 different stamps with a total catalog value of $4,696 through 1932 which was quite a surprise. I have been adding some coil stamps recently for the album as the album has spaces only for stamps in pairs which I haven't actively collected previously. In several cases I had found some coil singles in some old collections that had been given to me as placeholders and am now looking for pairs to replace them. Still have quite a ways to go on building my list of what I now have in the three album set.
The other album I have been working on is a Palo Canada hingeless album that I had picked up some time ago so that I could see what the albums look like and how they feel during use (I am very impressed with the layout and look of the pages and the paper quality as well as the stamp image detail. The binder that I have is very sturdy although I am curious about the leather version of the binder that is available as a deluxe option.). I started making a list of what is in the album in Excel which is letting me check out each individual stamp that either I or the previous owner had put in the album (about half and half at this point as it had been stripped of quite a few stamps in the past, or perhaps they had never been acquired previously). I have worked the album through 1952 recording 147 different stamps with a total catalog value of $1,847 so would say that the album is definitely showing progress. Interestingly almost every stamp in the album is previously hinged except for some recent additions that I made to fill some holes.
I, also, went through my International part 1A1-1B2 album for 1840-1940 and created a want list for Finland for the album. There are an amazing number of fairly expensive stamps if you try to fill the pages with mint condition examples. I was surprised that almost none of the stamps that I need are presently offered on either eBay or Hipstamp currently as mint stamps. I am definitely slowing down on acquisitions for the International album as I reach the 50% complete level with only 42 new stamps for the album in 2023 to date. Fortunately there should be several stamp shows that are in drivable range in the late spring and summer so that I can feed the collection a bit more.
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Working on USA 1890-1930, definitive issues, not sure I really want to get deeply into them. Guess I'll see how much of a problem it is in differentiating the types, sub types and finding watermarks and various perforation differences.
Suppose I could just collect a generic single, but that is not much of a challenge.
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None.
I decided to do the gardening before the rains come.
Chatted to my elderly neighbour for over an hour.
Downloaded several series of the radio programme "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue".
Tomorrow off to visit the mother in law so another day with no stamps.
Despite what my daughter thinks I do have a life!
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Because of Terry's request for Mint Russia Airmails, I think I'll prepare an early Russia Approval Book today. I recall that I prepared one a few years ago that Sold Out in 48 mins. - all those big Russian airplanes shotting down everything in sight.
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05:44:03pm
Thanks to Steve I had a whole bunch of Cuba to work on today and thanks to Jan-Simon I had a bunch of Tannu Tuva to put in. It's been a very busy day!!!
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Working on New Zealand, putting into stockbooks in order and then into my printed albums.
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Check out our map!
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Costa Rica!
David
Ottawa, Canada
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11:27:25am
I'm going to a friends for supper tonight and I will borrow their three hole punch to get a bunch of Ecuador pages ready to use. I decided to stop at 1940 and have a large selection of early Ecuador material. I haven't decided yet whether to bother with the many officials I have or not, we'll see how it goes! But I imagine my main job (pleasant one, I think) over the next week or so will be Ecuador. One thing I have learned is how to properly spell the name of the country, I always thought it was Equador!!
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02:57:27pm
I started putting my stamps on the pages and now realize what a major job Ecuador is actually going to be! There are many pages of overprints not shown in Big Blue. If I take this country seriously, and I will with a 1940 cutoff, it'll be the last new country I add for a very long time. And I may as well do a proper job and add in the officials as well as all the rest of the weird overprinted stuff. According to a search of member information there are only three Ecuador collectors listed so there is little incentive for sellers to list material! Going to be tricky!!!
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Working on getting my collection of US 1938 Prexie series and 1954 Liberty series ready to sell. Plate blocks, Plate number singles by position, Mint and used. Also errors and freaks.
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01:58:26pm
Spent a few hours today working on my US collection from the 1920's. Everything that was put in with hinges is now in black top loading mounting. I'm contributing a little bit to album bulge but the pages that were a mixture of hinges and mounting are consistent and look much better. Eventually I'll work my way backwards to the beginning of my Harris Liberty album. The only parts I'll probably leave as is parts of the BOB sections.
The album is a bit odd. Why include areas like the Canal Zone and omit areas like Hawaii? Also I've had to get separate pages for the dated reds and greens since Harris does a very poor job with them. I also had to get pages when I decided to add Wine Stamps! I wonder who decided what to include and what to omit.
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I'm working on transferring a large Big Blue (1840-1940) collection from a battered album to a nice clean empty one (with interleaves). Thank goodness for vintage hinges - having no problems with the transfer. Finding some nice surprises...
Working on Canada at the moment. Have already completed Russia, Romania, Bavaria, Ireland and some other smaller countries/entities. Looking forward to doing Austria and Germany, and then France - soon.
John
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I recently started a collection of USS Ship covers, so that is what I have been working on today. I have a very large need 
with each of my cover collections, to build a database with website to house it in. I got the latest website, for the USS Ship Covers, to a point today that I could start using it.
Here is the link https://ships.auld.us
Regards ... Tim
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That is a very nice website you've set up, Tim!
My hat's off to you!
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Thanks Dave.
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05:01:31pm
Working on my US album from about 1900 to 1920 putting hinged stamps into black mounting. I'm contributing to album bulge and getting very sick of looking at Washington and Franklin!! No offence meant to the Americans out there is intended!!
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This evening i am adding stamps to my Big Blue Scott international albums that Scott lists in their catalogs but did not give space to in my albums.
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Worked on adding a number of new items to my "from under the stairs" USA - Lighthouse album which I have been working on recently. The new additions were from Soundcrest through Stamporama and arrived today. Interestingly, all additions were Washington-Franklin issues or Kansas overprints similar to HARVEY's additions for the day.
Also, replaced one Finland Scott #36 mint hinged stamp with a new copy which is much fresher in appearance. Now just need a mint copy of Finland Scott #30 which will complete all stamps from 1881 up through the end of my Scott Hingeless album as mint stamps. That stamp has been very challenging to locate as I have only seen one mint copy listed anywhere which was in the form of a pair since I started looking for it in 2017! Still have several other items from the first page of the album to go with mint copies of Scott #'s 11, 20, 21, and 23 being of most interest. Finland Scott #1 is probably not ever going to make it into the album (at least not as a mint copy) which will be okay as several other items for the first page will stay as used copies as well. So far, I have managed fault free copies of all of the roulette issues even though four are used copies.
My other major activity for the day was building a checklist and catalog value list for my Mexico Scott Hingeless album which covers 1944 through 1970. Currently I have 71 of 495 mint non-hinged stamps required for the album so I expect this is going to take quite a while to get respectable.
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03:54:51pm
West Berlin.
Last month I won, almost by accident a neat collection on Lindner pages, a nearly complete West Berlin collection and since a year or so ago I converted just about all my albums to standard 8-1/2 x 11 pages for what turned out to be almost 100 three ring binders, it took me quite a while to adapt the Lindner hingeless pages as well.
Forty years ago I fell in love with the Minkus Albums for some reason that eludes me these days;
probably completion and much better looking than the somewhat shopworn Scotts I had accumulated over the preceding 20 years from various sources. In fact, one Big Blue had been my parents during the dark days of WW II. They had spent quiet evenings at the kitchen table, using one small ( dim?) table lamp, with a heavy blackout curtain tacked over the window, lest the light, or the gloom of the light disclose the movements of blacked out vessels to prowling 'unterseeboots'.
I felt that Scott spread out stamps and strips too much wasting space and pages.
Now I can just pop open the three rings and insert pages wherever I want and not have to fool with those thin (#$%^&**) rods
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04:13:01pm
"and not have to fool with those thin (#$%
&**) rods"
Boy, can I identify with that!! My Minkus albums have the damn (excuse my use of this please!!) things and I have given up trying to line up the front one properly. The front cover hasn't been properly attached for at least a year. The problem, of course, is if your album bulges a bit they are almost impossible to line up.
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"Which country or collection are you working on today?"
NONE!
I have had a great couple of days catching up on the weekend matches of the Australian Rugby League (NRL.com). All the matches are shown in full.
The Stanley Cup highlights are on youtube and the Indian Premier League T20 is also on (iplt20.com), 63 Matches so far.
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Things GERMANIC!
I began looking at Berlin stamps a while ago - they appealed because I'm an impoverished collector on a pension without big bucks to throw about. Our Victorian cottage with its dodgy roof is a limiting factor, as is our shared wish to enjoy a few of the nice things of life, like Henley regatta, the Towersey music festival and a holiday in Cornwall each year. And the odd glass of wine...
I'm now wondering about the German states before unification and especially Bavaria. It's striking that while most of the other states threw in their lot with Germany in 1867, Bavaria held out till 1920. First as a kingdom, then a republic in 1919 and finally "incorporated in to the Weimar republic" in 1920. Could this be an area to collect?
I'm a bit drawn because in the 80s I knew some good friends in Wurzburg - went there a few times, and enjoyed their hospitality and the excellent Franken wine in its bocksbeutel, which I can't buy here in UK.
But is this a collecting area for me - with modest means?
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03:54:22pm
Back at my US Harris Liberty Album again! Now doing the BOB, replacing the hinges with black mounting. It contributes a bit more to ALBUM BULGE but makes the collection much easier on the eyes. It's great to have an extensive collection but it's also important if it looks good!
The one area I'm not going to bother with (YET) is the cut squares. Unless I can find a large (very) lot of them I'm probably not going to expand that part of the collection. For some reason I can't get very interested in that area, not sure why!
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09:30:04pm
Over the last couple days I finished putting all my stamps in my Harris Liberty albums in with black mounting replacing the hinges. I did most of the revenue stamps and my collections of post 1899 Philippines stamps and my Canal Zone stamps. Again it added a bit to my album bulge but the book looks so much better than it did before. There are many ways to look at stamps. Some of you analyze every stamp looking for varieties, I'm afraid that I look at them as almost works of art. I think that's why I prefer the older engraved classic stamps. I think the stamps that impress me the most are the early revenue stamps, most seem to be in the 1860's and 1870's. The blues, oranges and greens are especially attractive. I'll have a friend do a scan of those pages in a couple days and show them here. I'm sure you'll agree that the mounting really shows them properly. It was a huge amount of work switching everything over but I know it makes a difference since I keep opening the album checking things out! Friends tell me I should keep my collection in something like a vault or safe to keep it safer. I'd rather have it close by so it can "play with it" more often!!
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02:03:00pm
I had a friend scan a few pictures from the new improved US stamp book. Hopefully the new mounting will show up. I chose 4 pages of the early revenue stamps and the first page of the album. If anyone wants to lend me a copy of US#13 I can finish page #1. I have gaps there for two stamps inserted that are probably never going to be filled! The images are a bit fuzzy because I had to reduce the pixels to 25% to be sure they would load. And if anyone suggests that I show the backsides of the stamps, well, you can "take a flying leap"!! Also I'm sure some of you will think the pages are overloaded but I like to use the margins and the back of pages when needed.
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Wow, just wow!
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A pleasure to see Harvey. Thanks for the sharing.
Dan C.
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03:04:46pm
As a lot of us have done, I've spent many thousands of hours on my stamp collection. I't's always been a very serious thing with me, also much fun, but I took it very seriously. I have always believed that if you are going to do something it should be done well. I really think the black mountings show up the stamps much better and I've been using them on my two major collections, US and Canada. I really wish I had family to pass this stuff on to, but I am not lucky in that way. But judging from what most of my friends say their kids don't want to be "burdened" by stuff! I's an attitude I will never understand since I love being around all my stuff! I'm sure most of you have the same problem!!
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But why can't you mount them face downwards Harvey?
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09:43:24pm
I guess I'm not real interested in backsides, of stamps, that is!!! 
Edit: I'm really not trying to make fun of anyone. Occasionally you can see interesting things on the backs of stamps. But, I'm afraid that most times it's just the back of the stamp. Some of these are interesting on both sides but I'd much rather look at the fronts. These early revenue stamps are some of the most attractive US stamps I've ever seen. The later stuff like dated reds and dated greens are incredibly dull. I still collect them but I am really not sure why! I also collect the wine stamps which are even worse. I probably just do it for the sake of completeness, who can really say!
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"But judging from what most of my friends say their kids don't want to be "burdened" by stuff! "
I've always said that my dad died when he did to avoid having to clean out his garage! It was a single car garage so full of "stuff" that you couldn't walk into it. And guess who cleaned it out?
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Going through several envelopes of Italy and sorting them into years ready to go into my Italian collection.
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Right now, I'm not working on anything. I quit for over a year because of illness, but I'm back to where I can sit up for more than a few hours at a time so I'm thinking about continuing.
Primarily, I was working on the four years my Grandchildren wee born. ('04, '07, '08 and '10). All four books are about 85% complete (MNH). I also have a complete set of stamps issued in the State of Virginia. I have them, but not all are mounted yet.
Finally, a friend gifted me a packet of about 100 Disney stamps from various countries so I'm researching and trying to decide if I should take on a project that large.
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Mikey,
So good to hear that you are doing better. Enjoy your stamps.
Regards ... Tim.
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Lately i have been collating U.S. first day covers by month and year and it is driving me bonkers ...i think i have everything in order and add the covers to an album and then i find one that i overlooked and have to go back and pull a bunch of covers to get back in sequence. What we collectors do to ourselves !
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05:22:51pm
Just got an order from Eric Fried a few hours ago and now have about 100 Russia BOB and some other amazing stuff to figure out. I love getting this kind of stuff but it takes an incredible amount of patience to figure out!! Great stuff Eric, thanks!!
Most of Eric's material was Russian Offices in the Lavant and using what I got from him as a guide I managed to find slots for other material I had laying around. Mr. Fried is almost the only person posting this material and I'm always watching for his World Books, great stuff!!! It took several hours to get the stuff figured out but it was well worth it!
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I've been working on my New Zealand cover collection this afternoon. I scan them into a database and then have a web application over them to look through them. I store each of them in a plastic protector and put a numbered label on the outside so I can find them easily if I need to.
NZCancels.org
One of the guys I know here in Minneapolis had heard that I also collect USS Ship covers, so he brought a bunch of them into the Stamp Library today. I just had to buy some from him didn't I.
Regards ... Tim.
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In my "transferring a large Big Blue 1840-1940" project, I finally completed France and Great Britain (yay!).
Now it's on to Austria and Germany...
I've been stockpiling vintage hinges for years and am using those for the destination unused Big Blue.
John
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British India and India States.
Colonial issues:
Went back through previously mounted items as well as duplicates. Using SG speciality catalogue. Identified more than two dozen previously unrealized varieties. Chiefly watermarks, some shades.
States: Slow going. Again, using SG catalogue. Currently working on Cochin and T-C. Lots of “new” material for collection.
Philately: Never boring.
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New York Stock Exchange Federal Revenue cancels for the Stock Brokers, there is about 1,200 stock brokers 1898-1902.
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03:03:07pm
Just got a small lot of Angola from Steve to put in. I don't really collect the country but am just trying to fill the section from Scott's International Album IIIA as I mentioned in another post. Only three more to go and then I'll consider my Angola collection complete even though I really only collect 1950 to 1955! I don't even have Scott's numbers on them and they have never shown up on my want list. Except for the gorgeous bird and wildlife series I have only picked them up here! The 1949 sailing vessel set of 2 seems a bit expensive so that might be tricky! And the first denomination of the 1950 Angola Philatelic Exposition stamp will show up eventually, I hope!! I will confess, I did pick up the souvenir sheet on E-Bay even though my album doesn't show it. Please do not put this post in the "looking for stamps" area, that's not my intention!
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11:19:00am
Just got a large bunch of US mint to replaced some used stamps in my album. That will be a pleasant chore for this evening. Thanks Mel!!
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I am back working on my Middle East collections. This week Yemen (Kingdom and YAR). Filling a few blanks, extending my coverage from 1975 to 1980, and also skipping the "wallpaper" era of 1969-1972, which is an altogether different animal.
I am converting a Minkus album into a Scott structured album, that is... separating Back of the Book and recasting the Minkus pages that combined both, printing a number of pages in the process.
I am also focusing on a dozen or so stamps I am missing to complete Yemen, and also finding more series of o/p that are not in the Scott catalog, but worth having.
New material is seldom available on the auction sites, so it is a slow process, even if the stamps are listed a relatively low prices. So few collectors in this area!
rrr...
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Netherland Indies ,just completed my set of Brandkast,Floating Safe Stamps .senders paid extra and their mail was placed in the floating safe ,it was an marvellous invention for the time
If the ship went down the arms automatically released the the safe and it floated on the surface .It had alsorts built into it ,flares That it could fire off when a ship came close As it had bulit in dectors.
the bottom pic is a model of the safe .
Brian
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The floating safe came too late and never was a success. It was inspired by the Titanic disaster and world war 1 attacks on ships but when the system finally was introduced in 1920 it was obsolete already. Airmail was taking off and no ships were torpedoed anymore.
The company went bankrupt and the stamps were hardly used, making them very rare and desired
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I've been in La-la land the past two weeks, creating album pages for my worldwide airpost collection.... Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania and Luxembourg. Currently designing Latakia.
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I have been working on my New Jersey postmarks. I had some downtime so I entered my usual (nj,Jersey) search in eBay and found something interesting…
Someone was breaking up a NJ 1859 cover collection! I found 9 towns I didn’t have and had never seen before. There was one post office that only existed for 4 years! I grabbed it because I probably will never see that one again!
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Started on some countries on Vario pages (sorta like a seed started pots). I have two remainder collections (had countries I did not collect) and decided to remove some countries (many French colonies) and put on pages. Many still have hinges attached since poorly attached. No sorting or identification planned any time soon
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I received another 100 Vario pages. Unlike manila pages or other paper based storage options, you never need to use a pH pen to test for acidity.
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No experience whatsoever with Vario pages. Are they made from some kind of plastic?
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Vario is a brand name of a polyester stock page sold by Lighthouse (Leuchtturm). They are available with different pocket sides. If you know Hagner pages they are similar but made of a stable plastic and sealed at each end of the row. For some, the downside is esthetics (can be shiny),
Example for just using as a storage. People add labels etc.
I consider them an investment since they can be repurposed as often as you need.
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I am sorting a group of Bermuda Queen Victoria stamps that I recently acquired. Looking out for watermark types and color variations.
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12:15:02pm
I've been in La-la land the past two weeks,
Been there, done that. Spent two weeks vacationing in Grand Fenwick, hunting mice in
the towers at night, and the dungeons all day. .
Bought the cheezie T-shirt.
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Pakistan - here is how I organize and identify. The check sheets are double sided so can be used for interleave sheet in a binder. This is a prep for inventorying in Stamp Manage and eventually mounting.
front side of Vario page
Back side of Vario page
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I have been doing a lot of scanning so in order to keep my main storage down I now have a 1 TB microSD for external storage yet always available since in the microsd slot. The cost of storage continues to come down and not going to pay for cloud storage. This will also free up a 2TB external drive to be used as a backup drive for the laptop. I only scan at 300dpi to optimize storage and time.
Up next are binders with coil strips, booklets, and minisheets.
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I am trying to get my online reference information more organized in Microsoft OneNote. One nice feature is you can attach images and OneNote will allow searching for text in the images. You can use the Microsoft browser extension to capture web material (entire page, region, article).
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Easy enough to answer...
US! Only country I collect. Been thinking about adding Afghanistan since I served over there for 4.5 months compliments of the US Army in 2013.
I've been updating a Access database with all the collections I've been buying to get a running total of everything I've bought the last year since I started collecting again. I'm also going to re-start cataloging 36,000....40,000 and counting FDCs that I started cataloging last winter.
Fun times ahead.
Mike
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I joined an American Topical Association webinar on "Leaving a Legacy for Future Philatelists". I left after an hour but the primary focus on was image related tools to study stamps and research related to a cover. I was not on when the legacy aspect was discussed.
The next webinar on Oct 17 7-8pm Eastern is Philatelic Fun and Games with Casey Jo White on games on stamp, stamps on games and postal history. It is free to anyone.
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It's bureau precancels for me today. Been trying to put together a want list, but it's a bit disorganized at the moment. I just purchased the PSS bureau database and am working on entering all my stuff, so it'll be easy to inventory and produce want lists.
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Awhile back I bought a large lot of US FDCs and was surprised that a good portion of the lot was sports event covers. That’s what I’m sorting this week!
I put a bunch in my eBay store and discovered they’re a hot item!
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Brookbam......TY for your service!
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I recently purchased a 1 TB microSD as a second storage device for my laptop so have been stamp reference materials (PDF periodicals,etc) to it. Some data used to be on an external drive so not consolidating information so the externals can just be back up. My 128GB had filled up quickly and was using it as a key documents backup. The primary is also a solid state drive.
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Not today, but a couple of days ago, using an old packet of Dennison hinges, I mounted the last of my few used Indo-China stamps in my new Palo album. I had scarcely looked at the stamps before I started and was pleased to see that I had two complete sets. I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to fill an album page. I’m not paying a lot of attention to condition; one stamp has a fairly large hole right in the middle but the dark image of the stamp beneath camouflages it well.
Next, maybe today, I need to work on my mint Indo-China stamps. I bought two sets of pages, one for used stamps and one for mint, and I’m using black mounts for my mint stamps. That’s challenging, because the Palo album gives an un-generous half millimetre or so of clearance between the mount and the frame line around the printed image of the stamp. I even have to trim the bottom of the mount by half its width so it will fit in the space provided, but the few pages I’ve completed do look nice.
Bob
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I am sorting my US Special Delivery into an album. I am printing my usual pages, and using the two pocket clear pages.
Of course the collection includes everything one could have. I have mint and used singles, blocks, first day covers and postal usage. I am quite partial to the correct postal usage on cover. I'd rather have that than a mint stamp.
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Jewish National Fund and then Registration labels. The latter will give me headaches !!
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Yesterday, I received a block of four of Korea Scott #C2 which contained one Scott #C2a, the plate flaw 'KORFA'. So, today I completed the first page of Korea in my World Airmail collection.
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Having a spell of wet and mucky weather for the past week, the soil being too wet, cold and sticky to do any planting, I have been sorting through stock books, glassines, envelopes, bags and old album pages to try and make some sense of all the USA stamps.
I printed off Steiner pages, starting with 1922 and am now at 1965, remarkably few missing stamps, some of which may possibly be in the pile that are still unsorted.
Not really sure I should have started, but guess the end result will be worth the while.
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Indonesia - Vienna issues. I reported some missing spaces to Bill Steiner on his Indonesia pages. I ended up creating a second page for perforation varieities not on Steiner pages.
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Always fun for me to complete a page;
Just acquired Canal Zone Scott #103 - the 5¢ Roosevelt - to complete this page - which I will hopefully be putting it on the page tomorrow.
Not an expensive stamp, but seemed difficult to come across for whatever reason.
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11:11:28am
"Not an expensive stamp, but seemed difficult to come across for whatever reason.
"
I know what you mean!! Some of the cheaper CZ stuff is hard to find!
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I had to redo this Steiner page because the Steiner had all the stamp box sizes the same. The 25s and up issues were larger. I reported the issue to him. The changes were made using LibreOffice Draw.
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Today, I completed the pages for Andorra in my World Airpost collection:
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Still working on Australia, Kangaroo's on cover, Papua New Guinea, British New Guinea, Territory of New Guinea and Papua.
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Seeing this post being resurrected made me realize how sad it is that Theresa left SOR - for the second time - but not returning as yet. It is truly too bad that differences of opinion and political beliefs can affect people to the degree that they would withdraw from an otherwise welcoming and supportive group.
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Just for fun - where in the philatelic world are you today?
Me? I’m going through the last of my New Zealand collection, one of the countries I dropped. I now only collect seven major areas: USA used singles, Ireland, Japan, Venezuela, Vatican, Austria & Scandinavia.
So where are you today? Wherever it is, I hope you’re enjoying every minute.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I've got a snow day today! I'm sorting and organizing my early Guatemala and Uruguay, checking for forgeries, filling in holes and organizing them by their specialized catalogues. Lots of holes in early Uruguay, many low to medium cat values that are nearly impossible to find!
Steve
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I just started to reorganize my Early Mexico collection. Early Mexico is quite a challenge, and a watermark nightmare!
I am going to put together an Approval Book with my extras, for anyone interested. I have so many voids though, not sure if I will buy more...just reorganize for now!
Modern Mexico can be a challenge too, some of the modern series, such as Exporta, Tourism etc... can provide plenty of "fun" if you go beyond the most basic category list. Try printing Steiner's specialized pages on Exporta for example.
I also am taking a crack at Early Bulgaria, again for the fun of reorganizing an area I had not worked on for a long time. Bulgaria early stamps are less expensive than Mexico, so I may well try to fill the voids.
rrr...
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I am working on Denmark today in my used block collection...
Linus
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02:33:25pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just started a US mint collection of plate blocks and First Day Covers
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05:56:41pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Going through my duplicates of Germany from 1960 onwards sorting into MNH, MH and Used.
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03:34:06pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Argentina. Official Department stamps.
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Auctions
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Mexico! - Hidalgo Issues 1856 and 1861 tto reorganize by District, Sub-disgtrict, Cancellations and varieties of color and some with Pre-printing paper fold, etc. For this I designed special album page for each District with basic information about the stamp quantities issued.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
01 Apr 2023
05:01:08pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Cuba - transferring my Cuba collection from where it always was (Scott's International Vol I, II and IIIA ) to the new pages I bought on line last year. It is a huge amount of work since my collection, except for the impossible to find Puerto Principe Issue, is quite close to complete. When the transfer is complete I have to decide whether to change my end limit from 1955, where IIIA ends, to 1958, where my new pages end, or just ignore those last three years. I have no idea yet what I'm going to do!! Except that I have decided I'm going to fill at least two pages a day until it is done!!
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
02 Apr 2023
07:00:13pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Still working on updating Cuba and putting it in a new setting. I have a hint for Cuba collectors, the stamps are very brittle!! It must be the type of paper. After demolishing one stamp taking off a hinge I decided to leave all hinge and hinge remnants on when I mount them in black mounting. They look much better that way and whoever the next owner of the collection may be he/she can decide whether or not to get rid of the hinges! Thankfully the stamp I destroyed had no major value. Before anyone comments, I don't have the patience to steam or sweat off the hinges. I am very careful and very very rarely have a problem!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I was catching up on Linn's and Scott Stamp Monthly readings.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
JUST FOR FUN Here’s a map of our philatelic destinations from the past few days
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Thanks, that's so cool! May encourage others to respond. I don't expand the coverage at all since I was working on US revenues and US First Bureau 2 cents.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
03 Apr 2023
12:17:01pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Great idea Theresa! Maybe the powers that be could find a way to leave this open a bit longer than usual so you can update the map occasionally. Without looking for it, I know they shortened the period we can edit, but I can't remember the limit!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
No worries - I’ll just upload a new screenshot. The time limit won’t matter.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
So nice to see what fellow collectors are working on. Good idea, Theresa! I'll be mounting some Vatican and Hungarian sets today.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
For the past few days I have been sorting through a half dozen 10 x 8 envelopes of USA stamps, some soaked some still on paper. These have been stuck in boxes for the past 20 years. It started as a result of looking for the plate number coils and has developed into a general sort by type (definitive, commemorative, airmail, etc) going from large envelopes to smaller bags and envelopes while I decide if they should be mounted, stuck in stock books or just put back into boxes.
Nothing valued at much more than minimum, unless I start really flyspecking.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
03 Apr 2023
01:23:54pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
At least we are educated enough in World geography to know which countries are where! In today's education system, unfortunately geography does not seem to be important. I don't want this to be construed as political (so I won't name names) but I seem to remember a World leader a while ago agreeing to not really knowing where Finland was in respect to Russia. I don't mean this as a political statement, only as a sign that the worst is yet to come!!
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Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Nothing new. More than thirty years ago, there was a TV program om Dutch television showing where people went on holiday and what they did there. Each episode the presenter went to a holiday park or hotel somewhere in a warm country and asked the Dutch people staying there if they could point out where they were on a blind map. The results were hilarious and also shocking. Most had no idea...
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I was looking at my BOB plate number blocks and as pleasantly shocked to find that I actually owned these two.
USA Scott# CE1 and CE2
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I am hoping to work on some stamps of Hungary, if there is know more interruptions.
Doug
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
In my to do pile from a accumulation of stamps sorted into envelopes by country I bought at a antique mall a few years ago, I am down to a couple a envelopes each of India and Netherlands.
Also, keep in mind from a younger person's perspective - things like geography and history are liberal arts, and your elders told you liberal arts are bad to study because you cannot get a good job as a liberal arts major - you need to study computers or business or medicine. Then the elders want to hold the lack of what they told you is worthless knowledge against you. Just like the old people who gave out the participation trophies in the first place and then make fun of the younguns for having the trophies. The kids cannot get a break.
Josh
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Last week I bought a lot that had three nice cover albums full of US first day covers.
I spent some quality time with the book that was 1920s through 1939. All different, mostly cacheted and few Artcraft. Some really neat covers! I transferred at least 2/3 of them into my collection, upgraded a few and put the remainders in my eBay pile!
The second book is mid 1960s with mostly non-Artcraft covers and the third is just Fleetwood's 50 state flags of 1976.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
i was collating U.S. FDCs by decade...such fun.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
OK Stamporama! You’re being challenged! The Stamp Forum currently has much more of their map colored in! (I’m active on both sites). So don’t be shy! Post where your stamps have taken you today!
Here’s today’s update of our Philatelic travels.
FYI I’m using a free mapping program for iPad called Mapchart. It is very glitchy, so I’ll only be adding countries that I can click without having to zoom. This is just for fun so …
Here’s a sneak peek at the The Stamp Forum map.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Still preliminary sorting of USA, only a few more envelopes to go. Not sure I'm winning but the envelopes are reducing but poly bags increasing.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
04 Apr 2023
04:57:28pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just finished transferring Cuba from Big Blue to a book of it's own. Found a few that I thought I had that I didn't, a couple I didn't even know existed and I few I had that I thought I didn't have. Stamp collecting is always one huge mystery that doesn't always agree with our want list!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Taking some time to get a few piles of GB machins in order over the next few months. Come to think of it, a few months is probably not long enough!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
"Just finished transferring Cuba from Big Blue to a book of it's own. Found a few that I thought I had that I didn't, a couple I didn't even know existed and I few I had that I thought I didn't have. Stamp collecting is always one huge mystery that doesn't always agree with our want list!!"
The best part of getting old! Opening boxes and finding things you swear you never saw before!
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A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).
04 Apr 2023
11:00:37pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I'm working on Canada - start to finish. I'm not touching my other countries until my Canada is finished. So right now sorting through mounds of stamps. Already have my BoB in their own stock books. Also my "not so bad" start up collection of tax stamps (sorry the real word is not coming to my mind at the moment).
I've basically got a good layout of my collection in stock books so I can see what's missing. I still need to get some Edwards.
Not looking forward to the tagged stamps. Hope my light still works for them.
It's fun. It actually was my friend's idea when she was helping me organize my albums. She said pick a country. I said Canada? She said great, so that's what we're gonna work on for the next few years lol
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07:51:05am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I received circuit books from APS today for Norway, so that is my project. Some of the books included Sweden and I noticed some Slania stamps so that adds to the project! It is still January in Minnesota so I'll be kept busy indoors for a while.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Delighted to see your post, Kelly!
Keep on posting everyone - I’ll update the map in a few days when we have more “travels” to log.
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05 Apr 2023
12:47:25pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just got a good sized order of Congo from Torbjorn today so that will be my work for an hour or so this evening. It took only from March 27 to today to get here from Sweden, not bad!! Congo is not a main collectible, just a country that I like, especially the old stuff!!
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Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Finally finished that early Canada Approval Book, No. 28007. Going to put some early Canada high value stamps on Ebay before the new eBay "International Shipping" program kicks in. Grand daughter arrives and stamp collecting stops.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just finished soaking a bunch of pre cancelled Prexies and a few airmail USA, cd of love songs on the player bringing back some old memories, time for a cuppa.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Great Britain
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
09 Apr 2023
02:38:28pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
There was a time when I contemplated collecting GB and when I had a serious look at what that entailed I decided to pass and collect a few other areas that I liked instead, I think they were Ireland, New Zealand and Australia (after the states). I was terrified that I would get interested in the Machins(sp) and that is a never ending hole. I realize that makes me a wimp, but I can live with that. Best of luck to you! I think collecting GB is tantamount to collecting the US and that's a job I really enjoy but I really only need to do it once. No offence to the GB collectors out there was meant by any of these comments!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Finally reorganized my Portugal Ceres, with the new Scott Numbers.
I printed the Steiner pages. There are a few unaccounted slots for stamps not in Scott. Anyone run into this and figured it out?
Also, the color descriptions are quite widely different than Scott. One can figure it out in 99% of the cases, but there are a few exceptions that I cannot make sense of. No one seems to standardize these color descriptions!
rrr...
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05:59:56pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
rrraphy:-
You say that you have used the "New Scott Numbers". When did they change?
I have the 2017 catalogue. Did they change before or after that year?
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I am not sure Ian.
Maybe someone has a Scott Catalog that shows when they announced the switch over.
My album was following the 2012 catalog (I think) but I now have a 2021 catalog, and it has the new numbering scheme. So my guess somewhere in that time frame. One could easily check if your catalog has the new numbering system. Check if it has a continuous listing for Ceres 1912-->from scott #207 to 298U with the perforations (15x14, 12x11.5) separated.
Some sellers still use the old numbers, so it is a real confusion out there. I am aware of one seller who lists both the old and new numbers (where it is possible). Anyway, big effort to do the transformation. and I wonder how many in my duplicates were let go instead of filling what is now z blanc spot!
rrr...
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
This weekend:
1. Costa Rica - a few stamps to put into the albums;
2. USA - some marginal markings, used, to put into the albums;
3. USA - I'm putting together a presentation on President Ronald Reagan for the United States Study Group of the Ottawa Philatelic Society;
4. Indonesia - a few stamps to put into the albums.
David
Ottawa, Canada
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08:32:40pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
rrraphy
Thanks
My 2017 catalogue does have the numbers in the order that you mention. (from scott #207 to 298U)
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I have a 2014 Scott catalog with the new Ceres numbers.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Apart from Mexico as I mentioned before, I'm thinking of continuing my collection of the St. Vincent Classics, I love those Queen Victoria designs, beautiful engravings!
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Yay! We’ve visited 5 continents!
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Right now I'm having fun going through a box of postal reply cards addressed to the Chicago Telephone Supply Company from the 1912-16 era. I'm finding this interesting as these were the pioneering days of the telephone and folks were getting their first one!
This must've been a thriving business as the orders came from all over the country. Lots of small town postmarks!
In the spirit of "you can't keep them all" I've been listing a lot of them in my eBay Store. It's all for fun!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I've just got back to working on my Pitcairn Islands album.
Then I have some Rattlesnake Island stamps that I acquired recently to mount.
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10:58:55am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I'm currently organizing my accumulation of Ethiopian stamps. When I dug everything out I was shocked at how many little collections and glassine envelopes I had set aside over the years. It looks like I'll be able to put together a nearly complete collection from about the 1920s to 1970. I don't seemed to have any of the early overprints (that Scott says are heavily forged) but otherwise have a good representation of everything, and several hundred duplicates. So hopefully at some point later in the year I can get back to doing the odd approval book so I can pass my extras on to someone else who is interested.
Eric
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Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Evaluating how the new eBay "Internation Shipping" program will effect my Ebay International sales. At Stamp Club Meeting last evening, some thought it would bring about big changes. Others thought that it wouldn't change anything. It's being interpreted differently by collectors. Someone is wrong.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Today it's Cochin for me. An old favourite of mine spread over several rather disorganised pages so in good need of attention.
Thanks to Calstamp for some very nice additions!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I've been putting off organizing Russia in my Worldwide Airmail collection for sometime now. I finally had a chance to get some pages made to mount a few. Here's what I added in the last three days...
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
13 Apr 2023
07:27:15pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Over the next week or so I will be transferring my collection of Danzig from Vol I of Big Blue to a special set of Danzig pages provided to me several months ago by a helpful SOR collector. It'll be a big job, I have to label the stamps on the pages first! But it'll be worth the effort when it's done!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just a few weeks ago I decided to add Croatia during WW2 to my list of collections. Why? Because I found a souvenir sheet and a few other stamps in a lot I bought, and then as some weird act of serendipity I noticed an approval book put online by Kenneth Emling that had lots of Croatian stamps of which I purchased quite a few. Yesterday they arrived and for the first time in a long time I had the joy of adding a lot of stamps to a collection (most of the time it is just a few each time). From almost nothing to approx. 33% in just a day
Thanks Kenneth, for this Croatian kick-start!
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14 Apr 2023
11:30:19am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Also thanks to Kenneth Emling I have a nice little lot of Philippines stamps to add to my albums this evening!!
Now ... time to go upstairs and give my diabetic cat his first (of two) insulin shots of the day. And maybe, since I just did my small amount of house cleaning for the day (breaking down a bunch of boxes and cartons for re-cycling), I'll go to bed and read my latest book for an hour. I discovered a new mystery writer, Donna Leon, and grabbed a few of her books at the local book store. If you're into murder mystery and haven't read her yet, give her books a try - excellent stuff!!
Edit: I know this doesn't go here but ... I just finished transferring all my Cuba material to a new spot and there was one stamp I knew I had, but where the heck was it? I just found it with my Philippine stamps when I was putting in the stamps I just got from Kemling. I knew It'd show up sooner or later! How many times do we say that?
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Ever since the second round of Covid I can fully relate to this. There are days when going to bed at the middle of the day is so tempting. The energy level is slowly getting back to normal but sometimes it feels like I have become 20 years older in a week. I suppose it is something that we all will have to get used to, it is not going away.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
15 Apr 2023
05:46:26pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I got a very pleasant surprise when I started to transfer my Danzig stamps a little while ago. The pages they were being transferred to were Scott pages and had the numbers already there. Makes my life much easier!! Many thanks to whomever I got them from. I really think it was someone on SoR, I must start writing this stuff down!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I'm remounting on Vario pages a collecton of World Wide Christmas Seals I purchased several years ago on this site. Some pages are turning brown and I noticed some stamps are turning some pages brown. I'll remount those stamps on 102 cards to keep them away from the rest of the collection.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I picked up a small topical collection "sports on stamps" incorporating them into my worldwide albums.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I'm sorting a load of Berlin stamps I bought on line. Mostly cheap, and it has a beginning and an end. What's not to like?
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
My most recent purchases have included stamps for a Lighthouse USA hingeless album set that I found prior to a recent move in a box under the stairs. It is organized quite differently than my typical Scott album which has prompted some additional learning. It frequently has stamp varieties in the albums that are listed in Scott with a small letter after the number which needed a bit of review. Even got to pull out my Micarelli book for a purpose that I haven't looked at for over twenty years! I worked on updating a list of stamps in Excel for the album and currently show 234 different stamps with a total catalog value of $4,696 through 1932 which was quite a surprise. I have been adding some coil stamps recently for the album as the album has spaces only for stamps in pairs which I haven't actively collected previously. In several cases I had found some coil singles in some old collections that had been given to me as placeholders and am now looking for pairs to replace them. Still have quite a ways to go on building my list of what I now have in the three album set.
The other album I have been working on is a Palo Canada hingeless album that I had picked up some time ago so that I could see what the albums look like and how they feel during use (I am very impressed with the layout and look of the pages and the paper quality as well as the stamp image detail. The binder that I have is very sturdy although I am curious about the leather version of the binder that is available as a deluxe option.). I started making a list of what is in the album in Excel which is letting me check out each individual stamp that either I or the previous owner had put in the album (about half and half at this point as it had been stripped of quite a few stamps in the past, or perhaps they had never been acquired previously). I have worked the album through 1952 recording 147 different stamps with a total catalog value of $1,847 so would say that the album is definitely showing progress. Interestingly almost every stamp in the album is previously hinged except for some recent additions that I made to fill some holes.
I, also, went through my International part 1A1-1B2 album for 1840-1940 and created a want list for Finland for the album. There are an amazing number of fairly expensive stamps if you try to fill the pages with mint condition examples. I was surprised that almost none of the stamps that I need are presently offered on either eBay or Hipstamp currently as mint stamps. I am definitely slowing down on acquisitions for the International album as I reach the 50% complete level with only 42 new stamps for the album in 2023 to date. Fortunately there should be several stamp shows that are in drivable range in the late spring and summer so that I can feed the collection a bit more.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Working on USA 1890-1930, definitive issues, not sure I really want to get deeply into them. Guess I'll see how much of a problem it is in differentiating the types, sub types and finding watermarks and various perforation differences.
Suppose I could just collect a generic single, but that is not much of a challenge.
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07:26:02pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
None.
I decided to do the gardening before the rains come.
Chatted to my elderly neighbour for over an hour.
Downloaded several series of the radio programme "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue".
Tomorrow off to visit the mother in law so another day with no stamps.
Despite what my daughter thinks I do have a life!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Because of Terry's request for Mint Russia Airmails, I think I'll prepare an early Russia Approval Book today. I recall that I prepared one a few years ago that Sold Out in 48 mins. - all those big Russian airplanes shotting down everything in sight.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
28 Apr 2023
05:44:03pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Thanks to Steve I had a whole bunch of Cuba to work on today and thanks to Jan-Simon I had a bunch of Tannu Tuva to put in. It's been a very busy day!!!
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06:36:47pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Working on New Zealand, putting into stockbooks in order and then into my printed albums.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Check out our map!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Costa Rica!
David
Ottawa, Canada
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
30 Apr 2023
11:27:25am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I'm going to a friends for supper tonight and I will borrow their three hole punch to get a bunch of Ecuador pages ready to use. I decided to stop at 1940 and have a large selection of early Ecuador material. I haven't decided yet whether to bother with the many officials I have or not, we'll see how it goes! But I imagine my main job (pleasant one, I think) over the next week or so will be Ecuador. One thing I have learned is how to properly spell the name of the country, I always thought it was Equador!!
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
01 May 2023
02:57:27pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I started putting my stamps on the pages and now realize what a major job Ecuador is actually going to be! There are many pages of overprints not shown in Big Blue. If I take this country seriously, and I will with a 1940 cutoff, it'll be the last new country I add for a very long time. And I may as well do a proper job and add in the officials as well as all the rest of the weird overprinted stuff. According to a search of member information there are only three Ecuador collectors listed so there is little incentive for sellers to list material! Going to be tricky!!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Working on getting my collection of US 1938 Prexie series and 1954 Liberty series ready to sell. Plate blocks, Plate number singles by position, Mint and used. Also errors and freaks.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
14 May 2023
01:58:26pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Spent a few hours today working on my US collection from the 1920's. Everything that was put in with hinges is now in black top loading mounting. I'm contributing a little bit to album bulge but the pages that were a mixture of hinges and mounting are consistent and look much better. Eventually I'll work my way backwards to the beginning of my Harris Liberty album. The only parts I'll probably leave as is parts of the BOB sections.
The album is a bit odd. Why include areas like the Canal Zone and omit areas like Hawaii? Also I've had to get separate pages for the dated reds and greens since Harris does a very poor job with them. I also had to get pages when I decided to add Wine Stamps! I wonder who decided what to include and what to omit.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I'm working on transferring a large Big Blue (1840-1940) collection from a battered album to a nice clean empty one (with interleaves). Thank goodness for vintage hinges - having no problems with the transfer. Finding some nice surprises...
Working on Canada at the moment. Have already completed Russia, Romania, Bavaria, Ireland and some other smaller countries/entities. Looking forward to doing Austria and Germany, and then France - soon.
John
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I recently started a collection of USS Ship covers, so that is what I have been working on today. I have a very large need with each of my cover collections, to build a database with website to house it in. I got the latest website, for the USS Ship Covers, to a point today that I could start using it.
Here is the link https://ships.auld.us
Regards ... Tim
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
That is a very nice website you've set up, Tim!
My hat's off to you!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Thanks Dave.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
15 May 2023
05:01:31pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Working on my US album from about 1900 to 1920 putting hinged stamps into black mounting. I'm contributing to album bulge and getting very sick of looking at Washington and Franklin!! No offence meant to the Americans out there is intended!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
This evening i am adding stamps to my Big Blue Scott international albums that Scott lists in their catalogs but did not give space to in my albums.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Worked on adding a number of new items to my "from under the stairs" USA - Lighthouse album which I have been working on recently. The new additions were from Soundcrest through Stamporama and arrived today. Interestingly, all additions were Washington-Franklin issues or Kansas overprints similar to HARVEY's additions for the day.
Also, replaced one Finland Scott #36 mint hinged stamp with a new copy which is much fresher in appearance. Now just need a mint copy of Finland Scott #30 which will complete all stamps from 1881 up through the end of my Scott Hingeless album as mint stamps. That stamp has been very challenging to locate as I have only seen one mint copy listed anywhere which was in the form of a pair since I started looking for it in 2017! Still have several other items from the first page of the album to go with mint copies of Scott #'s 11, 20, 21, and 23 being of most interest. Finland Scott #1 is probably not ever going to make it into the album (at least not as a mint copy) which will be okay as several other items for the first page will stay as used copies as well. So far, I have managed fault free copies of all of the roulette issues even though four are used copies.
My other major activity for the day was building a checklist and catalog value list for my Mexico Scott Hingeless album which covers 1944 through 1970. Currently I have 71 of 495 mint non-hinged stamps required for the album so I expect this is going to take quite a while to get respectable.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
16 May 2023
03:54:51pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
West Berlin.
Last month I won, almost by accident a neat collection on Lindner pages, a nearly complete West Berlin collection and since a year or so ago I converted just about all my albums to standard 8-1/2 x 11 pages for what turned out to be almost 100 three ring binders, it took me quite a while to adapt the Lindner hingeless pages as well.
Forty years ago I fell in love with the Minkus Albums for some reason that eludes me these days;
probably completion and much better looking than the somewhat shopworn Scotts I had accumulated over the preceding 20 years from various sources. In fact, one Big Blue had been my parents during the dark days of WW II. They had spent quiet evenings at the kitchen table, using one small ( dim?) table lamp, with a heavy blackout curtain tacked over the window, lest the light, or the gloom of the light disclose the movements of blacked out vessels to prowling 'unterseeboots'.
I felt that Scott spread out stamps and strips too much wasting space and pages.
Now I can just pop open the three rings and insert pages wherever I want and not have to fool with those thin (#$%^&**) rods
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
16 May 2023
04:13:01pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
"and not have to fool with those thin (#$%
&**) rods"
Boy, can I identify with that!! My Minkus albums have the damn (excuse my use of this please!!) things and I have given up trying to line up the front one properly. The front cover hasn't been properly attached for at least a year. The problem, of course, is if your album bulges a bit they are almost impossible to line up.
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06:47:21pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
"Which country or collection are you working on today?"
NONE!
I have had a great couple of days catching up on the weekend matches of the Australian Rugby League (NRL.com). All the matches are shown in full.
The Stanley Cup highlights are on youtube and the Indian Premier League T20 is also on (iplt20.com), 63 Matches so far.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Things GERMANIC!
I began looking at Berlin stamps a while ago - they appealed because I'm an impoverished collector on a pension without big bucks to throw about. Our Victorian cottage with its dodgy roof is a limiting factor, as is our shared wish to enjoy a few of the nice things of life, like Henley regatta, the Towersey music festival and a holiday in Cornwall each year. And the odd glass of wine...
I'm now wondering about the German states before unification and especially Bavaria. It's striking that while most of the other states threw in their lot with Germany in 1867, Bavaria held out till 1920. First as a kingdom, then a republic in 1919 and finally "incorporated in to the Weimar republic" in 1920. Could this be an area to collect?
I'm a bit drawn because in the 80s I knew some good friends in Wurzburg - went there a few times, and enjoyed their hospitality and the excellent Franken wine in its bocksbeutel, which I can't buy here in UK.
But is this a collecting area for me - with modest means?
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
18 May 2023
03:54:22pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Back at my US Harris Liberty Album again! Now doing the BOB, replacing the hinges with black mounting. It contributes a bit more to ALBUM BULGE but makes the collection much easier on the eyes. It's great to have an extensive collection but it's also important if it looks good!
The one area I'm not going to bother with (YET) is the cut squares. Unless I can find a large (very) lot of them I'm probably not going to expand that part of the collection. For some reason I can't get very interested in that area, not sure why!
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
21 May 2023
09:30:04pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Over the last couple days I finished putting all my stamps in my Harris Liberty albums in with black mounting replacing the hinges. I did most of the revenue stamps and my collections of post 1899 Philippines stamps and my Canal Zone stamps. Again it added a bit to my album bulge but the book looks so much better than it did before. There are many ways to look at stamps. Some of you analyze every stamp looking for varieties, I'm afraid that I look at them as almost works of art. I think that's why I prefer the older engraved classic stamps. I think the stamps that impress me the most are the early revenue stamps, most seem to be in the 1860's and 1870's. The blues, oranges and greens are especially attractive. I'll have a friend do a scan of those pages in a couple days and show them here. I'm sure you'll agree that the mounting really shows them properly. It was a huge amount of work switching everything over but I know it makes a difference since I keep opening the album checking things out! Friends tell me I should keep my collection in something like a vault or safe to keep it safer. I'd rather have it close by so it can "play with it" more often!!
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
24 May 2023
02:03:00pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I had a friend scan a few pictures from the new improved US stamp book. Hopefully the new mounting will show up. I chose 4 pages of the early revenue stamps and the first page of the album. If anyone wants to lend me a copy of US#13 I can finish page #1. I have gaps there for two stamps inserted that are probably never going to be filled! The images are a bit fuzzy because I had to reduce the pixels to 25% to be sure they would load. And if anyone suggests that I show the backsides of the stamps, well, you can "take a flying leap"!! Also I'm sure some of you will think the pages are overloaded but I like to use the margins and the back of pages when needed.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Wow, just wow!
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A pleasure to see Harvey. Thanks for the sharing.
Dan C.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
24 May 2023
03:04:46pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
As a lot of us have done, I've spent many thousands of hours on my stamp collection. I't's always been a very serious thing with me, also much fun, but I took it very seriously. I have always believed that if you are going to do something it should be done well. I really think the black mountings show up the stamps much better and I've been using them on my two major collections, US and Canada. I really wish I had family to pass this stuff on to, but I am not lucky in that way. But judging from what most of my friends say their kids don't want to be "burdened" by stuff! I's an attitude I will never understand since I love being around all my stuff! I'm sure most of you have the same problem!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
But why can't you mount them face downwards Harvey?
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
24 May 2023
09:43:24pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I guess I'm not real interested in backsides, of stamps, that is!!!
Edit: I'm really not trying to make fun of anyone. Occasionally you can see interesting things on the backs of stamps. But, I'm afraid that most times it's just the back of the stamp. Some of these are interesting on both sides but I'd much rather look at the fronts. These early revenue stamps are some of the most attractive US stamps I've ever seen. The later stuff like dated reds and dated greens are incredibly dull. I still collect them but I am really not sure why! I also collect the wine stamps which are even worse. I probably just do it for the sake of completeness, who can really say!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
"But judging from what most of my friends say their kids don't want to be "burdened" by stuff! "
I've always said that my dad died when he did to avoid having to clean out his garage! It was a single car garage so full of "stuff" that you couldn't walk into it. And guess who cleaned it out?
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02:41:44pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Going through several envelopes of Italy and sorting them into years ready to go into my Italian collection.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Right now, I'm not working on anything. I quit for over a year because of illness, but I'm back to where I can sit up for more than a few hours at a time so I'm thinking about continuing.
Primarily, I was working on the four years my Grandchildren wee born. ('04, '07, '08 and '10). All four books are about 85% complete (MNH). I also have a complete set of stamps issued in the State of Virginia. I have them, but not all are mounted yet.
Finally, a friend gifted me a packet of about 100 Disney stamps from various countries so I'm researching and trying to decide if I should take on a project that large.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Mikey,
So good to hear that you are doing better. Enjoy your stamps.
Regards ... Tim.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Lately i have been collating U.S. first day covers by month and year and it is driving me bonkers ...i think i have everything in order and add the covers to an album and then i find one that i overlooked and have to go back and pull a bunch of covers to get back in sequence. What we collectors do to ourselves !
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
29 May 2023
05:22:51pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just got an order from Eric Fried a few hours ago and now have about 100 Russia BOB and some other amazing stuff to figure out. I love getting this kind of stuff but it takes an incredible amount of patience to figure out!! Great stuff Eric, thanks!!
Most of Eric's material was Russian Offices in the Lavant and using what I got from him as a guide I managed to find slots for other material I had laying around. Mr. Fried is almost the only person posting this material and I'm always watching for his World Books, great stuff!!! It took several hours to get the stuff figured out but it was well worth it!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I've been working on my New Zealand cover collection this afternoon. I scan them into a database and then have a web application over them to look through them. I store each of them in a plastic protector and put a numbered label on the outside so I can find them easily if I need to.
NZCancels.org
One of the guys I know here in Minneapolis had heard that I also collect USS Ship covers, so he brought a bunch of them into the Stamp Library today. I just had to buy some from him didn't I.
Regards ... Tim.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
In my "transferring a large Big Blue 1840-1940" project, I finally completed France and Great Britain (yay!).
Now it's on to Austria and Germany...
I've been stockpiling vintage hinges for years and am using those for the destination unused Big Blue.
John
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06:41:46am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
British India and India States.
Colonial issues:
Went back through previously mounted items as well as duplicates. Using SG speciality catalogue. Identified more than two dozen previously unrealized varieties. Chiefly watermarks, some shades.
States: Slow going. Again, using SG catalogue. Currently working on Cochin and T-C. Lots of “new” material for collection.
Philately: Never boring.
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05:55:02pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
New York Stock Exchange Federal Revenue cancels for the Stock Brokers, there is about 1,200 stock brokers 1898-1902.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
06 Jun 2023
03:03:07pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just got a small lot of Angola from Steve to put in. I don't really collect the country but am just trying to fill the section from Scott's International Album IIIA as I mentioned in another post. Only three more to go and then I'll consider my Angola collection complete even though I really only collect 1950 to 1955! I don't even have Scott's numbers on them and they have never shown up on my want list. Except for the gorgeous bird and wildlife series I have only picked them up here! The 1949 sailing vessel set of 2 seems a bit expensive so that might be tricky! And the first denomination of the 1950 Angola Philatelic Exposition stamp will show up eventually, I hope!! I will confess, I did pick up the souvenir sheet on E-Bay even though my album doesn't show it. Please do not put this post in the "looking for stamps" area, that's not my intention!
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
07 Jul 2023
11:19:00am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Just got a large bunch of US mint to replaced some used stamps in my album. That will be a pleasant chore for this evening. Thanks Mel!!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I am back working on my Middle East collections. This week Yemen (Kingdom and YAR). Filling a few blanks, extending my coverage from 1975 to 1980, and also skipping the "wallpaper" era of 1969-1972, which is an altogether different animal.
I am converting a Minkus album into a Scott structured album, that is... separating Back of the Book and recasting the Minkus pages that combined both, printing a number of pages in the process.
I am also focusing on a dozen or so stamps I am missing to complete Yemen, and also finding more series of o/p that are not in the Scott catalog, but worth having.
New material is seldom available on the auction sites, so it is a slow process, even if the stamps are listed a relatively low prices. So few collectors in this area!
rrr...
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Auctions
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Netherland Indies ,just completed my set of Brandkast,Floating Safe Stamps .senders paid extra and their mail was placed in the floating safe ,it was an marvellous invention for the time
If the ship went down the arms automatically released the the safe and it floated on the surface .It had alsorts built into it ,flares That it could fire off when a ship came close As it had bulit in dectors.
the bottom pic is a model of the safe .
Brian
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Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
The floating safe came too late and never was a success. It was inspired by the Titanic disaster and world war 1 attacks on ships but when the system finally was introduced in 1920 it was obsolete already. Airmail was taking off and no ships were torpedoed anymore.
The company went bankrupt and the stamps were hardly used, making them very rare and desired
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I've been in La-la land the past two weeks, creating album pages for my worldwide airpost collection.... Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania and Luxembourg. Currently designing Latakia.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I have been working on my New Jersey postmarks. I had some downtime so I entered my usual (nj,Jersey) search in eBay and found something interesting…
Someone was breaking up a NJ 1859 cover collection! I found 9 towns I didn’t have and had never seen before. There was one post office that only existed for 4 years! I grabbed it because I probably will never see that one again!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Started on some countries on Vario pages (sorta like a seed started pots). I have two remainder collections (had countries I did not collect) and decided to remove some countries (many French colonies) and put on pages. Many still have hinges attached since poorly attached. No sorting or identification planned any time soon
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I received another 100 Vario pages. Unlike manila pages or other paper based storage options, you never need to use a pH pen to test for acidity.
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Approvals
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
No experience whatsoever with Vario pages. Are they made from some kind of plastic?
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Vario is a brand name of a polyester stock page sold by Lighthouse (Leuchtturm). They are available with different pocket sides. If you know Hagner pages they are similar but made of a stable plastic and sealed at each end of the row. For some, the downside is esthetics (can be shiny),
Example for just using as a storage. People add labels etc.
I consider them an investment since they can be repurposed as often as you need.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I am sorting a group of Bermuda Queen Victoria stamps that I recently acquired. Looking out for watermark types and color variations.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
20 Jul 2023
12:15:02pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I've been in La-la land the past two weeks,
Been there, done that. Spent two weeks vacationing in Grand Fenwick, hunting mice in
the towers at night, and the dungeons all day. .
Bought the cheezie T-shirt.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Pakistan - here is how I organize and identify. The check sheets are double sided so can be used for interleave sheet in a binder. This is a prep for inventorying in Stamp Manage and eventually mounting.
front side of Vario page
Back side of Vario page
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I have been doing a lot of scanning so in order to keep my main storage down I now have a 1 TB microSD for external storage yet always available since in the microsd slot. The cost of storage continues to come down and not going to pay for cloud storage. This will also free up a 2TB external drive to be used as a backup drive for the laptop. I only scan at 300dpi to optimize storage and time.
Up next are binders with coil strips, booklets, and minisheets.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I am trying to get my online reference information more organized in Microsoft OneNote. One nice feature is you can attach images and OneNote will allow searching for text in the images. You can use the Microsoft browser extension to capture web material (entire page, region, article).
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11:46:51am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Easy enough to answer...
US! Only country I collect. Been thinking about adding Afghanistan since I served over there for 4.5 months compliments of the US Army in 2013.
I've been updating a Access database with all the collections I've been buying to get a running total of everything I've bought the last year since I started collecting again. I'm also going to re-start cataloging 36,000....40,000 and counting FDCs that I started cataloging last winter.
Fun times ahead.
Mike
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I joined an American Topical Association webinar on "Leaving a Legacy for Future Philatelists". I left after an hour but the primary focus on was image related tools to study stamps and research related to a cover. I was not on when the legacy aspect was discussed.
The next webinar on Oct 17 7-8pm Eastern is Philatelic Fun and Games with Casey Jo White on games on stamp, stamps on games and postal history. It is free to anyone.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
It's bureau precancels for me today. Been trying to put together a want list, but it's a bit disorganized at the moment. I just purchased the PSS bureau database and am working on entering all my stuff, so it'll be easy to inventory and produce want lists.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Awhile back I bought a large lot of US FDCs and was surprised that a good portion of the lot was sports event covers. That’s what I’m sorting this week!
I put a bunch in my eBay store and discovered they’re a hot item!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Brookbam......TY for your service!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I recently purchased a 1 TB microSD as a second storage device for my laptop so have been stamp reference materials (PDF periodicals,etc) to it. Some data used to be on an external drive so not consolidating information so the externals can just be back up. My 128GB had filled up quickly and was using it as a key documents backup. The primary is also a solid state drive.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Not today, but a couple of days ago, using an old packet of Dennison hinges, I mounted the last of my few used Indo-China stamps in my new Palo album. I had scarcely looked at the stamps before I started and was pleased to see that I had two complete sets. I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to fill an album page. I’m not paying a lot of attention to condition; one stamp has a fairly large hole right in the middle but the dark image of the stamp beneath camouflages it well.
Next, maybe today, I need to work on my mint Indo-China stamps. I bought two sets of pages, one for used stamps and one for mint, and I’m using black mounts for my mint stamps. That’s challenging, because the Palo album gives an un-generous half millimetre or so of clearance between the mount and the frame line around the printed image of the stamp. I even have to trim the bottom of the mount by half its width so it will fit in the space provided, but the few pages I’ve completed do look nice.
Bob
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I am sorting my US Special Delivery into an album. I am printing my usual pages, and using the two pocket clear pages.
Of course the collection includes everything one could have. I have mint and used singles, blocks, first day covers and postal usage. I am quite partial to the correct postal usage on cover. I'd rather have that than a mint stamp.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Jewish National Fund and then Registration labels. The latter will give me headaches !!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Yesterday, I received a block of four of Korea Scott #C2 which contained one Scott #C2a, the plate flaw 'KORFA'. So, today I completed the first page of Korea in my World Airmail collection.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Having a spell of wet and mucky weather for the past week, the soil being too wet, cold and sticky to do any planting, I have been sorting through stock books, glassines, envelopes, bags and old album pages to try and make some sense of all the USA stamps.
I printed off Steiner pages, starting with 1922 and am now at 1965, remarkably few missing stamps, some of which may possibly be in the pile that are still unsorted.
Not really sure I should have started, but guess the end result will be worth the while.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Indonesia - Vienna issues. I reported some missing spaces to Bill Steiner on his Indonesia pages. I ended up creating a second page for perforation varieities not on Steiner pages.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Always fun for me to complete a page;
Just acquired Canal Zone Scott #103 - the 5¢ Roosevelt - to complete this page - which I will hopefully be putting it on the page tomorrow.
Not an expensive stamp, but seemed difficult to come across for whatever reason.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
09 May 2024
11:11:28am
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
"Not an expensive stamp, but seemed difficult to come across for whatever reason.
"
I know what you mean!! Some of the cheaper CZ stuff is hard to find!
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
I had to redo this Steiner page because the Steiner had all the stamp box sizes the same. The 25s and up issues were larger. I reported the issue to him. The changes were made using LibreOffice Draw.
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Today, I completed the pages for Andorra in my World Airpost collection:
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re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Still working on Australia, Kangaroo's on cover, Papua New Guinea, British New Guinea, Territory of New Guinea and Papua.
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08:49:05pm
re: Which country or collection are you working on today?
Seeing this post being resurrected made me realize how sad it is that Theresa left SOR - for the second time - but not returning as yet. It is truly too bad that differences of opinion and political beliefs can affect people to the degree that they would withdraw from an otherwise welcoming and supportive group.
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