Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
https://www.kenmorestamp.com/why-i-like-stamp-collecting-by-ayn-rand
Jacques Minkus was an interesting guy, he did perhaps more to promote philately than many others at the time.
I moved to Omaha to attend college in the mid 1960's and soon discovered one of his franchised stamp counters in the main Brandeis store downtown. Incredible place. I also encountered a guy I'd gone to High school with working part time at the counter. I remember him telling me that Minkus had just left town after spending a week there to promote his outlet; my friend was glad to see him go, he apparently could be a difficult man to work for.
(Modified by Moderator on 2017-08-17 14:18:47)
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Snick1946,
I would be interested in your memories of the stamp store - what made it an incredible place? Sad that most of those spots are gone.
Sally
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Thanks Snick,
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Ayn Rand was a stamp collector, and very much enjoyed reading her comments on stamp collecting and collectors.
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To me it was amazing that philatelic material was being displayed, discussed and sold on the main floor of a major department store in a large city. Their sales area was just feet away from the escalators and lots of people would be looking at the displays. They had flat counters with stamps in black stock pages. I remember seeing my first White plains sheet (now I own one). Then and now, Omaha had a large Jewish community and they had nearly all Israel stamps issued to then on display. I am sure many folks started collections after being exposed to these displays.
Years later I met and married a girl who'd grown up here. Her grandmother was a serious collector and lived up in Sioux City and when she'd visit she'd take the grandkids shopping. My wife remembers that counter - and, sadly, being bored to tears while granny looked at stamps. I think the outlet folded in the eaerly 70's. The store went under about 1979.
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Minkus had a booth at Gimbels in New York City. (I don't think it was Macy's.) I remember one day when the family took a trip to the city to get clothes for us children for school. We went into the store, and right alongside the escalators I saw the stamp booth. I believe I was about nine at the time. Although I tried to stop and look at things, my parents ushered me along.
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Thanks for sharing the memories. Sounds like it would have been a great place to spend hours!
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I remember the stamp section at Famous Barr in St. Louis in the mid-sixties. (I think is was Famous Barr. Could have been Stix, Baer, and Fuller. They were the two "anchor" stores). We went every year to buy clothes for the new school year and I got to drop by the stamp counters with my father for a little bit to ogle, drool, and even make an occasional purchase! Then we had dinner at Trader Vic's (just about the ONLY time we ate at a restaurant) before the 2 hour drive home.
Lars
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When i was 8 years old my escape was the movie theater...most films were for the adult audience of course but i still went. I remember the movie version of Ayn Rands "the fountainhead" i did not know what was going on until Gary Cooper blew everything up in the end !
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I remember the stamp counter at Gimbel's in NYC - I didn't get there very often. I think there was a stamp counter at Bamberger's in Newark also - first floor, next to the wooden escalator. Wow, that goes back a bit!
Geoff
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Snick1946 said,
"To me it was amazing that philatelic material was being displayed, discussed and sold on the main floor of a major department store in a large city."
My wife, Susan, and I retired to Vancouver in 2001. At that time, there were four stamps shops within walking distance of our apartment, and one of them, All Nations Stamp & Coin, was on the fourth floor of The Bay department store. All Nations relocated to the Dunbar-Southlands neighborhood, near UBC a few years ago; it's nearly an hour's bus ride for me to go there, so I don't often go. One of the three other shops closed permanently at about the same time. And the third one, Weeda, closed its doors and went exclusively to on-line auctions and eBay sales.
Until recently, Western Coins & Stamps had two stores in two Vancouver suburbs, one in Richmond, south of Vancouver, and another located in the Sears department store at Metrotown Shopping Centre in Burnaby, east of Vancouver. But that Sears store was one of 10 across Canada that were recently closed for good. There was a Sears in Vancouver, just across Georgia Street from The Bay, but it closed three or four years ago; years ago it was home to another stamp shop, long since gone.
In addition to an apparently dwindling dwindling number of collectors, the escalation of property values in Vancouver has become a serious problem and has figured in the demise of several business, including some in our own neighbourhood. We just learned that one of our favourite stores, Chocolate Mousse Kichenware, is closing because it can no longer afford its property taxes because the property assessment increased 92.7% in just one year (from $16 million in 2016 to $52 million in 2017. The world is becoming just plain nuts. The incredibly high cost housing in Vancouver is driving residents into the suburbs. Only the wealthy are able to afford to move here now; my wife and I are fortunate to have purchased our condo when we could afford it. Now we just have to be able to afford groceries. And thank God for socialized medicine!
Bob
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i still use a Gimbels mint sheet file. In the day a stamp department in a large store was not a bad idea..kids could browse at stamps while Mom shopped.
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Being Canadian, the big treat was the semi annual trip to Winnipeg and making it to the 3rd floor in Eaton's. Still was operational in the mid '80s when I was university, but disappeared during the same interval. There was one at the Bay as well, but it just wasn't as good as Mr. Eaton's.
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04:23:32pm
My uncle, who got me into stamp collecting, worked at a Minkus Booth at a Gimbles in NJ after he retired. Not sure which one. I'll try to reach out to my cousin to see if she knows.
Bob
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I would have sworn it was Macy's, not Gimbel's, that had the stamp counter, but googling "images stamp collectors at macy's" got me nowhere while "images stamp collectors at gimbel's" brought up:
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/426153183474431308 ... hint: roll your pointer over the photo to read the caption
a blog post about the Minkus department store concessions - including the one at Gimbel's
Color me Gimbel'd,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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07:20:20am
Both stores in Manhattan had stamp counters with the flat glass covered countertops. Minkuis was in Gimbals near the elevators as described. Macy"s stamps were in a cul-de-sac which allowed wall displays of albums and other goodies.
I recall reading in one of Hearst's books that at one time in the 1930s or later '40s Macy's had a storewide 50% off sale and some clever devils bought some early US gem and sold it back to Gimbals. It developed into such a rush that Macy's department buyers had to advertize in trade papers for examples of that stamp at a premium.so that the buyer was paying for a premium for stamps that were being sold for a discount.
The wonder of these places was that you could linger at the counters and see issues that the average colletor might never be able to afford.
I lived on the Island (Long Island) in those days and no trip to or through the City (Manhattan) was complete with out a stop at either or usually both stamp counters.
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Bob you missed FVH stamps at #102 – 340 West Cordova Street,
Vancouver, B.C., Building on the S.E. Corner at Homer Street.
They have premises and also run online auctions on a weekly basis.
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10:55:07am
The Gimbles my uncle worked at was in Paramus, NJ - Garden State Plaza.
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That was Ayn Rand in 1971, and I first read this many years ago, but its more than half a century ago. If she were alive and collecting today, I think part of the message would be different.
"Nobody tries to claim ... as people do in other fields ... that a wilted scrap of lettuce from his garbage can is a superior kind of stamp"
Here she is referring to fields in which intellectual leadership is co-opted for petty goals, such as poetry without rhythm or rhyme or art without skill or purpose. Not sure that still applies today to stamp design.
"Some countries are abusing this and putting out an unconscionable amount of philatelic waste, more stamps than could possibly be used for legitimate postal needs. But collectors are free to ignore them."
Obviously referring to CTOs, Dunes issues and the like, but one could argue that the number of new issues today worldwide is abuse.
"Speaking aesthetically, I should like to mention the enormous amount of talent displayed on stamps ... more than one can find in today's art galleries. Ignoring the mug shots of some of the world's ugliest faces (a sin of which the stamps of most countries are guilty), one finds real little masterpieces of the art of painting."
These days, many countries are producing trash, particularly the US, in my opinion. Certainly the bar has been lowered for aesthetics in US stamp design (and elsewhere).
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Without wishing to get involved in the politics which surrounds Ayn Rand, unlike her I find it hard to easily characterize stamp collectors. Collectors I have met have straddled a full range of human personalities which has to be a good thing otherwise meeting them would quickly become boring. Ayn Rand seems to think she can put them in a box in which she very much fits, or at least the person she thinks she was fits, and her fictional heroes are.
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I majored in philosophy, and found her work fascinating. I believe that her position is based on a major flaw, but that's for philosophers to argue.
Nevertheless I found her article on philately emotionally moving. Far mor than her fiction. I copied it for further reading when I become despondent and need diversion.
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""... Stamp collecting requires a full, focused attention, but no problem-solving; it is a process of cashing in on the given and known ...""
Clearly someone with no exposure to collecting postal history.
""... There is a sense of "brotherhood" among stamp collectors, of a kind which is very unusual today; the brotherhood of holding the same values, one seldom meets a person with whom one has any interest in common; most people today do not actually value or enjoy anything ...""
Clearly someone who has never met a Shriner, say, or any other member of any other explicitly benevolent fraternal organization.
""... This mood of lighthearted benevolence is particularly important to people whose careers deal with grim, crucial issues ... as, for instance, a writer ... or a surgeon ...""
Seriously?
/s/ ikeyPikey
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She was not my "cup of tea" but we all have different outlooks on life.
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IkeyPikey, I agree that some of her statements ring false. But that's because her world-view is based on her metaphysics. I said at the beginning that her position is based on a major flaw, and her metaphysical base contains it.
This isn't the place for a discussion of philosophy, so I'll just end it by saying that one doesn't have to agree with all that's said to appreciate the emotional basis of the message.
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Sleepy:
To be fair to me, I avoided discussing her philosophy, and stuck to what she wrote in this essay.
But as to "... appreciate the emotional basis of the message ...", she wrote:
""... the world of stamps ... is not the place for whims, it is not a world for those who like the chaos of undefinable, shifting, whirling, drippy emotions ...""
She was a trip-and-a-half.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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Rand is an author I have some disagreements with but the linked to article is a very passionate defense of our hobby by the noted writer:
https://www.kenmorestamp.com/why-i-like-stamp-collecting-by-ayn-rand
Jacques Minkus was an interesting guy, he did perhaps more to promote philately than many others at the time.
I moved to Omaha to attend college in the mid 1960's and soon discovered one of his franchised stamp counters in the main Brandeis store downtown. Incredible place. I also encountered a guy I'd gone to High school with working part time at the counter. I remember him telling me that Minkus had just left town after spending a week there to promote his outlet; my friend was glad to see him go, he apparently could be a difficult man to work for.
(Modified by Moderator on 2017-08-17 14:18:47)
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Snick1946,
I would be interested in your memories of the stamp store - what made it an incredible place? Sad that most of those spots are gone.
Sally
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08:26:41pm
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Thanks Snick,
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Ayn Rand was a stamp collector, and very much enjoyed reading her comments on stamp collecting and collectors.
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
To me it was amazing that philatelic material was being displayed, discussed and sold on the main floor of a major department store in a large city. Their sales area was just feet away from the escalators and lots of people would be looking at the displays. They had flat counters with stamps in black stock pages. I remember seeing my first White plains sheet (now I own one). Then and now, Omaha had a large Jewish community and they had nearly all Israel stamps issued to then on display. I am sure many folks started collections after being exposed to these displays.
Years later I met and married a girl who'd grown up here. Her grandmother was a serious collector and lived up in Sioux City and when she'd visit she'd take the grandkids shopping. My wife remembers that counter - and, sadly, being bored to tears while granny looked at stamps. I think the outlet folded in the eaerly 70's. The store went under about 1979.
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09:46:42pm
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Minkus had a booth at Gimbels in New York City. (I don't think it was Macy's.) I remember one day when the family took a trip to the city to get clothes for us children for school. We went into the store, and right alongside the escalators I saw the stamp booth. I believe I was about nine at the time. Although I tried to stop and look at things, my parents ushered me along.
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Thanks for sharing the memories. Sounds like it would have been a great place to spend hours!
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
I remember the stamp section at Famous Barr in St. Louis in the mid-sixties. (I think is was Famous Barr. Could have been Stix, Baer, and Fuller. They were the two "anchor" stores). We went every year to buy clothes for the new school year and I got to drop by the stamp counters with my father for a little bit to ogle, drool, and even make an occasional purchase! Then we had dinner at Trader Vic's (just about the ONLY time we ate at a restaurant) before the 2 hour drive home.
Lars
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
When i was 8 years old my escape was the movie theater...most films were for the adult audience of course but i still went. I remember the movie version of Ayn Rands "the fountainhead" i did not know what was going on until Gary Cooper blew everything up in the end !
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12:12:43pm
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
I remember the stamp counter at Gimbel's in NYC - I didn't get there very often. I think there was a stamp counter at Bamberger's in Newark also - first floor, next to the wooden escalator. Wow, that goes back a bit!
Geoff
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Snick1946 said,
"To me it was amazing that philatelic material was being displayed, discussed and sold on the main floor of a major department store in a large city."
My wife, Susan, and I retired to Vancouver in 2001. At that time, there were four stamps shops within walking distance of our apartment, and one of them, All Nations Stamp & Coin, was on the fourth floor of The Bay department store. All Nations relocated to the Dunbar-Southlands neighborhood, near UBC a few years ago; it's nearly an hour's bus ride for me to go there, so I don't often go. One of the three other shops closed permanently at about the same time. And the third one, Weeda, closed its doors and went exclusively to on-line auctions and eBay sales.
Until recently, Western Coins & Stamps had two stores in two Vancouver suburbs, one in Richmond, south of Vancouver, and another located in the Sears department store at Metrotown Shopping Centre in Burnaby, east of Vancouver. But that Sears store was one of 10 across Canada that were recently closed for good. There was a Sears in Vancouver, just across Georgia Street from The Bay, but it closed three or four years ago; years ago it was home to another stamp shop, long since gone.
In addition to an apparently dwindling dwindling number of collectors, the escalation of property values in Vancouver has become a serious problem and has figured in the demise of several business, including some in our own neighbourhood. We just learned that one of our favourite stores, Chocolate Mousse Kichenware, is closing because it can no longer afford its property taxes because the property assessment increased 92.7% in just one year (from $16 million in 2016 to $52 million in 2017. The world is becoming just plain nuts. The incredibly high cost housing in Vancouver is driving residents into the suburbs. Only the wealthy are able to afford to move here now; my wife and I are fortunate to have purchased our condo when we could afford it. Now we just have to be able to afford groceries. And thank God for socialized medicine!
Bob
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
i still use a Gimbels mint sheet file. In the day a stamp department in a large store was not a bad idea..kids could browse at stamps while Mom shopped.
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Being Canadian, the big treat was the semi annual trip to Winnipeg and making it to the 3rd floor in Eaton's. Still was operational in the mid '80s when I was university, but disappeared during the same interval. There was one at the Bay as well, but it just wasn't as good as Mr. Eaton's.
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Immediate Past President - West Essex Philatelic Society www.wepsonline.org
14 Feb 2018
04:23:32pm
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
My uncle, who got me into stamp collecting, worked at a Minkus Booth at a Gimbles in NJ after he retired. Not sure which one. I'll try to reach out to my cousin to see if she knows.
Bob
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
I would have sworn it was Macy's, not Gimbel's, that had the stamp counter, but googling "images stamp collectors at macy's" got me nowhere while "images stamp collectors at gimbel's" brought up:
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/426153183474431308 ... hint: roll your pointer over the photo to read the caption
a blog post about the Minkus department store concessions - including the one at Gimbel's
Color me Gimbel'd,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
15 Feb 2018
07:20:20am
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Both stores in Manhattan had stamp counters with the flat glass covered countertops. Minkuis was in Gimbals near the elevators as described. Macy"s stamps were in a cul-de-sac which allowed wall displays of albums and other goodies.
I recall reading in one of Hearst's books that at one time in the 1930s or later '40s Macy's had a storewide 50% off sale and some clever devils bought some early US gem and sold it back to Gimbals. It developed into such a rush that Macy's department buyers had to advertize in trade papers for examples of that stamp at a premium.so that the buyer was paying for a premium for stamps that were being sold for a discount.
The wonder of these places was that you could linger at the counters and see issues that the average colletor might never be able to afford.
I lived on the Island (Long Island) in those days and no trip to or through the City (Manhattan) was complete with out a stop at either or usually both stamp counters.
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Bob you missed FVH stamps at #102 – 340 West Cordova Street,
Vancouver, B.C., Building on the S.E. Corner at Homer Street.
They have premises and also run online auctions on a weekly basis.
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Immediate Past President - West Essex Philatelic Society www.wepsonline.org
15 Feb 2018
10:55:07am
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
The Gimbles my uncle worked at was in Paramus, NJ - Garden State Plaza.
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
That was Ayn Rand in 1971, and I first read this many years ago, but its more than half a century ago. If she were alive and collecting today, I think part of the message would be different.
"Nobody tries to claim ... as people do in other fields ... that a wilted scrap of lettuce from his garbage can is a superior kind of stamp"
Here she is referring to fields in which intellectual leadership is co-opted for petty goals, such as poetry without rhythm or rhyme or art without skill or purpose. Not sure that still applies today to stamp design.
"Some countries are abusing this and putting out an unconscionable amount of philatelic waste, more stamps than could possibly be used for legitimate postal needs. But collectors are free to ignore them."
Obviously referring to CTOs, Dunes issues and the like, but one could argue that the number of new issues today worldwide is abuse.
"Speaking aesthetically, I should like to mention the enormous amount of talent displayed on stamps ... more than one can find in today's art galleries. Ignoring the mug shots of some of the world's ugliest faces (a sin of which the stamps of most countries are guilty), one finds real little masterpieces of the art of painting."
These days, many countries are producing trash, particularly the US, in my opinion. Certainly the bar has been lowered for aesthetics in US stamp design (and elsewhere).
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Without wishing to get involved in the politics which surrounds Ayn Rand, unlike her I find it hard to easily characterize stamp collectors. Collectors I have met have straddled a full range of human personalities which has to be a good thing otherwise meeting them would quickly become boring. Ayn Rand seems to think she can put them in a box in which she very much fits, or at least the person she thinks she was fits, and her fictional heroes are.
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01:36:20pm
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
I majored in philosophy, and found her work fascinating. I believe that her position is based on a major flaw, but that's for philosophers to argue.
Nevertheless I found her article on philately emotionally moving. Far mor than her fiction. I copied it for further reading when I become despondent and need diversion.
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
""... Stamp collecting requires a full, focused attention, but no problem-solving; it is a process of cashing in on the given and known ...""
Clearly someone with no exposure to collecting postal history.
""... There is a sense of "brotherhood" among stamp collectors, of a kind which is very unusual today; the brotherhood of holding the same values, one seldom meets a person with whom one has any interest in common; most people today do not actually value or enjoy anything ...""
Clearly someone who has never met a Shriner, say, or any other member of any other explicitly benevolent fraternal organization.
""... This mood of lighthearted benevolence is particularly important to people whose careers deal with grim, crucial issues ... as, for instance, a writer ... or a surgeon ...""
Seriously?
/s/ ikeyPikey
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
She was not my "cup of tea" but we all have different outlooks on life.
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02:16:58pm
re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
IkeyPikey, I agree that some of her statements ring false. But that's because her world-view is based on her metaphysics. I said at the beginning that her position is based on a major flaw, and her metaphysical base contains it.
This isn't the place for a discussion of philosophy, so I'll just end it by saying that one doesn't have to agree with all that's said to appreciate the emotional basis of the message.
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re: Ayn Rand, Stamp Collector
Sleepy:
To be fair to me, I avoided discussing her philosophy, and stuck to what she wrote in this essay.
But as to "... appreciate the emotional basis of the message ...", she wrote:
""... the world of stamps ... is not the place for whims, it is not a world for those who like the chaos of undefinable, shifting, whirling, drippy emotions ...""
She was a trip-and-a-half.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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