Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
10:39:18am
I never got into philately until I met Cathy, my partner to be, in 1972. We hitch hiked to nearby Kentville to do a bit of shopping and ended up in a hardware store, Rockwell's Hardware, looking for something I really can't remember - possibly a model car kit, another early hobby we shared. One of the workers in the store was a philatelist and sold selections of stamps and supplies. We thought the Poland stamps were pretty so we started collecting Poland and withing a year we were avidly collecting Poland, Russia, US and Canada. We also picked up our first four albums from this person and never looked back!
We also used to hitch to Halifax to check out the several stamp stores on Barrington Street. This meant skipping the odd class since Acadia had Saturday morning classes, the day we went to Halifax and back. Hitch hiking there was difficult since we had to go by the New Ross Highway which had sparse traffic, to say the least!! I remember one store had a large barrel of stamps for a cent or two each. We found some great stuff in there and it got us started on a World collection. One of these early barrel stamps was a $12 CV (we had the 1972 3 volume Scott's catalog) very early DWI stamp - probably our first treasure!
Does anyone else have any stories to share?
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I started on 4 Aug 1958, my grandfather was also a stamp collector. He gave me a cirgar box of stamps. His started collecting in the 1890s. After he passed in 1967 I was given his collection.
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For me it was in 1980 I was 10 years old. I was at my grand parent's house it was raining and I couldn't go outside to play. So I was board out of my mind. My grand mother told me to sit down at the dining room table and she would be right back. It was about 5 minutes later she handed me her stamp album, a package of hinges and a box of stamps. The rest is history.
Jeremy
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I'm the first generation samp collector in my family.
I picked it up when during covid in 2020, when there was not much to do!
Mainly out of being somewhat of a history buff, and loving geography!
I kinda just clicked, and soon began reasearching and writing articles.
This led me to write Philatelist Magazine. I free little magazine I mail out every couple months, and that really kept me in the hobby.
I think I got more advanced around the time I came in SoR and joined my local club Fall of 24.
This can certainly be an intersting coloumn and excited to see where this goes.
Looking forward to my upcoming May meeting of JPSCC. (Were having a HUGE 3 truckloads of stuff charity auction of stamps!!)
-Ari
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i was in my early teens; not sure why, but I read the Cleveland Press, then one of two papers in the city, and Barth Healy had a column detailing upcoming first day programs. i would send away for half a dozen covers, and occasionally inserted personal histories in them. I wish I had retained them, just to become reacquainted with the former me. In the early 90s, I was working at an international membership organization, and often found lots of interesting stamps on envelopes in the mammoth recycling bins. I wasn't organized, more an accumulator. There brick and mortar stamp shops then, and I'd be country collections. On a trip to Prague for the company, I stopped into a Post Office; it must have been a philatelic office as well, and bought one or two of everything they had, which spanned decades. Probably spent $20 and came away with treasure.
Over the years, i've moved from stamps to covers, and later added seals and, now, seals tied on covers.
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I started in 1950 or perhaps 1951. I was young, 7 or 8; my family had recently moved from the Southern Tier region of New York State to New Mexico where my father became editor of a small weekly newspaper, the Silver City *Enterprise*.
One Sunday, we went to visit one of the newspaper’s employees and his family, which included two boys about my age. They were both stamp collectors, and all it took to hook me was seeing their collections. I was even introduced to the Scott catalogue that day; it's hard to imagine, but that catalogue was in *one* volume and in a smaller format than today’s monster.
Soon I had bought an album started ordering approvals from classified ads in *Boy’s Life* magazine. I also learned that the tiny post office in the tiny village where we lived (Arenas Valley, six miles east-northeast of Silver City)was a great source of new U.S. issues.The postmaster, Hazel Moore, understood a bit about stamp collecting and started picking out well-centred plate blocks of new issues for me. One of my web pages, titled "Box 28, Arenas Valley, NM", is about that post office and about Hazel Moore. In a year or two, I had earned a Boy Scout merit badge for stamp collecting.
The final requirement was to take an oral test, administered by the postmaster at Fort Bayard, New Mexico, the former home of a battalion of the famous Buffalo Soldiers that was located two or three miles east of Arenas Valley. I'm sure he broke security rules when he invited me "behind the wicket" for a tour of the post office. The main thing I remember is seeing partial sheets of what I assume was U.S. E19, the 20-cent black special delivery stamp issued November 30, 1951; the stamps might have been remainders of E14, issued April 25, 1925.
Bob
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I'd collected as a young boy, most of us did, and I can remember exchanging stamps in the playground at school. I had a couple of small Simplex albums. My Dad had a bigger album which I still have exactly as when he gave it to me long ago.
But then along came serious studies, girls and work. The stamps took a back seat.
In 1990 I was working in London as Chef Manager of a catering company at the Duke of York's Headquarters. One Sunday, a couple of colleagues and I went to Alexandra Park in North London for some relaxation and sunshine. It was a beautiful day and our conversations centered on our upcoming holidays. Mine was to Egypt, back then my favourite place to travel.
It was Sunday May 6th. I didn't know it then but it was a famous birthday. And I was about to find out.
During our walk we found ourselves by the beautiful Alexandra Palace, opened in 1875 as a People's Palace for recreation and entertainment. I had been here before during my younger days skanking to the many reggae concerts held at the venue.
But on this day, something else was taking place. As we approached the Palace to join the crowds outside we saw the signs for 'StampWorld London '90' ! Yes, it was a big International Exhibition that I was later to find out was held every 10 years in the UK.
So in we went, just for fun I thought. It was free and an escape from the scorching heat. But I was wrong.
A few hours later I came out loaded with Philatelic items and a love of the hobby which has stayed with me until today. My friends were slightly less enthusiastic !!
That day, May 6th 1990 will live in my memory forever. It was the 150th Birthday of the Penny Black, how could I forget it !
Londonbus1
P.S. I still skank but only in the privacy of my own home !!
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I am guessing, but it was probably somewhere around 1956. My dad was a stamp collector in his youth and had one of those old brown Scott albums, but had not spent much time collecting after he and my mom married. When I was 8 or 9 my godparents bought me a beginner album, with assorted world stamps, hinges, and a magnifier. I got hooked, which carried on until mid high school ( then, girls, sports, fishing etc......followed soon after by beerr). By that time I had upscaled my albums a few times. After I married I would pick up my album once in awhile, but never seriously. When my dad retired in 1966, he got back into collecting in a big way. He especially enjoyed collecting British Commonwealth, and even moreso with Carribean BC stamps. He and mom went to the carib annually, never the same place. He would always include a trip to each country's post office and bring back new plate blocks. When he died suddenly in 1974, he was just starting to put together packets of WW stamps he was going to try to sell "on Approval". At that time, my brother took Dad's USA collection, and I took the WW stuff. Really didn't do much with it other than gazing once in awhile. When I retired (early) in 2006 I started perusing his collection more often. Even though I introduced mt kids to collecting in their youth, stamp collecting never took hold. So, shortly after retirement, I decided to try to sell his collection. I found some interest from a shop on the east coast ( name escapes me...pretty normal these days), but they only were interested in the mint sets, which I sold to them. Everything else went back on a shelf until about 10 years ago I stumbled upon a site which now has morphed into the present Hipstamp. Just for grins, I put a few single stamps on the site, and found out that there was a market for individual stamps. I stopped after a few years, as most of the sellable stuff was. However, I quite enjoyed the selling and you had to be pretty darned sure what you were selling was ID'd properly, with any faults disclosed ( when I started out this was not always the case). About three years ago, I took the Plunge and acquired a small Canadian/Province collection via SAN. I acquired a Unitrade catalog, perf gauges , watermark stuff etc, and went live on Hipstamp. Not only were stamps selling ( relatively speaking), but also, I was having lots of fun. Since then I have acquired several larger lots via CAN. While I occasionally will list a WW stamp, I really have concentrated on Canada/Provinces. Not only have I always been a frequent visitor to that area (pretty much all fishing related), but I find the Canada stamps to be very beautiful. I now have almost 1500 100% positive feedback on Hipstamp, and several repeat customers. So far, I'm still having fun. I hope it continues.
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My parents gave me a beginner album for my 6th birthday in 1957. I am sure it was given to me so I would give them some "peace and quiet". The joke was on them--didn't work--the "peace and quiet" genes skipped my generation. Still collecting.
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This is an easy question for me. My late father was an avid stamp collector which he started when he was just a boy. He got me interested in stamps at a very early age too - I think I may have been around 4 or 5 - when he got me my first small begginner album. Over the years we went to many stamp shows together - especially the large shows in New York City (since I lived in New Jersey growing up). We also visited many of the stamp stores that were in Manhattan during those years. My father knew many of the old dealers that were there. Hence the nickname I use now for selling stamps online "Father & Son Stamps" !
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1986 after being laid up after a motorcycle accident( not my fault)I found a tin of stamps in my shed l don't know how they got there?may be from one of the kids? mainly what I now term as rubbish ,but that was my starting point. Now have several nice collections Some complete ,some I am still working on. My Netherland Indies collection has several interesting stories attached like the Pelican flight and the Marine Insurance Stamps .
Brian
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I was living in the Canal Zone. It was about 1977, my mother showed me her very modest stamp collection and it inspired me.
Soon after I had my first experience of soaking off some precancels from a package we got.
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How about maxicards?
I started stamp collecting when I was a toddler.
I wish I started to create maxicards much sooner than when I was a grown-up...
Tiger mom and cub, my non-traditional maxicard with a photoprint instead of a regular postcard support.
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My first collection was when I was 7 or 8 years old while we were in Germany but not sure why I started. The collection got lost in the move back to the states.
My interest started again when I was 14 years old when I saw a very nice US mint collection on Scott pages when we lived in Brooklyn NY (dad stationed at Fort Hamiliton). I purchased a Harris album and started collecting US mint stamps actively. There were two stamp dealers nearby (Brooklyn Stamp Gallery is still in business) and went to several bourses on Nassau Street in Manhattan. I continued until college but ended up selling my stamp collection to my dad. I had joined APS but never let my membership and occassionally subscribed to Linn's despite not having a collection.
I restarted US collecting in the 80s. I was traveling mostly to the far east on business and started collecting worldwide stamps. I had purchased several country lots of ebay. This was also when I discovered Steiner and removed the album page barrier. This was when I got to the point where I was spending more per stamp due to value. I was for quantity (different stamps) rather than than fewer expensive older stamps. After a snowstorm where I was inside for several days, my level of interest increased even more. This was the period when I became much more active on all the forums.
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Great thread Harvey ! Love all the stamp stories !!
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
21 Apr 2025
10:39:18am
I thought this might be a fun post. I imagine there are several collectors here who have second generation stamp collections from either a father or grandfather, I don't. I was a collector as a kid, but mostly comics and not stamps. When I started university in 1970 I met a prof (Herb Lewis) who was an avid stamp collector. He had a stamp room filled with an extensive worldwide collection. He was very odd, head of philosophy dept. and also had an extensive porn collection - weird stuff like ties, Stanhopes (look it up), etc. He was a very unusual man with a very odd, but nice, family!!
I never got into philately until I met Cathy, my partner to be, in 1972. We hitch hiked to nearby Kentville to do a bit of shopping and ended up in a hardware store, Rockwell's Hardware, looking for something I really can't remember - possibly a model car kit, another early hobby we shared. One of the workers in the store was a philatelist and sold selections of stamps and supplies. We thought the Poland stamps were pretty so we started collecting Poland and withing a year we were avidly collecting Poland, Russia, US and Canada. We also picked up our first four albums from this person and never looked back!
We also used to hitch to Halifax to check out the several stamp stores on Barrington Street. This meant skipping the odd class since Acadia had Saturday morning classes, the day we went to Halifax and back. Hitch hiking there was difficult since we had to go by the New Ross Highway which had sparse traffic, to say the least!! I remember one store had a large barrel of stamps for a cent or two each. We found some great stuff in there and it got us started on a World collection. One of these early barrel stamps was a $12 CV (we had the 1972 3 volume Scott's catalog) very early DWI stamp - probably our first treasure!
Does anyone else have any stories to share?
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
I started on 4 Aug 1958, my grandfather was also a stamp collector. He gave me a cirgar box of stamps. His started collecting in the 1890s. After he passed in 1967 I was given his collection.
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11:51:08am
re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
For me it was in 1980 I was 10 years old. I was at my grand parent's house it was raining and I couldn't go outside to play. So I was board out of my mind. My grand mother told me to sit down at the dining room table and she would be right back. It was about 5 minutes later she handed me her stamp album, a package of hinges and a box of stamps. The rest is history.
Jeremy
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
I'm the first generation samp collector in my family.
I picked it up when during covid in 2020, when there was not much to do!
Mainly out of being somewhat of a history buff, and loving geography!
I kinda just clicked, and soon began reasearching and writing articles.
This led me to write Philatelist Magazine. I free little magazine I mail out every couple months, and that really kept me in the hobby.
I think I got more advanced around the time I came in SoR and joined my local club Fall of 24.
This can certainly be an intersting coloumn and excited to see where this goes.
Looking forward to my upcoming May meeting of JPSCC. (Were having a HUGE 3 truckloads of stuff charity auction of stamps!!)
-Ari
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
i was in my early teens; not sure why, but I read the Cleveland Press, then one of two papers in the city, and Barth Healy had a column detailing upcoming first day programs. i would send away for half a dozen covers, and occasionally inserted personal histories in them. I wish I had retained them, just to become reacquainted with the former me. In the early 90s, I was working at an international membership organization, and often found lots of interesting stamps on envelopes in the mammoth recycling bins. I wasn't organized, more an accumulator. There brick and mortar stamp shops then, and I'd be country collections. On a trip to Prague for the company, I stopped into a Post Office; it must have been a philatelic office as well, and bought one or two of everything they had, which spanned decades. Probably spent $20 and came away with treasure.
Over the years, i've moved from stamps to covers, and later added seals and, now, seals tied on covers.
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
I started in 1950 or perhaps 1951. I was young, 7 or 8; my family had recently moved from the Southern Tier region of New York State to New Mexico where my father became editor of a small weekly newspaper, the Silver City *Enterprise*.
One Sunday, we went to visit one of the newspaper’s employees and his family, which included two boys about my age. They were both stamp collectors, and all it took to hook me was seeing their collections. I was even introduced to the Scott catalogue that day; it's hard to imagine, but that catalogue was in *one* volume and in a smaller format than today’s monster.
Soon I had bought an album started ordering approvals from classified ads in *Boy’s Life* magazine. I also learned that the tiny post office in the tiny village where we lived (Arenas Valley, six miles east-northeast of Silver City)was a great source of new U.S. issues.The postmaster, Hazel Moore, understood a bit about stamp collecting and started picking out well-centred plate blocks of new issues for me. One of my web pages, titled "Box 28, Arenas Valley, NM", is about that post office and about Hazel Moore. In a year or two, I had earned a Boy Scout merit badge for stamp collecting.
The final requirement was to take an oral test, administered by the postmaster at Fort Bayard, New Mexico, the former home of a battalion of the famous Buffalo Soldiers that was located two or three miles east of Arenas Valley. I'm sure he broke security rules when he invited me "behind the wicket" for a tour of the post office. The main thing I remember is seeing partial sheets of what I assume was U.S. E19, the 20-cent black special delivery stamp issued November 30, 1951; the stamps might have been remainders of E14, issued April 25, 1925.
Bob
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
I'd collected as a young boy, most of us did, and I can remember exchanging stamps in the playground at school. I had a couple of small Simplex albums. My Dad had a bigger album which I still have exactly as when he gave it to me long ago.
But then along came serious studies, girls and work. The stamps took a back seat.
In 1990 I was working in London as Chef Manager of a catering company at the Duke of York's Headquarters. One Sunday, a couple of colleagues and I went to Alexandra Park in North London for some relaxation and sunshine. It was a beautiful day and our conversations centered on our upcoming holidays. Mine was to Egypt, back then my favourite place to travel.
It was Sunday May 6th. I didn't know it then but it was a famous birthday. And I was about to find out.
During our walk we found ourselves by the beautiful Alexandra Palace, opened in 1875 as a People's Palace for recreation and entertainment. I had been here before during my younger days skanking to the many reggae concerts held at the venue.
But on this day, something else was taking place. As we approached the Palace to join the crowds outside we saw the signs for 'StampWorld London '90' ! Yes, it was a big International Exhibition that I was later to find out was held every 10 years in the UK.
So in we went, just for fun I thought. It was free and an escape from the scorching heat. But I was wrong.
A few hours later I came out loaded with Philatelic items and a love of the hobby which has stayed with me until today. My friends were slightly less enthusiastic !!
That day, May 6th 1990 will live in my memory forever. It was the 150th Birthday of the Penny Black, how could I forget it !
Londonbus1
P.S. I still skank but only in the privacy of my own home !!
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
I am guessing, but it was probably somewhere around 1956. My dad was a stamp collector in his youth and had one of those old brown Scott albums, but had not spent much time collecting after he and my mom married. When I was 8 or 9 my godparents bought me a beginner album, with assorted world stamps, hinges, and a magnifier. I got hooked, which carried on until mid high school ( then, girls, sports, fishing etc......followed soon after by beerr). By that time I had upscaled my albums a few times. After I married I would pick up my album once in awhile, but never seriously. When my dad retired in 1966, he got back into collecting in a big way. He especially enjoyed collecting British Commonwealth, and even moreso with Carribean BC stamps. He and mom went to the carib annually, never the same place. He would always include a trip to each country's post office and bring back new plate blocks. When he died suddenly in 1974, he was just starting to put together packets of WW stamps he was going to try to sell "on Approval". At that time, my brother took Dad's USA collection, and I took the WW stuff. Really didn't do much with it other than gazing once in awhile. When I retired (early) in 2006 I started perusing his collection more often. Even though I introduced mt kids to collecting in their youth, stamp collecting never took hold. So, shortly after retirement, I decided to try to sell his collection. I found some interest from a shop on the east coast ( name escapes me...pretty normal these days), but they only were interested in the mint sets, which I sold to them. Everything else went back on a shelf until about 10 years ago I stumbled upon a site which now has morphed into the present Hipstamp. Just for grins, I put a few single stamps on the site, and found out that there was a market for individual stamps. I stopped after a few years, as most of the sellable stuff was. However, I quite enjoyed the selling and you had to be pretty darned sure what you were selling was ID'd properly, with any faults disclosed ( when I started out this was not always the case). About three years ago, I took the Plunge and acquired a small Canadian/Province collection via SAN. I acquired a Unitrade catalog, perf gauges , watermark stuff etc, and went live on Hipstamp. Not only were stamps selling ( relatively speaking), but also, I was having lots of fun. Since then I have acquired several larger lots via CAN. While I occasionally will list a WW stamp, I really have concentrated on Canada/Provinces. Not only have I always been a frequent visitor to that area (pretty much all fishing related), but I find the Canada stamps to be very beautiful. I now have almost 1500 100% positive feedback on Hipstamp, and several repeat customers. So far, I'm still having fun. I hope it continues.
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03:44:13pm
re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
My parents gave me a beginner album for my 6th birthday in 1957. I am sure it was given to me so I would give them some "peace and quiet". The joke was on them--didn't work--the "peace and quiet" genes skipped my generation. Still collecting.
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
This is an easy question for me. My late father was an avid stamp collector which he started when he was just a boy. He got me interested in stamps at a very early age too - I think I may have been around 4 or 5 - when he got me my first small begginner album. Over the years we went to many stamp shows together - especially the large shows in New York City (since I lived in New Jersey growing up). We also visited many of the stamp stores that were in Manhattan during those years. My father knew many of the old dealers that were there. Hence the nickname I use now for selling stamps online "Father & Son Stamps" !
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
1986 after being laid up after a motorcycle accident( not my fault)I found a tin of stamps in my shed l don't know how they got there?may be from one of the kids? mainly what I now term as rubbish ,but that was my starting point. Now have several nice collections Some complete ,some I am still working on. My Netherland Indies collection has several interesting stories attached like the Pelican flight and the Marine Insurance Stamps .
Brian
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
I was living in the Canal Zone. It was about 1977, my mother showed me her very modest stamp collection and it inspired me.
Soon after I had my first experience of soaking off some precancels from a package we got.
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
How about maxicards?
I started stamp collecting when I was a toddler.
I wish I started to create maxicards much sooner than when I was a grown-up...
Tiger mom and cub, my non-traditional maxicard with a photoprint instead of a regular postcard support.
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this post
re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
My first collection was when I was 7 or 8 years old while we were in Germany but not sure why I started. The collection got lost in the move back to the states.
My interest started again when I was 14 years old when I saw a very nice US mint collection on Scott pages when we lived in Brooklyn NY (dad stationed at Fort Hamiliton). I purchased a Harris album and started collecting US mint stamps actively. There were two stamp dealers nearby (Brooklyn Stamp Gallery is still in business) and went to several bourses on Nassau Street in Manhattan. I continued until college but ended up selling my stamp collection to my dad. I had joined APS but never let my membership and occassionally subscribed to Linn's despite not having a collection.
I restarted US collecting in the 80s. I was traveling mostly to the far east on business and started collecting worldwide stamps. I had purchased several country lots of ebay. This was also when I discovered Steiner and removed the album page barrier. This was when I got to the point where I was spending more per stamp due to value. I was for quantity (different stamps) rather than than fewer expensive older stamps. After a snowstorm where I was inside for several days, my level of interest increased even more. This was the period when I became much more active on all the forums.
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re: When and why did you start collecting stamps?
Great thread Harvey ! Love all the stamp stories !!
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