My father was an avid US stamp collector. When I was about 12 or 13 years old, he took me to visit a pastor friend of his who collected stamps from all over the world. I remember being entranced by engraving and colors of the airmail set for Ecuador (Scott #C57-C63). That started my philatelic journey. I collected worldwide, countries, topics... everything. About 40 years ago, I obtained a copy of Sanabria's 1955 'The World Airmail Catalogue' and my journey began anew. A collection of world airmail stamps would be my specialization. I eventually defined the limits for my specialty as worldwide airmail and related postage stamps including government issues and major varieties, private posts, semi-official, official, express and tax stamps, with statistical data including dates of issue, printing quantity and historical background information on subjects and flights.

I acquired Sanabria 1966 and 1972 catalog editions and all of the Sanabria Airpost Journals. Then catalogs for Scott, Gibbons, Michel, Minkus, Edifil, Yvert, and Silombra, as well as many books with in-depth information and stories about airmail subjects . Each stamp had a story, and I perused the internet to learn as much as I could about each. There were not any specific albums that would accommodate my collection, so I began creating my own specialty pages. My 'album' has grown to nearly 2,200 pages housed in thirteen 3" 3-ring binders.

Anyhow, I finally acquired some of the Air Fund stamps of Turkey issued between 1926 and 1934. Different catalog listings for these stamps are really confusing. However, I think I've finally got them sorted out. I am in the process of getting the pages designed and stamps mounted. Here is the first page of my efforts. I hope you can read the text that explains how these stamps fit into the definition of my airmail specialization.