Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
In my daily interfaces with model car folks I know on message boards and in my local club, I've let them all know I also collect stamps. Sometimes I'll post something cool that's connected, like I have a 1920s cover from a Ford dealer with an itemized repair bill for a Model T inside it. The car guys think this is cool to see a fan belt was 15 cents, where spark plugs were a dime a piece installed. So I expose them all to a bit of culture. :-)
As a result I have become the model car hobby's go-to guy for anything stamp related. I get emails asking for advise, and I get all kinds of free stuff. I've received at least five postcards with my 1902 Franklin on them, one with a cork cancel and another with a swastika good luck symbol on it from 1905, way before the Nazis. These all came from old family papers that they had saved for years.
A few weeks ago one guy sent me scans of two old postcards that he found cleaning out his grandparent's house. They are from 1915 of an Eastland ferry boat that flipped in the Chicago River killing 1200 people. One card showed the ship in service and the second was the ship upside down in the disaster. Neither was postally used, but kept as family mementoes all these years.
He asked if they were valuable, and I replied honestly that they were super cool, but there were others for sale on eBay for $10-15 each. Next thing I knew I received them in the mail as a gift! He said he'd rather give the to me for my collection, knowing they'd be appreciated than go through the hassle of trying to sell them.
And most recently a guy I know for years in my local model club showed up at our December meeting with a large black garbage bag. It was literally filled with containers of old used stamps. Again, his father in law died years ago, and his mother in law died recently so they were cleaning out the house. His wife looked at this as garbage, so he rescued it and gave it to me. And at our meeting last Saturday he brought in a grocery size plastic bag full of stuff he had found since.
This all wasn't the mother lode, just a hoard of stamps on paper, US and Poland with a sprinkling of other countries, that he had saved from the 1960s up until the 1990s when he died. It appeared to be off his own correspondence, and from names on the few covers, and pieces, it looks like he had people saving them for him too. Literally thousands of stamps.
So it is well worth publicizing your stamp collecting. You never know where it will lead. Anyone have interesting stories?
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Hi Everyone;
Not as interesting as your's tho. But yea I 'played' with AMT 3-in-1 customized car models too.
And got really good at paint jobs, with just a can of spray paint. I used the pointy end of a needle,
and a magnifying glass to paint the numbers on the dashboard speedometer and other instru-
ments. Also did the same with silver paint for the left-rear script model name casting. Painted many
details that most hobbyists would consider impossible.
I would rubber band parts to a heavy object. Then with paintbrush with most bristles removed,
I would use my left hand to steady my right so I could do amazingly detailed stuff. I even found a
hobby magazine with detailed instructions for making ones own water slide decals. Cool huh?
However my next model project for my bucket list is a plank-on-frame wooden model ship. I think
maybe a brigantine at around 100-120 feet at the water line and 150-165 feet with rigging. This
will allow a 3/8"-to-the-foot scale to provide more detail. I really is all in the details...is it not?
That scale would provide a model of museum quality at about 60" long, or five feet.
I have the book; "Anatomy of Nelson's Ships" with detailed fold-outs for building the HMS Victory
at 1/4"-to-the-foot. Finished project would be seven feet long x five feet tall and the main & fore
yards would be three feet wide.
I like the ship and it's rigging, but think the "apple bow" is not very elegant. So I'll pick a sleeker
and smaller hull and get more detail. Another advantage of a larger scale is our vision declines
with age. Smaller parts are easier to manage.
At an earlier age I also did a lot of military planes. One of my favorites was a P-51 Mustang, and
I think a Douglas and a Curtis fighter. I favored single engine fighters. I also loved the B/W films
of real live dogfights involving single engine 1 & 2 seat fighters.
I once worked with a former Navy sailor who worked as a flight control technician aboard an air-
craft carrier. He and I worked at Sears service center in Illinois near Great Lakes naval base
(I did my boot-camp there).
He built and flew a 40" long F-16 fighter jet. The engine was a real jet engine, that screamed
over 60,000 rpm at max thrust. The engines are rather expensive and very hard to find items.
He needed a very large open area to fly this monster, but won a ton of awards with his air acro-
batics that nobody else could come close to. This was not a kids toy by any means!!
I also own, but have not built yet, a collection of Star Wars models. I have a millennium falcon
model kit, that would be 16-18" when completed. I also have a wedge-shaped Imperial Star
Destroyer, with fiber-optic lighting kit, that will be 18" long when assembled. In addition I have
several others; a TIE Interceptor Fighter, two different x-wing fighters, one with motorized
X-air-foil deployment, and Boba-Fett's ship, and an at walker, and an A-wing fighter.
@ Ben;
Have you ever considered wooden ship models? Have you built any motorized models?
Just sniffin' glu...
TuskenRaider
PS; Irishman's favorite seven course meal; a six-pack and a pototo!
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I have another hobby that I'm much more involved in than stamp collecting. I'm a model car builder and collector and well connected in that hobby. You think that stamp collectors get a bad rap as nerds, the general public response to model building is "you still play with kids toys?" No respect!
In my daily interfaces with model car folks I know on message boards and in my local club, I've let them all know I also collect stamps. Sometimes I'll post something cool that's connected, like I have a 1920s cover from a Ford dealer with an itemized repair bill for a Model T inside it. The car guys think this is cool to see a fan belt was 15 cents, where spark plugs were a dime a piece installed. So I expose them all to a bit of culture. :-)
As a result I have become the model car hobby's go-to guy for anything stamp related. I get emails asking for advise, and I get all kinds of free stuff. I've received at least five postcards with my 1902 Franklin on them, one with a cork cancel and another with a swastika good luck symbol on it from 1905, way before the Nazis. These all came from old family papers that they had saved for years.
A few weeks ago one guy sent me scans of two old postcards that he found cleaning out his grandparent's house. They are from 1915 of an Eastland ferry boat that flipped in the Chicago River killing 1200 people. One card showed the ship in service and the second was the ship upside down in the disaster. Neither was postally used, but kept as family mementoes all these years.
He asked if they were valuable, and I replied honestly that they were super cool, but there were others for sale on eBay for $10-15 each. Next thing I knew I received them in the mail as a gift! He said he'd rather give the to me for my collection, knowing they'd be appreciated than go through the hassle of trying to sell them.
And most recently a guy I know for years in my local model club showed up at our December meeting with a large black garbage bag. It was literally filled with containers of old used stamps. Again, his father in law died years ago, and his mother in law died recently so they were cleaning out the house. His wife looked at this as garbage, so he rescued it and gave it to me. And at our meeting last Saturday he brought in a grocery size plastic bag full of stuff he had found since.
This all wasn't the mother lode, just a hoard of stamps on paper, US and Poland with a sprinkling of other countries, that he had saved from the 1960s up until the 1990s when he died. It appeared to be off his own correspondence, and from names on the few covers, and pieces, it looks like he had people saving them for him too. Literally thousands of stamps.
So it is well worth publicizing your stamp collecting. You never know where it will lead. Anyone have interesting stories?
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re: Making People Aware You Are A Stamp Collector
Hi Everyone;
Not as interesting as your's tho. But yea I 'played' with AMT 3-in-1 customized car models too.
And got really good at paint jobs, with just a can of spray paint. I used the pointy end of a needle,
and a magnifying glass to paint the numbers on the dashboard speedometer and other instru-
ments. Also did the same with silver paint for the left-rear script model name casting. Painted many
details that most hobbyists would consider impossible.
I would rubber band parts to a heavy object. Then with paintbrush with most bristles removed,
I would use my left hand to steady my right so I could do amazingly detailed stuff. I even found a
hobby magazine with detailed instructions for making ones own water slide decals. Cool huh?
However my next model project for my bucket list is a plank-on-frame wooden model ship. I think
maybe a brigantine at around 100-120 feet at the water line and 150-165 feet with rigging. This
will allow a 3/8"-to-the-foot scale to provide more detail. I really is all in the details...is it not?
That scale would provide a model of museum quality at about 60" long, or five feet.
I have the book; "Anatomy of Nelson's Ships" with detailed fold-outs for building the HMS Victory
at 1/4"-to-the-foot. Finished project would be seven feet long x five feet tall and the main & fore
yards would be three feet wide.
I like the ship and it's rigging, but think the "apple bow" is not very elegant. So I'll pick a sleeker
and smaller hull and get more detail. Another advantage of a larger scale is our vision declines
with age. Smaller parts are easier to manage.
At an earlier age I also did a lot of military planes. One of my favorites was a P-51 Mustang, and
I think a Douglas and a Curtis fighter. I favored single engine fighters. I also loved the B/W films
of real live dogfights involving single engine 1 & 2 seat fighters.
I once worked with a former Navy sailor who worked as a flight control technician aboard an air-
craft carrier. He and I worked at Sears service center in Illinois near Great Lakes naval base
(I did my boot-camp there).
He built and flew a 40" long F-16 fighter jet. The engine was a real jet engine, that screamed
over 60,000 rpm at max thrust. The engines are rather expensive and very hard to find items.
He needed a very large open area to fly this monster, but won a ton of awards with his air acro-
batics that nobody else could come close to. This was not a kids toy by any means!!
I also own, but have not built yet, a collection of Star Wars models. I have a millennium falcon
model kit, that would be 16-18" when completed. I also have a wedge-shaped Imperial Star
Destroyer, with fiber-optic lighting kit, that will be 18" long when assembled. In addition I have
several others; a TIE Interceptor Fighter, two different x-wing fighters, one with motorized
X-air-foil deployment, and Boba-Fett's ship, and an at walker, and an A-wing fighter.
@ Ben;
Have you ever considered wooden ship models? Have you built any motorized models?
Just sniffin' glu...
TuskenRaider
PS; Irishman's favorite seven course meal; a six-pack and a pototo!
Login to Like
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