Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
but incredibly hilarious 
that you've told the story more than once, but always pretending it was "someone else"?Share your stories in this thread. I've only been a member a few days but already tons of you think my posts are hilarious and my attempts at philatelic-philanthropy are laudable (NOT!). But it's Christmastime, so I am giving this gang another chance by offering a special stamp-related gift to the person whose story I find the funniest. The only rule is it has to be about something you did (or didn't do) and is true (artistic license accepted). No recycling old jokes. I will close the contest part of this thread sometime Christmas eve.
Please give the gift of laughter ... I'll get it rolling:
It was frustrating trying to get back into collecting after 30 years, meeting with people who had inherited dear old grandma's collection of common missionary mix type stuff and musty old kids albums - and wanted $1,000 (firm) because they counted 4,000 stamps and the library book said they were worth at least 25c each. Oh yeah, and convinced she had a rare stamp but didn't know which one it was.
I finally got lucky with an inexpensive estate hoard and then had to put up with my wife laughing at my new obsession - a common reaction from those who know nothing about this beautiful hobby!. Late one night, assisted by a "few" (double) single-malts, I was going through a stack of homemade album pages and there, in the midst, was the holy grail: a 1959 Inverted Seaway. I rushed upstairs, pulled my wife out of bed and into my office crying, "We're rich, we're rich! You scoffed at me but look at this - the most famous stamp error in Canada! They printed it upside down - and I've got a copy! HA! That's easily $15,000 - what do you think of me now, eh? Still laughing?"
She looked down at the page, looked at me, turned the page over and said, "Now you've a whole page of upside down stamps and we're millionaires. Turn off the G#&%$# lights and get upstairs to bed now!"
Who's next?
Cheers, Dave.
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A stamp collector with a sense of humour and a HABS fan....you are on my friends list!!! Merry Christmas!
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01:25:00pm
Okay, I'll go, but this happened years ago, when the average guy was fortunate to earn $75.00 a week. In the old Blue Scott's family album there were thousands of mounted stamps that cataloged between 5 and 20 cents, all mint and theoretically available to be use a postage and I sat down at the little card table in my bedroom one weekend tabulating their accumulated value.
I wondered what we could buy once I sold them off, especially the ones nominated in milliarden which I discovered was German for a billion. Of course most readers know that the total was in billions of millions since four Marks equaled one US dollar.
What was humiliating was that no one explain inflation issues to a ten year old, they just let me babble on for a week or two searching for what a new house on Long Island would cost and how much a trip to Bali Hi would set us back.
However, in the long run, the joke was on them as the interest born in those days has served to open the world of philately to me..
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"I sat down at the little card table in my bedroom one weekend tabulating their accumulated value. "
I once did that, I was probably 12. I looked up all my stamps in the Scott catalog and calculated out my substantial worth! That's where I learned one of life's lessons. As I proudly showed this to my father, he explained that stamps were only worth what someone was willing to pay, never mind what the catalog said. So at the next stamp and coin club meeting I set out my used and very common duplicates with full Scott value on them, not attracting a single sale.
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cdj1122: this happened years ago, when the average guy was fortunate to earn $75.00 a week [when I was] a ten year old...
What the hell, are you 103 now? Or are you doing the currency exchange for me since I'm Canadian? In which case I think US$75.00 "back in the day" is something like CA$18,284.91 per week now with inflation. That certainly is a FORTUNATE AVERAGE GUY.
Then again, it was German inflation that buggered you up in the first place so...
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04:55:54pm
" .... What the hell, are you 103 now? ..."
"103 "is a goal, and I plan to reach it or die trying.
Then I can sit in a rocking chair and be interviewed by the local news paper about the secret of a long life. I'll make up the most ridiculous lies just to see who is dumb enough to listen and perhaps start a fad diet just for giggles, which I'll not do in public so I don't lose my crusty image.
However, I remember my father's take home pay in the late 1940's when he reached the $100 a week mark as an electrician. I was about ten and I have two of his "1040"s from that era at home that were just over $5,000 counting overtime and a second part time job.
In 1957, as a full time grocery clerk just before college I made about 60¢ an hour, about $25 a week.
I often had a discussion with my dad in which he would claim that things were cheaper in the late 1930s when they were first married.
The fact was that when you broke certain common weekly purchases down to number of minutes worked to earn enough to buy certain common items,( he had been a securities messenger working for a firm on Wall Street until the war started. ) comparing a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, a glass of draft beer, and so on , between 1938, 1956, and years later 1972, the similarity was astoundingly close.
I bet if the same measurements were made today to someone in a decent entry level job it would be just as striking.
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Lemaven,
For a Habs fan, you are almost all right! I was only one year old when my team last won the cup. Yes... "My name is Andrew and I am a Leafs fan..." You don't hold it against me and I won't hold it against you. By the way, I have, in my 49 years, heard every Leafs joke that has ever been told. All I can say in my defence is that at least we have both won the same number of Stanley Cups in the past 22 years. I hope Price heals soon; but he'll have to watch out that he doesn't injure his back from carrying the whole team...
Back to the discussion. My stupid trick as a kid (can't remember the age, but I was probably still in the single digits - or so I hope for the sake of my dignity) was to get one of those stamp packs of 100 different worldwide from Woolworth's, which was mostly CTOs. That alone was a dumb move; but, even better, when I couldn't find any hinges, I licked them and stuck them in my album. At least it was CTOs...
Andrew
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06:14:18pm
" ... I licked them and stuck them in my album. At least it was CTOs... ... "
I never licked them but often soaked the gum away. As a matter of fact, often I still do since I do not collect gum, and the hinges adhere better on naked paper.
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08:40:39pm
Andrew - glad to see another Maple Leafs fan. Imagine me in the heart of Québec a few years ago during the Stanley Cup, in a small town, sitting in a McDonald's that had specially installed 3 HUGE tv screens to watch the Habs play - thank goodness I left my Maple Leafs coat at home (in Ontario!). I think the entire town was smushed into the McDonald's!!!
Dumbest thing I've ever done with my stamps? Ok, in my defense I'm Deaf and I didn't understand the guy at the flea market explain about hinges (which he didn't have to demonstrate his explanation). I had started collecting the cto's that came in the cereal boxes and then the $2 and $5 worldwide bags at Woolworth's. I had so far only used the Manila stock pages. So I was getting frustrated that I couldn't see my stamps in the Manila pages and asked the fella at the flea market about how to put the stamps on a piece of paper. I totally misunderstood what he was saying and a lady passing by tried to help him explain. She had no idea what he was talking about so she pointed to the scotch tape that was holding the nice paper to the wooden table next to him and then pointed at the back of the stamp. Home I went, happily knowing that now I would be able to put my stamps on paper in a binder. By this point I had bought several bags at Woolworth's and a few at the flea market. I spent the next few weeks with Mum's scotch tape, making little rolls and happily putting my stamps in a binder. Then of course I took my binder to the library and "discovered" how much money was in the binder - wow! And then the stupidest part? I had duplicates and I read in the Scott catalogue about trading so I somehow found a few stamp collectors in some magazine or something in the penpal section. So I sent my duplicate scotch taped stamps as a trade. I received a letter back from my penpal in Korea who asked me why there was tape on the stamps I sent because they were no good now. After a few letters back and forth with him trying to explain to me what hinges were (bear in mind his English was not very good and that was one of the reasons he wanted a penpal so that he could practice his English - so his explanations weren't exactly clear either) I discovered "hinges." Off to the hobby shop I went and lo and behold, next to the Manila stock pages were envelopes of hinges with instructions on how to use them. Oy!
Stupidest thing I've ever done as an adult stamp collector? When I first returned to collecting and eBay was in its early years, I found a stamp that I wanted for Nova Scotia - the only high value mint cent issue. I didn't know what "no gum" etc meant and decided to bid on it. Well of course I won it and paid about 75% or more of what the catalogue cv was only to discover a number of years later that the no gum seriously devalued the stamp. I felt like an idiot, but how did I know? Of course anyone with even one brain cell would have taken time to read the front pages of the Scott catalogue and find out what all the terms meant and understand that a mint no gum stamp was no where near the cv of a mnh. I'm still banging my head against the wall on that one. 
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06:27:08am
" ... Of course anyone with even one brain cell would have taken time to read the front pages of the Scott catalogue and find out what all the terms meant and understand that a mint no gum stamp was no where near the cv of a mnh. ..."
Oh, would that it were so !!!
How many times each month do we come across a member, sometimes a long term member, and one who does have functioning brain cells, who has never opened up and read the "fine print."
How many times do we handle politely a question from a member here or on some other site, that would be simple knowledge had the collector bought, borrowed or swiped one of the many excellent books about the "How Toos" of philately?
I know of several members of the local club in Florida, almost all long term collectors who, on the one hand have detailed lists of every stamp in their albums by Scott number, Scott listing, condition, status and sometimes abbreviations noting where and when they acquired the stamps, yet would ask me or the dealer who supports the club the simplest question about identification or printing. Did I mention one fellow who has a binder he carries to the club meetings and he keeps a running total of the catalog listings adding the supposed "value" of things like "60 used on paper @ 12¢ cost $7.20" and then the total of all the listed amounts in the Scott so he knows how much profit he made with that purchase."
I kid you not, I've seen his notebook every so often.
Fortunately he only collects US, Canada and one or two Caribbean island nations.
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When I was a kid my neghbour gave me a Manila envelope with 1000 worldwide stamps. I went to Woolco and bought a Harris "traveller" album to put them in. Cool red cover, extra flag stickers and best of all, a catalogue of all the amazing Harris albums I could buy one day. Minuteman (I'm Canadian but they weren't ), Statesman, Citation, Senior statesman etc. I wore that catalogue ragged.
Fast forward 20 years. It's now 1995. I have a baby boy and my obsession with golf is shelved because it keeps me away from home too much. I stumble across my old traveller album and wonder if people still collect stamps.
A trip to the library turns up Linns stamp news and the Scott catalogues. And a search on this new fangled "World Wide Web" turns up Stamporama. People still do this! I was hooked all over again.
Which brings me to my embarrassing moment. In my rush of collecting passion I decided to reorganize everything I had. Stamps were ripped out of my traveller album and moved to stock books alongside new purchases. My first album was chucked in the trash without a thought. And even worse, I soaked a ton of Malaysian stamps off covers my wife had saved from a childhood pen pal.
Both would've been much more "valuable " if I had left them alone. Because, as you likely know, the stamps were the most common there is. But the sentimental value is priceless.
A few years ago a friend asked me to look at his childhood collection. And you guessed it, it was in a traveller album. I was so jealous! 
Mark
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Have you done something in your pursuit of this hobby where afterwards you just shook your head in wonderment about what a complete moron you were? Is it so pathetic and embarrassing but incredibly hilarious that you've told the story more than once, but always pretending it was "someone else"?
Share your stories in this thread. I've only been a member a few days but already tons of you think my posts are hilarious and my attempts at philatelic-philanthropy are laudable (NOT!). But it's Christmastime, so I am giving this gang another chance by offering a special stamp-related gift to the person whose story I find the funniest. The only rule is it has to be about something you did (or didn't do) and is true (artistic license accepted). No recycling old jokes. I will close the contest part of this thread sometime Christmas eve.
Please give the gift of laughter ... I'll get it rolling:
It was frustrating trying to get back into collecting after 30 years, meeting with people who had inherited dear old grandma's collection of common missionary mix type stuff and musty old kids albums - and wanted $1,000 (firm) because they counted 4,000 stamps and the library book said they were worth at least 25c each. Oh yeah, and convinced she had a rare stamp but didn't know which one it was.
I finally got lucky with an inexpensive estate hoard and then had to put up with my wife laughing at my new obsession - a common reaction from those who know nothing about this beautiful hobby!. Late one night, assisted by a "few" (double) single-malts, I was going through a stack of homemade album pages and there, in the midst, was the holy grail: a 1959 Inverted Seaway. I rushed upstairs, pulled my wife out of bed and into my office crying, "We're rich, we're rich! You scoffed at me but look at this - the most famous stamp error in Canada! They printed it upside down - and I've got a copy! HA! That's easily $15,000 - what do you think of me now, eh? Still laughing?"
She looked down at the page, looked at me, turned the page over and said, "Now you've a whole page of upside down stamps and we're millionaires. Turn off the G#&%$# lights and get upstairs to bed now!"
Who's next?
Cheers, Dave.
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11:39:16am
re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
A stamp collector with a sense of humour and a HABS fan....you are on my friends list!!! Merry Christmas!
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
19 Dec 2015
01:25:00pm
re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
Okay, I'll go, but this happened years ago, when the average guy was fortunate to earn $75.00 a week. In the old Blue Scott's family album there were thousands of mounted stamps that cataloged between 5 and 20 cents, all mint and theoretically available to be use a postage and I sat down at the little card table in my bedroom one weekend tabulating their accumulated value.
I wondered what we could buy once I sold them off, especially the ones nominated in milliarden which I discovered was German for a billion. Of course most readers know that the total was in billions of millions since four Marks equaled one US dollar.
What was humiliating was that no one explain inflation issues to a ten year old, they just let me babble on for a week or two searching for what a new house on Long Island would cost and how much a trip to Bali Hi would set us back.
However, in the long run, the joke was on them as the interest born in those days has served to open the world of philately to me..
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re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
"I sat down at the little card table in my bedroom one weekend tabulating their accumulated value. "
I once did that, I was probably 12. I looked up all my stamps in the Scott catalog and calculated out my substantial worth! That's where I learned one of life's lessons. As I proudly showed this to my father, he explained that stamps were only worth what someone was willing to pay, never mind what the catalog said. So at the next stamp and coin club meeting I set out my used and very common duplicates with full Scott value on them, not attracting a single sale.
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re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
cdj1122: this happened years ago, when the average guy was fortunate to earn $75.00 a week [when I was] a ten year old...
What the hell, are you 103 now? Or are you doing the currency exchange for me since I'm Canadian? In which case I think US$75.00 "back in the day" is something like CA$18,284.91 per week now with inflation. That certainly is a FORTUNATE AVERAGE GUY.
Then again, it was German inflation that buggered you up in the first place so...
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
24 Dec 2015
04:55:54pm
re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
" .... What the hell, are you 103 now? ..."
"103 "is a goal, and I plan to reach it or die trying.
Then I can sit in a rocking chair and be interviewed by the local news paper about the secret of a long life. I'll make up the most ridiculous lies just to see who is dumb enough to listen and perhaps start a fad diet just for giggles, which I'll not do in public so I don't lose my crusty image.
However, I remember my father's take home pay in the late 1940's when he reached the $100 a week mark as an electrician. I was about ten and I have two of his "1040"s from that era at home that were just over $5,000 counting overtime and a second part time job.
In 1957, as a full time grocery clerk just before college I made about 60¢ an hour, about $25 a week.
I often had a discussion with my dad in which he would claim that things were cheaper in the late 1930s when they were first married.
The fact was that when you broke certain common weekly purchases down to number of minutes worked to earn enough to buy certain common items,( he had been a securities messenger working for a firm on Wall Street until the war started. ) comparing a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, a glass of draft beer, and so on , between 1938, 1956, and years later 1972, the similarity was astoundingly close.
I bet if the same measurements were made today to someone in a decent entry level job it would be just as striking.
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re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
Lemaven,
For a Habs fan, you are almost all right! I was only one year old when my team last won the cup. Yes... "My name is Andrew and I am a Leafs fan..." You don't hold it against me and I won't hold it against you. By the way, I have, in my 49 years, heard every Leafs joke that has ever been told. All I can say in my defence is that at least we have both won the same number of Stanley Cups in the past 22 years. I hope Price heals soon; but he'll have to watch out that he doesn't injure his back from carrying the whole team...
Back to the discussion. My stupid trick as a kid (can't remember the age, but I was probably still in the single digits - or so I hope for the sake of my dignity) was to get one of those stamp packs of 100 different worldwide from Woolworth's, which was mostly CTOs. That alone was a dumb move; but, even better, when I couldn't find any hinges, I licked them and stuck them in my album. At least it was CTOs...
Andrew
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
24 Dec 2015
06:14:18pm
re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
" ... I licked them and stuck them in my album. At least it was CTOs... ... "
I never licked them but often soaked the gum away. As a matter of fact, often I still do since I do not collect gum, and the hinges adhere better on naked paper.
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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).
24 Dec 2015
08:40:39pm
re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
Andrew - glad to see another Maple Leafs fan. Imagine me in the heart of Québec a few years ago during the Stanley Cup, in a small town, sitting in a McDonald's that had specially installed 3 HUGE tv screens to watch the Habs play - thank goodness I left my Maple Leafs coat at home (in Ontario!). I think the entire town was smushed into the McDonald's!!!
Dumbest thing I've ever done with my stamps? Ok, in my defense I'm Deaf and I didn't understand the guy at the flea market explain about hinges (which he didn't have to demonstrate his explanation). I had started collecting the cto's that came in the cereal boxes and then the $2 and $5 worldwide bags at Woolworth's. I had so far only used the Manila stock pages. So I was getting frustrated that I couldn't see my stamps in the Manila pages and asked the fella at the flea market about how to put the stamps on a piece of paper. I totally misunderstood what he was saying and a lady passing by tried to help him explain. She had no idea what he was talking about so she pointed to the scotch tape that was holding the nice paper to the wooden table next to him and then pointed at the back of the stamp. Home I went, happily knowing that now I would be able to put my stamps on paper in a binder. By this point I had bought several bags at Woolworth's and a few at the flea market. I spent the next few weeks with Mum's scotch tape, making little rolls and happily putting my stamps in a binder. Then of course I took my binder to the library and "discovered" how much money was in the binder - wow! And then the stupidest part? I had duplicates and I read in the Scott catalogue about trading so I somehow found a few stamp collectors in some magazine or something in the penpal section. So I sent my duplicate scotch taped stamps as a trade. I received a letter back from my penpal in Korea who asked me why there was tape on the stamps I sent because they were no good now. After a few letters back and forth with him trying to explain to me what hinges were (bear in mind his English was not very good and that was one of the reasons he wanted a penpal so that he could practice his English - so his explanations weren't exactly clear either) I discovered "hinges." Off to the hobby shop I went and lo and behold, next to the Manila stock pages were envelopes of hinges with instructions on how to use them. Oy!
Stupidest thing I've ever done as an adult stamp collector? When I first returned to collecting and eBay was in its early years, I found a stamp that I wanted for Nova Scotia - the only high value mint cent issue. I didn't know what "no gum" etc meant and decided to bid on it. Well of course I won it and paid about 75% or more of what the catalogue cv was only to discover a number of years later that the no gum seriously devalued the stamp. I felt like an idiot, but how did I know? Of course anyone with even one brain cell would have taken time to read the front pages of the Scott catalogue and find out what all the terms meant and understand that a mint no gum stamp was no where near the cv of a mnh. I'm still banging my head against the wall on that one.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
26 Dec 2015
06:27:08am
re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
" ... Of course anyone with even one brain cell would have taken time to read the front pages of the Scott catalogue and find out what all the terms meant and understand that a mint no gum stamp was no where near the cv of a mnh. ..."
Oh, would that it were so !!!
How many times each month do we come across a member, sometimes a long term member, and one who does have functioning brain cells, who has never opened up and read the "fine print."
How many times do we handle politely a question from a member here or on some other site, that would be simple knowledge had the collector bought, borrowed or swiped one of the many excellent books about the "How Toos" of philately?
I know of several members of the local club in Florida, almost all long term collectors who, on the one hand have detailed lists of every stamp in their albums by Scott number, Scott listing, condition, status and sometimes abbreviations noting where and when they acquired the stamps, yet would ask me or the dealer who supports the club the simplest question about identification or printing. Did I mention one fellow who has a binder he carries to the club meetings and he keeps a running total of the catalog listings adding the supposed "value" of things like "60 used on paper @ 12¢ cost $7.20" and then the total of all the listed amounts in the Scott so he knows how much profit he made with that purchase."
I kid you not, I've seen his notebook every so often.
Fortunately he only collects US, Canada and one or two Caribbean island nations.
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re: Stupid Stamp (Collector) Tricks
When I was a kid my neghbour gave me a Manila envelope with 1000 worldwide stamps. I went to Woolco and bought a Harris "traveller" album to put them in. Cool red cover, extra flag stickers and best of all, a catalogue of all the amazing Harris albums I could buy one day. Minuteman (I'm Canadian but they weren't ), Statesman, Citation, Senior statesman etc. I wore that catalogue ragged.
Fast forward 20 years. It's now 1995. I have a baby boy and my obsession with golf is shelved because it keeps me away from home too much. I stumble across my old traveller album and wonder if people still collect stamps.
A trip to the library turns up Linns stamp news and the Scott catalogues. And a search on this new fangled "World Wide Web" turns up Stamporama. People still do this! I was hooked all over again.
Which brings me to my embarrassing moment. In my rush of collecting passion I decided to reorganize everything I had. Stamps were ripped out of my traveller album and moved to stock books alongside new purchases. My first album was chucked in the trash without a thought. And even worse, I soaked a ton of Malaysian stamps off covers my wife had saved from a childhood pen pal.
Both would've been much more "valuable " if I had left them alone. Because, as you likely know, the stamps were the most common there is. But the sentimental value is priceless.
A few years ago a friend asked me to look at his childhood collection. And you guessed it, it was in a traveller album. I was so jealous!
Mark
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