Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Can you clearly think back to when you first became a stamp collector? If so, do you still admire the stamp or stamps that attracted you when you first started to collect? Or have you moved on to perhaps something more esoteric?
Here is a stamp, one of many, from the era of French Colonialism. This particular issue is overprinted by the words (in French) French Equitorial Africa TCHAD over the previously printed Middle Congo stamp. There are many stamps from this series overprinted or not. In a sidebar moment: Tchad or Chad in English retained its name after the French colonial period came to an end. Many did not.
For some reason this particular stamp, or perhaps its design, has held my fascination since I first saw it during my earliest of collecting memories stretching back to 1959. It has been augmented by design appreciation I suppose and encouraged me years ago to read up on the history of France and its Colonial ambitions.
I suppose its possible that as a small boy, the leopard in the jungle, the crossed elephant tusks were enticements to actually cause me to pause and really look at the stamp.
In more recent times, I have thought about the color combination and how striking it is, colors that were put to good use by the 1960s psychedelic poster artists many years later.
Now, more than nearly 60 years later, I will still pause at a stamp show if I see these stamps and look at them.
An old timer, well older than me, so I guess an old timer here in Grand Rapids shared with me the information that there are some stamps from this set that are worth a king's ransom--whatever that might be. As intrigued as I was by his assertion, I just like the stamp and its many cousins for the pure joy of observing them, used or mint.
As mentioned elsewhere, I have included in my stamp interests, stamps that have gum variations, plate flaws that are mostly ignored by my fellow philatelists but that first stamp that really got my attention so long ago--wow!
Will you take a moment and upload the stamp that you remember from your earliest philatelic memories and share the story of its attraction or is it possible you are slightly embarrassed by its pedigree--in that case, give us today's equivalent of the stamp that really knocks your socks off and why.
Bruce
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That's easy for me:
The stamp in the bottom right corner was purchased from the stamp counter at Famous Barr in St. Louis circa 1966 with my saved up pennies. My family went to St. Louis once each year to shop for clothes, etc. It was the nearest town with a department store and it was 2 hours away, so the trip to the stamp counter with my father was quite a treat. He would admire the set of Farley Special Printings and make a few purchases, but there was never anything in my price range - until I saw FA1. It's MNH and the first mint purchase I ever made. Everything else I had at the time was used. So it's my first mint completion of a set (a set of 1) and probably the ONLY mint stamp in my collection from the 60's purchased outside the post office.
Lars
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This takes me back to 1966. I was about 8 years old and I was reading the book "Johnny Appleseed". My father pointed out a group of Johnny Appleseed stamps on a package we had received and I was instantly in awe... there it was, so official! That was the stamp that got me interested in stamp collecting.
This is a page from the Scott Minuteman USA album I bought when I was 14. Even then, the very first Johnny Appleseed stamp was important to me. Note that I had a good condition used one in the appropriate spot, but I kept that soiled original stamp all these years (see arrow)!
Once I had established myself as collecting stamps by taking all the stamps off our mail and putting them into a loose leaf paper album I had made, my father brought home a stamp from South Africa! He had taken it from work. As I held it in my hands I was excited to actually have something from Africa in my grasp! It felt so far away and exotic! Never mind that I was living in Izmir, Turkey where my father was US Army attached to NATO! So the stamp bug had bit!
I still feel affection for the US stamps of the 1966-1979 era, the time frame that I was collecting as a kid. In my teens I got exposed to US stamps of all eras and when I was 14 I fell in love with the 1903 Ben Franklin one cent stamp (see my avatar!) that I found on a post card. I still have that card, the one that started my huge collection of that one cent stamp!
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It was probably 1961. I was 13 and had just started collecting a year or two earlier. I was making one of my regular visits to the post office to buy mint singles for my collection. The postmaster was pulling partial sheets out of the drawer and then suddenly, there in his hand, was a partial sheet of the 8c US #1096 Magsaysay stamp from the Champions of Liberty set. I knew it had been released a few years earlier and I knew I didn't have it in my collection. I remember thinking these stamps had been in that drawer for a few years (since 1957 actually) and must already be worth more than 8c each! I was thinking BARGAIN! And I was thinking I could buy some extras, save them for a few years and make some real money! 
I think I bought a block of 8, one for my collection and 7 as an investment. I'm pretty sure I used that investment for postage 15 to 20 years ago! That unexpected discovery at the post office made the stamp memorable, even if it was a failed investment.
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07:33:17am
"... Can you clearly think back to when you first became a stamp collector? ...."
It is easy, both times.
I was born in 1939 just after the beginning of the European war, and all through the dark days after the Pearl Harbor attack. My dad was a Chief Bosun's Mate in the US Coast Guard stationed at Sheepshead Bay CG training station, and got home many nights after running a small patrol boat around New York harbor. When they had the chance, my mom and dad sat at the kitchen table after dinner, heavy blackout curtains drawn across the window. There was a small lamp on the kitchen table they could work by and not violate the blackout regulations, tearing the corners from envelopes, dropping the on-paper stamps into a small bowl of warm water, and after separation and a short bath in a second bowl of clean water, laying the damp stamps on sheets of newspaper, usually the New York Herald Tribune classified section, to dry. When they were done there would be a pile of damp stamps on quartered newspaper pages with a heavy dictionary atop to flatten the stamps.
Of course, the next night the dry pressed stamps were sorted into small envelopes created from the nether end of the envelopes that had been stripped of the stamps the previous nights. I actually have several of these now seventy year old envelope segments on which my folks wrote the country's name for identification sill in a file drawer, now greatly outnumbered by newer glassines and 102 cards, and a multitude of additional stamps.
There was an AM radio on a varnished wooden shelf that dad had made and attached to the wall in the kitchen right over the place where the ironing board was concealed in the wall. My mom could listen to Bing Crosby ("The Moon of Manakoora" and "Where the Blue of the Night, Meets the Gold of the Day") as she worked in the afternoons. The height might also have been to keep it out of my brother's and my reach. They played news reports, and such that there were in those days, mystery programs, for instance; "The FBI in Peace and War", "The Shadow" (Who knew what evil lurked within the hearts of men.), "The Life of Riley" and "The Green Hornet."
A common stamp (SC#900) that was issued at the beginning of the war, a green $0.02 depicted an anti-aircraft artillery piece just like the ones em-placed next to the Belt Parkway along the shoreline was a favorite, no, not for a collection, but to be set on the rug surrounding the metal Spitfire and one or two B-25s, that I flew over Germany or Japan nightly, at least until I was sent to bed.
Eventually, I was allowed to help with the soaking process.
Dad had some contacts at the Stamp building on Nassau Street and the supply of stamps to soak seemed inexhaustible. Later, when I was older he sometimes took me over the river to lower Manhattan to visit dealers and sold things he had accumulated before the war when he worked for George Burr and Company, a large financial brokerage. Once or twice I saw him buy a used album from one dealer and resell it to another by the end of the day. In those pre-war days financial documents were moved around the city by courier or mail and he had some friends in the mail room.
But playing with the green 2¢ when I was five or six years old was not collecting.
One day, when I was about six dad brought home several sheets of stamps that he carefully separated into sets of three. Franklin Roosevelt had passed away a month or two earlier and three stamps were issued in memoriam. (The fourth was not issued til the next year.) My parents were staunch Republicans and to them Roosevelt seemed to be the spawn of the devil. The mint issues were sold to a dealer and I was given used examples that I put in a blank notebook. Mom and dad disliked Roosevelt intensely, but Mrs Silver, my first and second grade teacher at PS 95 a few bvlcks away, described him as a saint.
I think that set qualifies as the first stamps I actually collected for my own book.
But like most young boys, eventually collecting stamps got put aside. I always saved the envelopes or at least the stamps from mail. In 1965 on a rainy Saturday afternoon I was home between Germany/ Great Britain trips and having nothing important to do, opened one of those old albums that had been on the shelf for ten or twelve years. Thumbing through the stamps in them, I came across a page with three spaces for stamps #s 1-3 of the Tokelau Islands. They are small atolls just north of Samoa in the South Pacific that I had visited a few years earlier while in the US Coast Guard. My interest sparked anew. I spent much of that afternoon looking through the bags and boxes of stamps that filed one drawer of a big old wooden desk. That led to a visit to Macys and Gimbals stamp counters, a new Harris Citation album that accompanied me to sea in the next years, and I've been an active collector since. I still stop at the Tokelau pages on occasion and smile at the three stamps I purchased then that brought me back to the hobby.
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Keesindy, that's a great story of youthful speculation. My similar story was in 1970. We were at a US Army post in Italy and in the snack bar they had stamp machine. I immediately noticed the C61 7 cent airmail coil stamps showing in the little window!
The wheels in my little head started turning and I wanted to empty the machine. My father, who held the money, was not so enthusiastic. The machine was vending a strip of three for a quarter. My father was opposed to paying more than face value for a stamp, but I convinced him that these were at least ten years old, ANCIENT in my book, and would be a sound investment.
I was a persistent salesman, even back then, so he relented and gave me a dollar of my own money, and I bought four of the little folders of this stamp. I was overjoyed since this was the oldest mint airmail stamp I owned at the time. I did keep a few, of which I still own today. The rest I traded with my friends for some of their better stamps for my collection.
I
Such are the exciting stamp stories from our lost youth. I can only imagine what that kid would think of my collection today. A lot of what I collect are things that I found exciting then, but never thought I could own, so today I have them. When I do thumb through the pages of my albums, that little kid in me is very happy indeed!
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A great story, Tom. It's funny how some of these experiences stick with us all our lives while others, perhaps more important, get lost among the synapses.
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Hi Everyone;
@ stampme;
I too was attracted to the colonial stamps of Africa, very similar to the one you have posted.
I vowed to somehow get to go to as many African nations as possible. I joined the US Navy in 1966 and was stuck in Newport RI, on a destroyer tender, the Arcadia AD23. However as soon as I heard about an opening in the Middle East, I jumped at it. Luckily it was considered anything but choice duty, but I was not deterred at all.
As a result I got to be home ported at Manama Bahrain, in the Persian gulf. I was assigned to the Valcour AGF1 (auxiliary flag ship). I later discovered that because it was a diplomatic ship, it was going on frequent cruises to many nation in the Indian ocean.
So I got to visit Mombasa, Kenya, and Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, and my dream had come true...TWICE OVER. However I also got to visit Bambay, India, Madras India, and Karachi, Pakistan, where I became addicted to curries and chutneys. I still enjoy these treats and stock and use most all Indian spices.
I also visited Dubai, Muscat & Oman, Abu Dhabi and several others too.
But the best port of all was Seychelles, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
In every one of these ports we were there from 3-6 days. At one time I was in charge of the ship's photolab, and responsible for producing photos for our cruise book. It was like a high school yearbook on steroids. Lots of photos of drunken sailors doing stupid things in port cities.
When we ran low on supplies in the photolab, I had to go ashore to a camera shop, and using a Navy purchase order, procure print paper, and chemicals.
On our way home to Norfolk shipyard, for repairs we refueled in Recife Brazil, which for me was icing on the cake!!! Yeah NAVY!!!
@ lars;
Nice looking page
@ Benfranklin;
Where did you get those pages? I've never seen stamp album borders like that, nice.
Just sortin' it out....
TuskenRaider
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"@ Benfranklin;
Where did you get those pages? I've never seen stamp album borders like that, nice."
That's a Scott Minuteman US album circa 1972. I always liked those pages. I've kept my original album from my teens together.
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My first real fascinations were with the German colony Kaiser yachts. They were classic engraved beauties. My only copy was an unused common. They remained a focus and later I realized the value of used stamps and their related postal history and information.
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You can never can tell what will activate an interest. For me, two leather bound stamp albums which just exuded quality raised an interest.
I bought a leather bound Scott USA Hingeless album in 1975 to house my new restart collection, a major investment for me at the time which I have continued with since. A year ago I bought the equivalent Scott Canada Hingeless album at a stamp show which has jump started my return to stamp collecting in earnest. I really like the feel of the leather bound albums. I've continued to work on the Canadian album with good progress on it with completion now from 1933 through 1975 and a few older mint issues.
Also, I have gotten back into an International I album that I had purchased ten years ago. Just hit 8,800 different in the International starting from a base of 2,800 but have, also, acquired two new, never used albums, International Part II and International Part III for coverage from 1940-49 and 1949-55, respectively, which were older albums from which the shrink wrap had never been removed plus an initial 1,000 clear Scott stamp mounts which I will use in the albums. It is been amazing so far just to count the number of issues by each country in the Part II album. I am building a spreadsheet with the number of issues for each country for use in tracking my album filling work and have counted up to Germany so far. I have, also, started building a checklist similar to the one done for the International Part I album on http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/ and http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/ in Excel for the Part II album and have completed the USA portion (the easy portion as the album had the Scott numbers for each stamp). Now it gets harder!
Interesting facts: China has 536 different stamps per International Part II for the highest number so far during my count up to Germany. Other large count countries include Austria 320, Belgium 308, Bulgaria 332, Czechoslovakia 395, and France 461. Smallest were Antigua 4 and Estonia 4 followed by British Guiana 6 and Cayman Islands 6.
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Looking at the original stamp from Tchad, I got to thinking "how many kids today know where Tchad is or have ever heard of it?". I have 2 sons in their 30s with good jobs and I would bet one of your cents against GBP1.000 that neither of them have ( nor would they want to !)
I truly believe that our life is richer through collecting stamps, and stamp collecting is the ultimate "innocent pastime". I admit that though I have thousands more stamps now than I had then ( and I have a lot more knowledge ) some of the innocence has gone - so then was definitely better vthan now.
Malcolm
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Since I started collecting in 1947, old to me is pre-1900. I was lucky enough to collect most of those oldies that were affordable however my greatest joy of collecting was in the WWII era, especially actual letters from GI's to home and letters to GI's. To this day I'm still fascinated in the history of the period and the growth of our nation because of it. Of course, all pictured on US stamps. I recently attempted to update my material from the mid 80's to present but found it not to my liking, too many issues about nothing important or over producing stamps for the sake of increasing revenues. Still enjoy the printing of stamp pages for my collection but I no longer have the enthusiasm I once had for collecting for collecting sake. Sadly I do not have the time required it takes to stay on top of STAMP COLLECTING. I now view it as a hobby not a passion.
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When I was at school I saw these sorts of stamps about and, although common, I was attracted to the various colours in the first set and the line artwork in the second.
Then there were these - and I was hooked!
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Hi all,
I wanted to chime in here with my short story as well.
I am 50. I just got interested in Stamp Collecting, so while not necessarily young, I am a new, fresh collector. This proves that "new" collectors still occur or are created.
I had always been attracted to the colorful nature of stamps, but had not really given it too much deep thought as a kid and growing up. I liked stamps and always liked to look at all of them at the Post Office when I would visit.
My interest in collecting started when I happened to come across a series of YouTube videos that started my "stamp journey". This series of videos would take one stamp randomly from a large collection and then "explore" the stamp and tell the stamps back story through an interesting video. It was really cool to learn about history, geography and the world through these videos. I had never thought of stamp collecting from this angle.
These videos exploded my interest immediatly as I thought back to so many stamps that I had seen where I thought, "I wonder why that design?", or "Wow, that one is strange!", etc, and I wanted to start researching these stamps to a higher degree.
That's it! And now I'm hooked. I simply look through my growing collection, picking out interesting stamps, and then I research the backstory behind the stamp, as little or as much as I want to. I then post all of the research and the stamp in a custom book that I have acquired.
Along the way, I am also finding some that I want to collect just for their look as a collection.
Right now, I find it quite challenging, intriguing and exciting.
The stamp that started it all for me was the 1965 5c Florida Settlement Commemorative Stamp.
Thanks for reading.
JR
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02:11:06am
" ... I would bet one of your cents against GBP1.000 that neither of them have ( nor would they want to !) ..."
I invented a game with a cousin when we were about ten years of age. It consisted of he, or I, finding a place, river, sea, or mountain range shown on our globe and then after spnning it about, the the other tried finding it.
Fast forward twenty-five years.
I introduced a similar game to my childrn but put up a prize for the one who could stump the other three times, or me once. A 30" globe was being discarded by the local library as a new one had been bought which then I bought for a $5.00 donation.
So, while I do not mean to brag, I'd bet four out of my six children, now grown, o course, would still point to Central Africa in a heartbeat.
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"Looking at the original stamp from Tchad, I got to thinking "how many kids today know where Tchad is or have ever heard of it?". I have 2 sons in their 30s with good jobs and I would bet one of your cents against GBP1.000 that neither of them have ( nor would they want to !)
I truly believe that our life is richer through collecting stamps, and stamp collecting is the ultimate "innocent pastime". I admit that though I have thousands more stamps now than I had then ( and I have a lot more knowledge ) some of the innocence has gone - so then was definitely better vthan now."
I agree Malcolm................
When I went to school Geography was maps of the world and we had to mark in the countries, capital cities, main rivers and so on.
That is so long ago!
Geography today is the soil levels and other things and my grandchildren only know where the nearest KFC is!
Stamps certainly jog my memories and even force me to look up a country or a state I have forgotten. I/We are a dying breed! Kids these days don't even watch the news of their state let alone the world.
SAD 
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I distinctly remember receiving a brand new Mincus Worldwide album as a Christmas present, in 1966. I was 9 years old. The first stamp I placed in it was the 1966 US Christmas issue. Had loads of fun filling all those empty spaces for commemoratives. And, learned a bit of history in the process! Really enjoyed the challenge of discovering the issuing country of 'unknown' stamps.
Wasn't long after that that I inherited my uncles' collection, in an old 1930s Modern album. Got a few nice condition upgrades out of that, but the real catch was a nascent collection of mint (hinged) Nazi semi-postals. Recently, I completed that collection, with great pride.
Have thought many times about unloading that Mincus album - I've pulled most of the 'interesting' stuff back out of it for specialty collections. But, I can't quite bring myself to do it...
Happy Collecting!
-Paul
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My father was an accountant for a rope factory, and brought back many stamps from British Commonwealth countries and, I suppose unsurprisingly, from Iceland. This was in the late 1950s, and it the engraved BC stamps of those times that took the eye. Their two-colour, bordered designs, typically featuring fauna, flora, places of interest and national products, were a source of wonder and fascination in an otherwise drab, black-and-white decade.
I knew nothing then, of course, of colonialism or the history of the British Empire and, if I thought about it at all, assumed that we brought industry and wealth to those far-off places out of the goodness of our hearts. The prettiness of the stamps, the benignly attractive portrait of our young Queen, and even the obvious production values (compared to certain stamps from comparatively 'foreign' countries) helped to reassure me that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. If that sounds naïve, it was not such a bad thing for a young lad to believe, still a few years off from the troubles and trials of adolescence.
Here's a page from the Bahamas, now I believe a thoroughly Americanised place, but then just one of many faraway locations whose stamps brought something bright and British to a boy's life.
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"My father was an accountant for a rope factory..."
Guthrum,
By any small chance was the rope factory Garnock Bibby & Co. of Liverpool (bought by British Ropes in the 1960s)?
If so I will send you a PM with a story about Garnock and how two hobbies can intersect. If not, oh well it would have made a nice story.
Dennis
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06:16:48pm
Here's a thought and request.
Can you clearly think back to when you first became a stamp collector? If so, do you still admire the stamp or stamps that attracted you when you first started to collect? Or have you moved on to perhaps something more esoteric?
Here is a stamp, one of many, from the era of French Colonialism. This particular issue is overprinted by the words (in French) French Equitorial Africa TCHAD over the previously printed Middle Congo stamp. There are many stamps from this series overprinted or not. In a sidebar moment: Tchad or Chad in English retained its name after the French colonial period came to an end. Many did not.
For some reason this particular stamp, or perhaps its design, has held my fascination since I first saw it during my earliest of collecting memories stretching back to 1959. It has been augmented by design appreciation I suppose and encouraged me years ago to read up on the history of France and its Colonial ambitions.
I suppose its possible that as a small boy, the leopard in the jungle, the crossed elephant tusks were enticements to actually cause me to pause and really look at the stamp.
In more recent times, I have thought about the color combination and how striking it is, colors that were put to good use by the 1960s psychedelic poster artists many years later.
Now, more than nearly 60 years later, I will still pause at a stamp show if I see these stamps and look at them.
An old timer, well older than me, so I guess an old timer here in Grand Rapids shared with me the information that there are some stamps from this set that are worth a king's ransom--whatever that might be. As intrigued as I was by his assertion, I just like the stamp and its many cousins for the pure joy of observing them, used or mint.
As mentioned elsewhere, I have included in my stamp interests, stamps that have gum variations, plate flaws that are mostly ignored by my fellow philatelists but that first stamp that really got my attention so long ago--wow!
Will you take a moment and upload the stamp that you remember from your earliest philatelic memories and share the story of its attraction or is it possible you are slightly embarrassed by its pedigree--in that case, give us today's equivalent of the stamp that really knocks your socks off and why.
Bruce
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re: Old versus New
That's easy for me:
The stamp in the bottom right corner was purchased from the stamp counter at Famous Barr in St. Louis circa 1966 with my saved up pennies. My family went to St. Louis once each year to shop for clothes, etc. It was the nearest town with a department store and it was 2 hours away, so the trip to the stamp counter with my father was quite a treat. He would admire the set of Farley Special Printings and make a few purchases, but there was never anything in my price range - until I saw FA1. It's MNH and the first mint purchase I ever made. Everything else I had at the time was used. So it's my first mint completion of a set (a set of 1) and probably the ONLY mint stamp in my collection from the 60's purchased outside the post office.
Lars
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re: Old versus New
This takes me back to 1966. I was about 8 years old and I was reading the book "Johnny Appleseed". My father pointed out a group of Johnny Appleseed stamps on a package we had received and I was instantly in awe... there it was, so official! That was the stamp that got me interested in stamp collecting.
This is a page from the Scott Minuteman USA album I bought when I was 14. Even then, the very first Johnny Appleseed stamp was important to me. Note that I had a good condition used one in the appropriate spot, but I kept that soiled original stamp all these years (see arrow)!
Once I had established myself as collecting stamps by taking all the stamps off our mail and putting them into a loose leaf paper album I had made, my father brought home a stamp from South Africa! He had taken it from work. As I held it in my hands I was excited to actually have something from Africa in my grasp! It felt so far away and exotic! Never mind that I was living in Izmir, Turkey where my father was US Army attached to NATO! So the stamp bug had bit!
I still feel affection for the US stamps of the 1966-1979 era, the time frame that I was collecting as a kid. In my teens I got exposed to US stamps of all eras and when I was 14 I fell in love with the 1903 Ben Franklin one cent stamp (see my avatar!) that I found on a post card. I still have that card, the one that started my huge collection of that one cent stamp!
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re: Old versus New
It was probably 1961. I was 13 and had just started collecting a year or two earlier. I was making one of my regular visits to the post office to buy mint singles for my collection. The postmaster was pulling partial sheets out of the drawer and then suddenly, there in his hand, was a partial sheet of the 8c US #1096 Magsaysay stamp from the Champions of Liberty set. I knew it had been released a few years earlier and I knew I didn't have it in my collection. I remember thinking these stamps had been in that drawer for a few years (since 1957 actually) and must already be worth more than 8c each! I was thinking BARGAIN! And I was thinking I could buy some extras, save them for a few years and make some real money!
I think I bought a block of 8, one for my collection and 7 as an investment. I'm pretty sure I used that investment for postage 15 to 20 years ago! That unexpected discovery at the post office made the stamp memorable, even if it was a failed investment.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
20 Jul 2017
07:33:17am
re: Old versus New
"... Can you clearly think back to when you first became a stamp collector? ...."
It is easy, both times.
I was born in 1939 just after the beginning of the European war, and all through the dark days after the Pearl Harbor attack. My dad was a Chief Bosun's Mate in the US Coast Guard stationed at Sheepshead Bay CG training station, and got home many nights after running a small patrol boat around New York harbor. When they had the chance, my mom and dad sat at the kitchen table after dinner, heavy blackout curtains drawn across the window. There was a small lamp on the kitchen table they could work by and not violate the blackout regulations, tearing the corners from envelopes, dropping the on-paper stamps into a small bowl of warm water, and after separation and a short bath in a second bowl of clean water, laying the damp stamps on sheets of newspaper, usually the New York Herald Tribune classified section, to dry. When they were done there would be a pile of damp stamps on quartered newspaper pages with a heavy dictionary atop to flatten the stamps.
Of course, the next night the dry pressed stamps were sorted into small envelopes created from the nether end of the envelopes that had been stripped of the stamps the previous nights. I actually have several of these now seventy year old envelope segments on which my folks wrote the country's name for identification sill in a file drawer, now greatly outnumbered by newer glassines and 102 cards, and a multitude of additional stamps.
There was an AM radio on a varnished wooden shelf that dad had made and attached to the wall in the kitchen right over the place where the ironing board was concealed in the wall. My mom could listen to Bing Crosby ("The Moon of Manakoora" and "Where the Blue of the Night, Meets the Gold of the Day") as she worked in the afternoons. The height might also have been to keep it out of my brother's and my reach. They played news reports, and such that there were in those days, mystery programs, for instance; "The FBI in Peace and War", "The Shadow" (Who knew what evil lurked within the hearts of men.), "The Life of Riley" and "The Green Hornet."
A common stamp (SC#900) that was issued at the beginning of the war, a green $0.02 depicted an anti-aircraft artillery piece just like the ones em-placed next to the Belt Parkway along the shoreline was a favorite, no, not for a collection, but to be set on the rug surrounding the metal Spitfire and one or two B-25s, that I flew over Germany or Japan nightly, at least until I was sent to bed.
Eventually, I was allowed to help with the soaking process.
Dad had some contacts at the Stamp building on Nassau Street and the supply of stamps to soak seemed inexhaustible. Later, when I was older he sometimes took me over the river to lower Manhattan to visit dealers and sold things he had accumulated before the war when he worked for George Burr and Company, a large financial brokerage. Once or twice I saw him buy a used album from one dealer and resell it to another by the end of the day. In those pre-war days financial documents were moved around the city by courier or mail and he had some friends in the mail room.
But playing with the green 2¢ when I was five or six years old was not collecting.
One day, when I was about six dad brought home several sheets of stamps that he carefully separated into sets of three. Franklin Roosevelt had passed away a month or two earlier and three stamps were issued in memoriam. (The fourth was not issued til the next year.) My parents were staunch Republicans and to them Roosevelt seemed to be the spawn of the devil. The mint issues were sold to a dealer and I was given used examples that I put in a blank notebook. Mom and dad disliked Roosevelt intensely, but Mrs Silver, my first and second grade teacher at PS 95 a few bvlcks away, described him as a saint.
I think that set qualifies as the first stamps I actually collected for my own book.
But like most young boys, eventually collecting stamps got put aside. I always saved the envelopes or at least the stamps from mail. In 1965 on a rainy Saturday afternoon I was home between Germany/ Great Britain trips and having nothing important to do, opened one of those old albums that had been on the shelf for ten or twelve years. Thumbing through the stamps in them, I came across a page with three spaces for stamps #s 1-3 of the Tokelau Islands. They are small atolls just north of Samoa in the South Pacific that I had visited a few years earlier while in the US Coast Guard. My interest sparked anew. I spent much of that afternoon looking through the bags and boxes of stamps that filed one drawer of a big old wooden desk. That led to a visit to Macys and Gimbals stamp counters, a new Harris Citation album that accompanied me to sea in the next years, and I've been an active collector since. I still stop at the Tokelau pages on occasion and smile at the three stamps I purchased then that brought me back to the hobby.
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re: Old versus New
Keesindy, that's a great story of youthful speculation. My similar story was in 1970. We were at a US Army post in Italy and in the snack bar they had stamp machine. I immediately noticed the C61 7 cent airmail coil stamps showing in the little window!
The wheels in my little head started turning and I wanted to empty the machine. My father, who held the money, was not so enthusiastic. The machine was vending a strip of three for a quarter. My father was opposed to paying more than face value for a stamp, but I convinced him that these were at least ten years old, ANCIENT in my book, and would be a sound investment.
I was a persistent salesman, even back then, so he relented and gave me a dollar of my own money, and I bought four of the little folders of this stamp. I was overjoyed since this was the oldest mint airmail stamp I owned at the time. I did keep a few, of which I still own today. The rest I traded with my friends for some of their better stamps for my collection.
I
Such are the exciting stamp stories from our lost youth. I can only imagine what that kid would think of my collection today. A lot of what I collect are things that I found exciting then, but never thought I could own, so today I have them. When I do thumb through the pages of my albums, that little kid in me is very happy indeed!
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re: Old versus New
A great story, Tom. It's funny how some of these experiences stick with us all our lives while others, perhaps more important, get lost among the synapses.
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re: Old versus New
Hi Everyone;
@ stampme;
I too was attracted to the colonial stamps of Africa, very similar to the one you have posted.
I vowed to somehow get to go to as many African nations as possible. I joined the US Navy in 1966 and was stuck in Newport RI, on a destroyer tender, the Arcadia AD23. However as soon as I heard about an opening in the Middle East, I jumped at it. Luckily it was considered anything but choice duty, but I was not deterred at all.
As a result I got to be home ported at Manama Bahrain, in the Persian gulf. I was assigned to the Valcour AGF1 (auxiliary flag ship). I later discovered that because it was a diplomatic ship, it was going on frequent cruises to many nation in the Indian ocean.
So I got to visit Mombasa, Kenya, and Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, and my dream had come true...TWICE OVER. However I also got to visit Bambay, India, Madras India, and Karachi, Pakistan, where I became addicted to curries and chutneys. I still enjoy these treats and stock and use most all Indian spices.
I also visited Dubai, Muscat & Oman, Abu Dhabi and several others too.
But the best port of all was Seychelles, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
In every one of these ports we were there from 3-6 days. At one time I was in charge of the ship's photolab, and responsible for producing photos for our cruise book. It was like a high school yearbook on steroids. Lots of photos of drunken sailors doing stupid things in port cities.
When we ran low on supplies in the photolab, I had to go ashore to a camera shop, and using a Navy purchase order, procure print paper, and chemicals.
On our way home to Norfolk shipyard, for repairs we refueled in Recife Brazil, which for me was icing on the cake!!! Yeah NAVY!!!
@ lars;
Nice looking page
@ Benfranklin;
Where did you get those pages? I've never seen stamp album borders like that, nice.
Just sortin' it out....
TuskenRaider
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"@ Benfranklin;
Where did you get those pages? I've never seen stamp album borders like that, nice."
That's a Scott Minuteman US album circa 1972. I always liked those pages. I've kept my original album from my teens together.
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My first real fascinations were with the German colony Kaiser yachts. They were classic engraved beauties. My only copy was an unused common. They remained a focus and later I realized the value of used stamps and their related postal history and information.
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You can never can tell what will activate an interest. For me, two leather bound stamp albums which just exuded quality raised an interest.
I bought a leather bound Scott USA Hingeless album in 1975 to house my new restart collection, a major investment for me at the time which I have continued with since. A year ago I bought the equivalent Scott Canada Hingeless album at a stamp show which has jump started my return to stamp collecting in earnest. I really like the feel of the leather bound albums. I've continued to work on the Canadian album with good progress on it with completion now from 1933 through 1975 and a few older mint issues.
Also, I have gotten back into an International I album that I had purchased ten years ago. Just hit 8,800 different in the International starting from a base of 2,800 but have, also, acquired two new, never used albums, International Part II and International Part III for coverage from 1940-49 and 1949-55, respectively, which were older albums from which the shrink wrap had never been removed plus an initial 1,000 clear Scott stamp mounts which I will use in the albums. It is been amazing so far just to count the number of issues by each country in the Part II album. I am building a spreadsheet with the number of issues for each country for use in tracking my album filling work and have counted up to Germany so far. I have, also, started building a checklist similar to the one done for the International Part I album on http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/ and http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/ in Excel for the Part II album and have completed the USA portion (the easy portion as the album had the Scott numbers for each stamp). Now it gets harder!
Interesting facts: China has 536 different stamps per International Part II for the highest number so far during my count up to Germany. Other large count countries include Austria 320, Belgium 308, Bulgaria 332, Czechoslovakia 395, and France 461. Smallest were Antigua 4 and Estonia 4 followed by British Guiana 6 and Cayman Islands 6.
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05:01:35pm
re: Old versus New
Looking at the original stamp from Tchad, I got to thinking "how many kids today know where Tchad is or have ever heard of it?". I have 2 sons in their 30s with good jobs and I would bet one of your cents against GBP1.000 that neither of them have ( nor would they want to !)
I truly believe that our life is richer through collecting stamps, and stamp collecting is the ultimate "innocent pastime". I admit that though I have thousands more stamps now than I had then ( and I have a lot more knowledge ) some of the innocence has gone - so then was definitely better vthan now.
Malcolm
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Since I started collecting in 1947, old to me is pre-1900. I was lucky enough to collect most of those oldies that were affordable however my greatest joy of collecting was in the WWII era, especially actual letters from GI's to home and letters to GI's. To this day I'm still fascinated in the history of the period and the growth of our nation because of it. Of course, all pictured on US stamps. I recently attempted to update my material from the mid 80's to present but found it not to my liking, too many issues about nothing important or over producing stamps for the sake of increasing revenues. Still enjoy the printing of stamp pages for my collection but I no longer have the enthusiasm I once had for collecting for collecting sake. Sadly I do not have the time required it takes to stay on top of STAMP COLLECTING. I now view it as a hobby not a passion.
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04:52:13pm
re: Old versus New
When I was at school I saw these sorts of stamps about and, although common, I was attracted to the various colours in the first set and the line artwork in the second.
Then there were these - and I was hooked!
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Hi all,
I wanted to chime in here with my short story as well.
I am 50. I just got interested in Stamp Collecting, so while not necessarily young, I am a new, fresh collector. This proves that "new" collectors still occur or are created.
I had always been attracted to the colorful nature of stamps, but had not really given it too much deep thought as a kid and growing up. I liked stamps and always liked to look at all of them at the Post Office when I would visit.
My interest in collecting started when I happened to come across a series of YouTube videos that started my "stamp journey". This series of videos would take one stamp randomly from a large collection and then "explore" the stamp and tell the stamps back story through an interesting video. It was really cool to learn about history, geography and the world through these videos. I had never thought of stamp collecting from this angle.
These videos exploded my interest immediatly as I thought back to so many stamps that I had seen where I thought, "I wonder why that design?", or "Wow, that one is strange!", etc, and I wanted to start researching these stamps to a higher degree.
That's it! And now I'm hooked. I simply look through my growing collection, picking out interesting stamps, and then I research the backstory behind the stamp, as little or as much as I want to. I then post all of the research and the stamp in a custom book that I have acquired.
Along the way, I am also finding some that I want to collect just for their look as a collection.
Right now, I find it quite challenging, intriguing and exciting.
The stamp that started it all for me was the 1965 5c Florida Settlement Commemorative Stamp.
Thanks for reading.
JR
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
02 Apr 2018
02:11:06am
re: Old versus New
" ... I would bet one of your cents against GBP1.000 that neither of them have ( nor would they want to !) ..."
I invented a game with a cousin when we were about ten years of age. It consisted of he, or I, finding a place, river, sea, or mountain range shown on our globe and then after spnning it about, the the other tried finding it.
Fast forward twenty-five years.
I introduced a similar game to my childrn but put up a prize for the one who could stump the other three times, or me once. A 30" globe was being discarded by the local library as a new one had been bought which then I bought for a $5.00 donation.
So, while I do not mean to brag, I'd bet four out of my six children, now grown, o course, would still point to Central Africa in a heartbeat.
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"Looking at the original stamp from Tchad, I got to thinking "how many kids today know where Tchad is or have ever heard of it?". I have 2 sons in their 30s with good jobs and I would bet one of your cents against GBP1.000 that neither of them have ( nor would they want to !)
I truly believe that our life is richer through collecting stamps, and stamp collecting is the ultimate "innocent pastime". I admit that though I have thousands more stamps now than I had then ( and I have a lot more knowledge ) some of the innocence has gone - so then was definitely better vthan now."
I agree Malcolm................
When I went to school Geography was maps of the world and we had to mark in the countries, capital cities, main rivers and so on.
That is so long ago!
Geography today is the soil levels and other things and my grandchildren only know where the nearest KFC is!
Stamps certainly jog my memories and even force me to look up a country or a state I have forgotten. I/We are a dying breed! Kids these days don't even watch the news of their state let alone the world.
SAD
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08:11:41am
re: Old versus New
I distinctly remember receiving a brand new Mincus Worldwide album as a Christmas present, in 1966. I was 9 years old. The first stamp I placed in it was the 1966 US Christmas issue. Had loads of fun filling all those empty spaces for commemoratives. And, learned a bit of history in the process! Really enjoyed the challenge of discovering the issuing country of 'unknown' stamps.
Wasn't long after that that I inherited my uncles' collection, in an old 1930s Modern album. Got a few nice condition upgrades out of that, but the real catch was a nascent collection of mint (hinged) Nazi semi-postals. Recently, I completed that collection, with great pride.
Have thought many times about unloading that Mincus album - I've pulled most of the 'interesting' stuff back out of it for specialty collections. But, I can't quite bring myself to do it...
Happy Collecting!
-Paul
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My father was an accountant for a rope factory, and brought back many stamps from British Commonwealth countries and, I suppose unsurprisingly, from Iceland. This was in the late 1950s, and it the engraved BC stamps of those times that took the eye. Their two-colour, bordered designs, typically featuring fauna, flora, places of interest and national products, were a source of wonder and fascination in an otherwise drab, black-and-white decade.
I knew nothing then, of course, of colonialism or the history of the British Empire and, if I thought about it at all, assumed that we brought industry and wealth to those far-off places out of the goodness of our hearts. The prettiness of the stamps, the benignly attractive portrait of our young Queen, and even the obvious production values (compared to certain stamps from comparatively 'foreign' countries) helped to reassure me that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. If that sounds naïve, it was not such a bad thing for a young lad to believe, still a few years off from the troubles and trials of adolescence.
Here's a page from the Bahamas, now I believe a thoroughly Americanised place, but then just one of many faraway locations whose stamps brought something bright and British to a boy's life.
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"My father was an accountant for a rope factory..."
Guthrum,
By any small chance was the rope factory Garnock Bibby & Co. of Liverpool (bought by British Ropes in the 1960s)?
If so I will send you a PM with a story about Garnock and how two hobbies can intersect. If not, oh well it would have made a nice story.
Dennis
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