Mike from the tundra of South Dakota

Hi!

I'm Mike and I'm from Mitchell South Dakota. We're having below 0 temps here this week so welcome to the tundra.

Little background in my stamp collecting journey. I started collecting in grade school back in the late 60s to early 70s. At that time, I collected US and world wide and everything went in with stamp hinges. By Junior High school, I had narrowed down my focus to US only and upgraded my collection to Showgard mounts and had even started replacing some of my *gasp*...hinged stamps...with the non-hinged variety. I had even taken a dive into plate blocks.

Yeah...even as a 14 year old kid in jr high, I took a bit of pride in my collection.

1976 rolled around and I started senior high and I was soon into cars, girls, and trouble. Not all necessarily in that order. Trouble usually came first. I wasn't very good at being in trouble as I spent my whole senior high school years on probation. But there was still the girls and cars. But alas...the stamps got pushed to the side.

Jump ahead a few years...quite a few...and now I have a successful career with the federal government and a pretty good ebay biz going selling vintage computer, video and sound equipment. I sold the old junior high collection for pretty much face value...I think around $500 or so on ebay. Remember. This was a 12-14 year old kid buying stamps and mounts on an allowance and then 2 bucks an hour at my first job. That took me awhile to accumulate. I figured I could buy the stuff back easy enough if I got the hankerin' to get back into the hobby.

Jump ahead a few more years and now I am comfortably retired. I am still selling on ebay on the side and now I can afford to buy the stuff I want. Although I kind of wished I hadn't sold that jr high collection....sighs...

I'm still going to stay focused on US. I'm just not sure on what yet. I know I want to get a good size collection of mint and used commemorative and definitives together. And plate blocks...maybe some coil line pairs...I always liked BOBs. I had an interest in precancels too. You see? My interest runs the gamut....probably too much really. I should probably reel it in a bit but like I said....I can afford some discretionary money on my hobby now. To get a jump start, I've bought a couple of collections off Stamp Auction Network. I got the first one in today. I have to say I am pretty happy with it. Some FDCs were in the mix...which I am not really into...but I bought those mostly to ebay them out because I think I bought them right.

I've looked at some albums from Mystic and Scott's and the old stand by of what I had...H.E. Harris...but nothing is really talking to me. And then...as if I didn't have enough to do just collecting my wide range of interests...I find the world of DIY album pages. So...I sat down at my computer today and tossed together a page. Actually a couple of pages. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll post all about those travels in the DIY album page thread.

I got some Showgard mounts coming in. I'll get my pages fine-tuned and posted and then maybe start mounting some stamps!

Mike