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Post by waynel on Apr 24, 2023 23:45:40 GMT
Hello fellow stamp enthusiasts, I'm new to the forum, but an old stamp collector. I took a break from collecting stamps a long time ago, and recently pulled my old stamp album out of storage to start up again. I'm not very interesting, but back when "high speed communication" meant Telex machines, I knew interesting people, and they would tell their friends around the world to save stamps for me. Some of these people had stamp collections of their own, and would send me their duplicates, or just the corners of envelopes that still need to be soaked, if that's still what we do to free stamps from their carriers. I looked through my collection, and the album is in sad shape, so I bought new pages so I can start it all over. Hopefully most of the stamps can be saved. They're mostly 1960's to 1980's. I have about a dozen I've picked up here and there since then, and will add them to the collection eventually. I looked around for a stamp collecting program or app, and didn't find any that I liked, so as part of this project I'm building my own stamp album program. It's still very much a work in progress, but I've put a couple of screenshots below to give you an idea where I'm going with this. I don't collect any particular type or region. Some of the old stamps brought back some vivid memories, and I think that's where I'll concentrate. The old Czechoslovakian flower stamps, and some of the Soviet stamps were particularly evocative, and when I look at them I can remember when I first looked at them years ago. I think that's the reason I'm building my own software for this — because I'm mostly interested in the visuals of the stamps, and the history of where they came from, rather than what they're worth. Not caring what a stamp is worth either makes me the best kind of stamp collector, or the worst! There's a few hundred stamps to go through, and once I'm done with them, I'll offer my duplicates on here to a good home. Hope to make a few friends while I'm at it!   |
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Post by iswscwebmaster on Apr 24, 2023 23:46:28 GMT
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mberry
Member 
Posts: 1,177
What I collect: USA, USA Revenues, Beer Related Stamps and Revenues, US State Revenues, Stamp Show Stamps
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Post by mberry on Apr 25, 2023 0:44:59 GMT
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swvl
Member
Posts: 548
What I collect: FDCs, plus some US modern and new issues. Topical interests include music, art, literature, baseball, space...
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Post by swvl on Apr 25, 2023 0:57:32 GMT
Welcome, waynel! It sounds like we’re the same type of collector. I’m also interested in stamps primarily for their visual appeal, subject matter, and the history that goes with them. Any value they do or don’t have is of minor interest to me. |
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paul1
Member
Posts: 1,207
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Post by paul1 on Apr 25, 2023 8:09:09 GMT
hello wayne1, welcome from me too, and yes, soaking appears still to be the order of the day to free stamps from their carriers. It's a little more sophisticated as regards drying and keeping flat, but in principle little has changed.
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Jerry B
Departed
Rest in Peace
Marietta, Georgia USA
Posts: 1,485 
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Post by Jerry B on Apr 25, 2023 9:36:12 GMT
Hi waynel  to a great Forum. I wrote my own stamp collecting program also. Maybe we should get together and see what we have. You can e-mail me thru this board as a start. Jerry B |
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cjoprey
Member
Scanning stamps for my website...
Posts: 1,504
What I collect: Belgium (predominantly), British Commonwealth (older ones), WW (whatever comes my way...)
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Post by cjoprey on Apr 25, 2023 10:00:01 GMT
Welcome from the UK waynel - good luck with the software. I've gone down the route of using a website to track mine (see below), and it's always interesting to see how others have approached it! |
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,699
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Apr 25, 2023 10:14:48 GMT
Welcome back!
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rex
Member
Posts: 1,216
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Post by rex on Apr 25, 2023 10:51:59 GMT
....to...TSF.... waynel  .... Ludwig Italy
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Post by carabop on Apr 25, 2023 12:21:06 GMT
Welcome
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FDI
Member
Member of RPSC & BNAPS
Posts: 386
What I collect: Modern Canada (misperf, varieties, tagging errors), Canadian Cinderellas, EXUP & CAPEX & Dead Countries
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Post by FDI on Apr 25, 2023 13:43:27 GMT
Welcome aboard Wayne!
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stainlessb
Member
qaStaHvIS yIn 'ej chep
Posts: 4,906
What I collect: currently focused on most of western Europe, much of which is spent on France, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain Queen Victoria
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Post by stainlessb on Apr 25, 2023 13:53:20 GMT
Welcome to TSF waynel You'll find a great many of us here who have taken the DIY approach! Cheers Stan Northern California |
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TimG
Member
Posts: 230
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by TimG on Apr 25, 2023 14:17:20 GMT
Welcome Wayne. You join many others who have come back to the hobby. Have fun!
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Mr. H
Member
Member - APS #129381
Posts: 952
What I collect: US, Netherlands, Whatever suits my fancy.
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Post by Mr. H on Apr 25, 2023 15:44:34 GMT
Welcome to the Forum!
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zipper
Member
Posts: 2,649
What I collect: Classic GB, QV, France Ceres/Napoleon, Classic U.S., Cinderella & Poster Stamps
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Post by zipper on Apr 25, 2023 18:14:54 GMT
Hi
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dorincard
Member
Posts: 1,623
What I collect: My focus is on Wild Mammals on maximum cards. Occasionally, I get or create maximum cards with other animals, or any other topic.
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Post by dorincard on Apr 25, 2023 18:36:38 GMT
Welcome!
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sudbury12000
Member
Posts: 360
What I collect: Canada, Great Britain, Germany, World Pre 1925
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Post by sudbury12000 on Apr 25, 2023 20:13:31 GMT
welcome to the forum
Roy
Scugog Ontario Canada
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hrdoktorx
Member
Posts: 7,213
What I collect: France (and French territories), Africa, Canada, USA, Germany, Guatemala, stamps about science, flags, maps, stamps on stamps...
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Post by hrdoktorx on Apr 26, 2023 14:44:46 GMT
to TSF! Thanks for the nice introduction. You've come to the right place!
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Post by gillian on Jul 10, 2023 11:23:14 GMT
Hi Wayne,
Welcome to the forum. I've just found your post when looking through the Introductions board. You sound a bit like me - I first started collecting stamps when I was in the Brownies - any moons ago. The incentive was to work for my Collector's badge, but I enjoyed the hobby and stuck with it for many years after obtaining said badge. AS I grew older, I lost interest, but still have the album I used then and also one that my late husband had from that era.
Move forward several years and I am married to a keen radio amateur, who receives a lot of mail related to the hobby. As a result, many stamps were coming stamps were coming into the house, so I asked my husband to keep the stamps for me and rekindled my interest in stamp collecting. My husband passed away just over a year ago, so those stamps are no longer arriving at the house, but I am still going through the process of soaking the stamps off their envelopes and also have a couple of packets of stamps gifted to me by my son. To my delight, quite a few of these are what I would call vintage.
Gillian
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Post by dgdecker on Jul 12, 2023 1:19:10 GMT
Wayne, welcome to the Forum.
David,
Ottawa Canada
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Post by honduras2 on Aug 11, 2023 12:54:03 GMT
Welcome, waynel,
How to house that collection short of getting locked into a specific album may be a problem. For what it's worth department, here is a story, but first some suggetions:
Resist the temptation to use an album if you are in the process of organizing what you have. Consider using stock pages in notebooks or even delaer stock cards in shoeboxes. Once you have a critical mass, then you can worry about mounting them, if need be.
The story is this: My wife heard a audio (radio station) annoucement about a guy that had a whole lot of boxes of stamp albums that wanted to get rid of them. I contacted him - he was acting as a friend to a widow whose husband was a wanna-be stamp dealer. He asked $50 for the bunch of them; there were a dozen or more very heavy boxes with new three-ring binders filled with pages from countries all over the world. The pages were printed from the "Steiner" album stamp program. Scott catalog numbers were hand-written on the pages, and the pages went to about the year 2005. Some countries had hundreds of stamps hinged in them, other were pretty bare.
I sorted through the boxes, created an inventory, and then selected for myself maybe 20 albums that were of interest to me, so that was about 1 of the 12 boxes I was going to keep. I shared the remaining inventory with my local stamp club, and gave away about a third of those. (In some cases where the collection was more extensive, I sold them for pennies on the dollar at the local club auction.)
So there were now about 8 boxes left, amd I had to get them out of my garage. I arranged to take them to our local stamp club's show, and offered them at bargan basement prices. One collecter asked me what I wanted for the whole lot, and I recall that I asked $100 for the whole lot. They promptly dissappeared.
I bring this up that if you want to collect a particular country, there are programs where you can print your own pages, especially if you want new paper pages. Or, go to stamp shows and look throught the country collections to acquire some classic pages and a good binder for a low cost.
But for now, stick to the stock pages and avoid having to worry about mounting your collection.
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ameis33
Member
What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet
Posts: 546
What I collect: Poland and Italy Republic
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Post by ameis33 on Aug 11, 2023 19:11:24 GMT
Every collector was born free and with the right of hinge…
From the Declaration of Independence of philatelists…
My welcome and feel free to collect what you want how you want…
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to a great Forum. 
.... Ludwig
