Have you ever found a goodie in your duplicate files?

One delightful aspect of philately is that we are constantly learning. One of the ripple effects to learning something new is that all of a sudden you’re dragging out your old piles of duplicates looking for varieties, cancels or other things that you didn’t even know existed when you relegated those stamps to the “sell, trade, toss” piles. 

I’ll share one of the numerous times that has happened to me. Colnect was the trigger - they correlate valuable info from catalogs that I might not have. A good example is the Finland specialty catalog LaPe. I didn’t know that there were so many watermark varieties for many early issues. That triggered an immediate forehead slap and a dig into all of my duplicates hunting for watermarks - and I found a bunch, too. Awesome sauce!

So let’s hear your stories. What is something that you learned that had you dusting off those glassines and stockbooks hunting for new types? Your story might be an eye opener to another collector and will trigger yet another philatelic treasure hunt. Have fun and happy hunting!