Post by jimboy17 on Jul 2, 2024 16:47:20 GMT
Hi Stamp Forum Members!
I'm Jim, currently located in Puyallup WA but hailing from (and returning to) Canada in the fall after I spend the summer running around the woods of both countries and making a few stops for meals and to visit friends in the US, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. My obvious two other hobbies are gastronomy and travel/camping. We will leave those aside for the time being and return to philately (which I was told would get me nowhere) but here I am, some 40 years later, still going strong! My curiosity as a kid was boundless, but it was my father's love of stamps that got me started. He was given the remains of a 19th century dealer's collection just at the close of WWII and after gluing some of the early (early) canada (and cutting off the parts he didn't think were pretty) on surfaces around (bibles, pictures etc), the young boy's stamps went into his mother's purse and the best into a safety deposit box. He sold the early US and Canada to pay for his university degree but the purse remained. I was fascinated by the variety and age of the stamps, which included Canada newspaper/periodical stamps, early Nicaragua, Venezuela, Jubilees, over 1000 KEVII 2c carmine, and multiples in the hundreds of the other most common leaf, numeral and eddy issues. There were 5 small queens on laid paper, and to this day, I have not seen another, although they exist.
My summers were spent in Nova Scotia, where I haunted Barrington Street's (I think Scotia Stamp was the name) buying carefully gleaned good value 1c a piece stamps, (then 5c, then 10c, then finally 25c stamps) from the bin (what I think was previously a baptismal font now lined with wood and velvet) and occcasionally, Dad would splurge on something extra special like a gem copy of the 2c NS Victoria (which had two bubbles in the gum, tiny, and fully intact), and a gorgeous 15c post office fresh 15c Large Queen, perfect in every way. There was a romance to the old store, and to the old bricks and mortar businesses, an artifice designed to sell merchandise through the allure of the value of stamps to be sure, but one that was seductive and that made of me a lifetime collector and hobbyist. I sold my father's remnants after his death, because we did this together and it was time, the proceeds of which sent me twice to Europe on vacation, and my collection went with that. More on what followed in the future. My sole area of collecting is the correspondence of one Henry James Morgan. He was the first major biographer of note who celebrated important Canadians, was a civil servant of some importance and held an absolutely VAST correspondence which Ottawa put up for auction some time ago, and which was bought by various dealers, private citizens and others in small and large chunks. His postage usage covers the period from the very first cents stamps to the Admirals, but most of the stuff is philatetically of little interest. My interest is the correspondence that's inside and it can be voluminous. He also knew most if not all of the celebrated and important people of his age, and these correspondences are the most interesting to me. The prize peice is a turned envelope letter script font 7 stampless then 5c Beaver cover from Charles Sangster (Canada's first major national poet) to Morgan begging him to help him publish another work as he had already.
What is a turned letter? Ask me and I will post the answer in a forum post that follows, or starts a discussion on that topic after this post is approved and I join fully. Thanks for reading and I look forward to meeting you in the threads.
Jim
I'm Jim, currently located in Puyallup WA but hailing from (and returning to) Canada in the fall after I spend the summer running around the woods of both countries and making a few stops for meals and to visit friends in the US, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. My obvious two other hobbies are gastronomy and travel/camping. We will leave those aside for the time being and return to philately (which I was told would get me nowhere) but here I am, some 40 years later, still going strong! My curiosity as a kid was boundless, but it was my father's love of stamps that got me started. He was given the remains of a 19th century dealer's collection just at the close of WWII and after gluing some of the early (early) canada (and cutting off the parts he didn't think were pretty) on surfaces around (bibles, pictures etc), the young boy's stamps went into his mother's purse and the best into a safety deposit box. He sold the early US and Canada to pay for his university degree but the purse remained. I was fascinated by the variety and age of the stamps, which included Canada newspaper/periodical stamps, early Nicaragua, Venezuela, Jubilees, over 1000 KEVII 2c carmine, and multiples in the hundreds of the other most common leaf, numeral and eddy issues. There were 5 small queens on laid paper, and to this day, I have not seen another, although they exist.
My summers were spent in Nova Scotia, where I haunted Barrington Street's (I think Scotia Stamp was the name) buying carefully gleaned good value 1c a piece stamps, (then 5c, then 10c, then finally 25c stamps) from the bin (what I think was previously a baptismal font now lined with wood and velvet) and occcasionally, Dad would splurge on something extra special like a gem copy of the 2c NS Victoria (which had two bubbles in the gum, tiny, and fully intact), and a gorgeous 15c post office fresh 15c Large Queen, perfect in every way. There was a romance to the old store, and to the old bricks and mortar businesses, an artifice designed to sell merchandise through the allure of the value of stamps to be sure, but one that was seductive and that made of me a lifetime collector and hobbyist. I sold my father's remnants after his death, because we did this together and it was time, the proceeds of which sent me twice to Europe on vacation, and my collection went with that. More on what followed in the future. My sole area of collecting is the correspondence of one Henry James Morgan. He was the first major biographer of note who celebrated important Canadians, was a civil servant of some importance and held an absolutely VAST correspondence which Ottawa put up for auction some time ago, and which was bought by various dealers, private citizens and others in small and large chunks. His postage usage covers the period from the very first cents stamps to the Admirals, but most of the stuff is philatetically of little interest. My interest is the correspondence that's inside and it can be voluminous. He also knew most if not all of the celebrated and important people of his age, and these correspondences are the most interesting to me. The prize peice is a turned envelope letter script font 7 stampless then 5c Beaver cover from Charles Sangster (Canada's first major national poet) to Morgan begging him to help him publish another work as he had already.
What is a turned letter? Ask me and I will post the answer in a forum post that follows, or starts a discussion on that topic after this post is approved and I join fully. Thanks for reading and I look forward to meeting you in the threads.
Jim
to TSF! Thanks for the detailed introduction. Glad to have you with us.
