Hello from France.

Good afternoon everyone & thanks for allowing me to join your forum. My name is Rob & I live in Central France & have been a collector of too many things all my life. Predominantly I collect Antiques & interesting things from the 18thC & earlier but never had much interest in stamps apart from the obligatory schoolboy album. My Grandfather though was a serious collector throughout his life & as I am now the custodian(I will never sell them) of his collection that is the reason why I am here. He died in 1970 so no stamps later than that but I hope to discover his mode of collecting if that makes sense & when I do that I hope to fill in some of the gaps. I bought & sold Antiques as well as collecting them for 30 years but I'm retired now & in reality I was just a collector who sold a bit to pay the bills. 1st on the list is an up to date Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth catalogue- I have my Grandads ones with all his annotations & notes but they are from 1968! Although I said I never had much interest in stamps that isn't entirely true as I have an interest in Penny Reds & the fascinating ways of working out plate numbers etc. I have seen people who reconstruct entire plates- how satisfying must that be to find the last one you need. I once had a stamp snake which I found absolutely fascinating too but it was in good condition with the head & tail & I always regretted selling it. I then found another one without the head & with the string in poor condition. I took some of the stamps off from the damaged bit & started sorting through them. You could almost date when the snake was made from the plate numbers. It must have taken many thousands of stamps to make it- sadly they all have a hole in the middle. So back to my stamps, Bert collected mainly Commonwealth but with some from the US. I can clearly remember my mum showing me 2 albums with his collection of the Ascension & Falkland Islands & his beautifully neat handwritten numbers & notes. Sadly these have gone missing & I have the feeling mum gave them to charity, which of course is good as well but I always hoped to have them one day. All was not lost as I found his New Zealand, Australia & Canada collections. Bert had a successful business & although not rich he was comfortable & bought stamps from many dealers. The stamps were valued for probate in 1970 by SG. I won't say what their value was or which Country had several pages which made the valuer stop his rapid page flicking. So given my interest in early Penny Reds I have decided I'd like to continue his collection of New Zealand Chalons. I'm heading over to that section now & it was because of the fantastic article by DK that prompted me to join this forum. I hope to participate as much as I can although my knowledge in this field is very limited. Bien cordialement Rob.