Whatcha Been Stamping?

So far this morning I have soaked 200+ stamps. Now sorting US by Scott #. I am hoping that sometime today I might be able to put some US in the albums but time is not on my side today.

As stamp or cover buying is concerned I am impulsive but luckily not too often. When you are retired (even if I still have my licence) you have to plan  a little more and always put the family before a "stamp".
I am lucky to have a great amount of non inventoried stamps, win giveaways (!), receive from friends and give back.
Merry X-Mas to all members 
I have to see that #10 N.S. dgdecker !!
René

Finally received two auction lots in the mail yesterday. A Medallion booklet pane and some mint & used German stamps. I am STLL waiting for a large lot of Germans from an auction way back in September!

The Greenland clichés and another lot of German is still MIA...


Hope everyone is enjoying a Merry Christmas!

Enjoying X-Mas and the cold weather in the East (Canada) and you have another lot coming, my 2nd envoy of Hungary "dups" (bigger than the 1st one received) - You are not lucky with the "mail" !!! brightonpete
René

Last month I posted pictures of my new (downstairs) stamp room....I finally finished moving everything into it.  There's also a closet full of messy cartons and covers....soon to be straightened out and photographed when it is more presentable.

Not much done today but tomorrow it's Bechuanaland day and if i have time still some St Vincent to be done.

Up until now, today was to have been spent cleaning those rooms of the flat that were finished. One odd job outstanding I wanted to complete was putting the extractor fan back into place.

The previous person who had done work for me had built boxing for the ducting. I reached into the hole to pull the wires through and guide them one by one into the back plate of the fan assembly. At that point I found out that when the idiot had removed the connector (then thrown into the waste sack) he had put a cap on three of the wires, the blue, the black and the earth, but not the yellow one! the live one! That had a piece of electricians tape wrapped around it which came off, then I take 240v from hand to hand through the chest.

Now I am going to go mess with some Australian loose that need putting away.

Be well all.

I spent a lovely couple of hours going through a packet of Germany that I won at a December club meeting. It was my prize for winning the annual quiz. Well, that and I get to create the quiz for next year!

It's all the most common pre-WWII definitives, but I had a fun time sorting and then soaking some of the sorrier looking stamps. I now have enough pulp to make a small journal and several dozen refreshed stamps to find their way into an album or more likely my duplicate pile.

I spent the last couple days doing a lot of little things since I had no major mounting tasks. This included printing country title pages, mounting odds and ends from my "to be mounted" Vario pages, modified an existing Steiner page to split up setenants, put a lot of data into Stamp Manage, and reorganized some of my accessory locations (what I keep in what drawer).

The revised Steiner page using LibreOffice Draw to import then modify.  Since I did not have Helvetica I used Swiss721 BT (a Bitstream variant).  To properly mimic Steiner better I expanded the spacing between characters.

I arrived back from the UK yesterday with a whole bunch of winter ailments that made for a tough few days.
But I also came back with a whole bunch of material from the September Cinderella Stamp Club auction which our club auctioneer had been looking after for me.
Whilst there, I picked up a few other items as he always has boxes lying around with 'good stuff'. My visit was brief so I didn't look through it all.

So, today I spent some time looking through my 'lots' especially the two items that were most desired and which I won with my top bids of $95 on each !! How lucky was that !!!! 

Once scanned you will find them in the British Stamp Exhibitions thread via the Cinderella section. I will most likely have drooled all over the posts !! 

I was lucky again whilst away when I bid on an ebay item I have been after for a long time. My maximum bid was £50. I won it for that amount..........so I was lucky again.   I should add here that I am usually outbid at auctions.

That latter item was a small lot of stamps from the 1st series of the Free Commune of Montmartre, stamps I have never seen before (only in a picture). They arrived quickly too and were here ready to open today. I should mention here that I recently saw a block of the later Free Commune stamps (also very scarce), very similar condition to the block won by theamateurphilatelist that sold for $70 !! Another reason to always enter even the non-postage Giveaways !! 

The early Free Commune of Montmartre Stamps will appear on the French Cinderellas thread once scanned.

Londonbus1

Late Friday night here in Israel.
Kids are asleep and no need to go to work tomorrow, so a little late-night stamping time for me. 
Still soaking from the box I bought from Londonbus back in September.
Finished all the water glue awhile ago and now working on sticker stamps.
Read a lot of opinions regarding this kind.
Some say to just leave them on paper - but they look so unaesthetic that way, I just can't put them like this into the album.
Some say they stopped collecting at all from the 90s and up. But how can you do this?! All the thrill, is getting new stamps, finding new imagery to add to your collection. I just can't give up on them like this. The maximum pleasure is getting a once in a year letter with real stamps, soaking them, studying them, putting them into the album. Can't stop doing that. 
So I am up for soaking. 
Searched the net regarding this issue. A lot off advises. People recommend using "Bestine" or air freshener or other stuff. But the thing is, they all work because they consist some organic solvent. 
Sticker stamps have lipophilic (oily) glue. It won't dissolve in water but it sure will in organic solvents. Well, I am a student in a lab, so I can put my hands on any common organic solvent, and I don't have any amount limitations (well, in reasonable limits). 
Now, the problem with organic solvents is that they are flammable and also toxic on inhalation, so you need to work with them in the chemical hood or at least in an open air. 
That is not very convenient, as it is winter now. The most widely utilized solvent in all the commercial stuff I talked about earlier is heptane. I have that one, but it has all the danger issues. So I thought about some other solvent. The one I found suitable is isopropanol. Its molecular formula is similar to ethanol, but with addition of hydrocarbon group to the molecule. 
Yes, it is flammable, but if I use small quantity in a little box, just to soak my stamps, away from open fire - that is not an issue. 
Regarding toxicity - well it is not very toxic. As a matter of fact this is the stuff they put into the disinfectant skin alcohol swabs (yes, it is not ethanol there). So no issue here neither.
Tried it on my sticker stamps - worked like magic. Soak the stamp for 10 seconds, and just peel it of easily. Than immediately, while the stamp is still wet, remove the glue by gliding an old credit card over the surface of the back of the stamp. Easy, no damage to stamp, stamps turn out clean (also clean from all the dirt and oils) and they look very neat.
I'll keep heptane for later. It is far more stronger (more lipophilic) solvent, so perhaps I'll use it on some more stubborn glue, if I'll bump into one of those some time in the future.
I must say, the process is extremely satisfying. So how can I give up on collecting sticker stamps?!
Well, that is what I've been stamping for today (my once in a month stamping evening).
Good night and a Happy New Year
 

I'm back home from holiday in the eastern part of Norway. 
Noe I have started to mount old stamps in the marvelous Schaubek 1840-1942 album

Right now working on Deutsches Reich.

Don't you hate pen cancels? The regular canceler was almost out of ink, so pen it is! Wrecks the stamps, IMO...



This is from the last mailing from renden . He sent me another large collection of his Hungarian duplicates! Thanks very much, René! My laser focus on collecting means I don't have much to send you in return. I just have some Luxembourg cheapies & perhaps some German dupes too if I ever get the auction lot delivered by Canada Post!

Too bad about those pen cancels.

i am getting more and more mail without a cancel at all.

so stamping for next few days. Too many social events going on. I do still have a couple of stamping gifts to arrive. Christmas again.  They were gifts from me to me because I have been a productive stamper in 2018.

David