ScottV Stamps

As my previous post mentioned, we have been trying to keep the international side of our hobby alive.  It has become incredibly frustrating, with USPS shipping costs having gone up x5 or x6 for small overseas parcels in the past decade.  We keep having to think about no longer shipping outside the USA.   We only ship lots under two ounces overseas these days, but we just had an order where a customer bought 8 items, which came out to be a 4-ounce large envelope.  I filled in the usual customs form, but then the clerk got involved. He said he can't put a customs form on an envelope without upgrading it to a small package, so the only options for tracking were $17 (package), $24 (add registered) and $37 (global Priority).  It was a $50 order.  I really wanted to offer a tracking number, but it could not be done without taking a 30-65% loss on the shipment.  OMG.  I have shipped over 15,000 mailings over my 40 years in business.  We used to put customs on large flat envelopes a

A cover from Latvia, 13-04-2009 to Escondido CA. Printed matter, registered.   The story behind this one: I was at a stamp show, flipping through thousands of covers, and found this one addressed to me from 15 years before.  It's funny how our little collectibles make the rounds. I used to specifically try and find eBay listings from sellers in the Baltic States because every one of them took such care making their mailings look good.  The hobby was always supposed to be an international one, bringing folks together from across the globe.  I also found covers mailed to my Dad.  I suppose the mystery is easily solved, since I have donated many boxes to the San Diego Philatelic Library over the years, and most of the local sellers go to the library sales to stock up on things...

We had a table at the Sandipex show again, down in Poway.  We don't have a van, or whole shelves of red boxes to bring.  I do have a knack for knowing what will fit into any space, so we set aside exactly enough plastic bins and boxes to fill my Toyota Corolla, and it turned out to be the perfect amount to spread out and cover the three tables. Here's a look at it: Anne and Dory were there helping out. It's funny how many different ways there are to collect things, and at least as many different ways to buy them.  We had some binders and folders full of country collections.  I sold one of my Dad's old half-empty volumes of USA for $100, a big binder of Norway (1966-2005) for $50, and other collections of Belgian Congo, Senegal and others.  When I price these, I am not going to sit there for hours writing every catalog value on the margin of every page: they're almost all going to be under a buck anyway.  I save a lot of time by just doing a count and eyeballing the

I was scanning a collection from Trinidad & Tobago tonight, and this set came up, one which I have wondered about for a while now. I have only seen the set a few times since it came out in 1998, but I always wondered if there was a story here. It is Scott #593-596, showing Wendy Fitzwilliam, Miss Universe from 1998. One can argue these days that beauty pageants are just exploitative.  But sometimes, careers are made and the women go on to have great success.  Judging from wikipedia , it looks like Wendy has done well.  She was "honored by the United Nations and bestowed the title of UNAIDS and UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador for her work in HIV/AIDS education and awareness," and went on to champion AIDS awareness in the Caribbean.  She was Red Cross Ambassador of Youth for the Caribbean, regularly hosts and judges other competitions to give more women visibility in the world, and has had many other honors. She has become a lawyer, entrepreneur and jazz singer.  In our mode

Here's a set that always brings back memories for me: Angola #362-381.  Here is a mint set that I am listing for the Philatelic Library soon.  The first few stamps in this set were some of the most iconic and common animal topicals when I was growing up.  Almost every starter packet of animals had these included.  100 different animals?  You will probably find the 5c leopard or stately 10c antelope, or the 20c elephant ... or all three of them.  Almost every starter collection I have seen since then that had only a handful of stamps from Angola would have a few of these. The graphics were really special for their time period: crisp and colorful and reasonably accurate portrayals of each animal.  Back then, every color plate had to be minutely aligned, and I don't recall having ever seen any color ink shifted or missing. I have a special fondness for this set, and always set aside the full sets when I find them.  They list for $10 to $12 dollars used.  Affordable.  And

This weekend, the local SANDIPEX stamp show had a calendar collision with a show in Orange County, so there were some empty tables.  Bob called me and asked if I could come down and help fill in.  It was going to be a lot of work.  Over the last two months, in the 1-2 hours a week of "spare time", I have been filling a bin with covers, filling another bin with mixtures, and getting some stacks of album pages into country folders.  But we only have Saturday and Sunday, then I have to somehow be rested before another full work week.   But he posted a nice blurb about me in the group newsletter, so we figured out a way to get down there, moving bins to Anne's place on Saturday (morning trip & evening trip), then doing some last organization there. We have a regular car, not a van or pickup like the other dealers, but my usual sense of how objects fill spaces came in handy.  Those two trips were planned as (1) a trunk full, and (2) a back seat full, so the whole mess fill