San Diego Stamp Show Sunday

This weekend was the San Diego Stamp Show.  Saturday was another record-breaking storm so we just stayed home doing craft projects.  But we did get down to the show today, and the dealer's room was so packed with stuff to look at we totally forgot to check out the exhibits.

Anne is just getting into stamps and has about 40 items listed on Hipstamp, so it was fun showing her what to look for at the show for her specific business focus (animal and nature topicals), how to not pay too much for an item, but also how not to worry so much you go home empty handed.

For me, I unexpected got pulled into a little pile of USA covers.  I don't usually handle US stamps OR covers, but these were really interesting.  The seller pulled out a stack of beautifully curated covers that were priced at $25 each, but it was the end of the show and he reduced them to $10 each.  They were so expertly described, with notes on various postmarks that I had no catalogs for.  So I bought a stack of those.  Anne can scan them AND type up those perfect descriptions and we can run them at $25, which feels just right for the price.  And boy, the rest of his stock at regular prices of a few $100 per cover, were just gorgeous little bits of history.

After that we went through some folder lots at the Raslad booth.  Nicely presented, nothing super special but I got some little country lots and a few stock pages of topicals for Anne for about $170.  

We spent some time at the USPS booth.  It's always so frustrating going to the actual post office and waiting in line.  I find that the USPS booths at shows are laid back and the workers are just fun to talk to, though I get the feeling we must sound a bit nuts, possibly knowing more about the stamps than they do.  They have a better selection of stamps, anyway.  There was a First Day Ceremony on friday, and I don't usually do FDCs, but back when Mark Kirby was designing the cachets and postmarks for all the local shows, I would always get a few.  The stamp released at the show was the new $10 stamp, and I don't really need to spend $10+ for covers I don't collect.  But we got 4 of the dog & cat love stamp panes that came out in January, a pane of the Webb Space Telescope, a pane of New Year, and a pane of the $1 stamps for outgoing mail. 

It was interesting trying to explain why a topical dealer might want to buy and list some stamps that are currently available at the post office.  Your audience would be people who didn't know the stamp was out (and once they browse it they want it), or their post office doesn't have it, and after a while the P.O. will no longer sell it, and it's up to the dealers to keep it available.  So, selling those $12 panes for a modest $15 is not unreasonable.

We dabbled at a table of 10-cent stamps, and found a few more topicals for Anne.  Then I saw a big fat envelope of those South Arabia sand dune stamps.  Just a bit of a fluke, but there were some mint and imperf sets in there, and the dealer was tired at the end of the show and didn't bother counting, he just took $10 for the whole envelope.  Which was nice, because the envelope next to it was Saudi Arabia, the real country that's always hard to find in any quantity.  But there it was, another $10 for a real find.  Here are the piles sorted roughly by set or type or time period.  One of the stacks was mint, and mint Saudi Arabia stamps are always worth tucking away.  I found about 20 mint ones that list for over $5 each, with some possibly reaching $18 but they're the dams and oil wells that are so darned difficult to identify exactly.  It's still fun filling whole stock pages of just these hard-to-find issues.  I will probably finish filling the pages of miscellaneous commemoratives before bed.  If that doesn't raise some eyebrows on Hipstamp, I don't know what will.  I know I hardly ever see more than 20 or 30 from this country at a time, and now I had about 300 or 400 to show.

We said hello to iHobb who are the big big stamp supply dealers up in Oceanside, but forgot to go back and buy actual supplies we meant to buy.  I am so low on glassines.

It was a fun trip.  It may sound like we spent a lot, but I was able to hold off on several big box lots, whole banker boxes for $250 to $300 each, but they were such common stuff.  Good to say no and try some new things instead.  I think those covers will be a nice addition to my stock online.