50 Years in Philately

Part 1: The Origin of Ted the Talking Stamp Collector.

This year marks my 50^th anniversary as a stamp collector. To be clear, it has not been 50 continuous years. Like many collectors, I drifted away, came back; drifted away again, came back again. At various times, I’ve wandered off into other collecting areas – comic books, baseball cards, vintage paperbacks, depression glass, record albums (classical music), and a brief foray into coin collecting.

Up until last summer, when my wife and I uprooted ourselves and relocated to Portugal, I still had my paperback and comic collections. Now, I’m down to just my stamp collection, and even that was pared down during the move. (Note: I still collect books, but now they only take up space in my Kindle, Chirp, and Kobo apps.) I donated most of my bulk kiloware type of material to Stamps for the Wounded while other stamps, of countries which I no longer collect, or in which I no longer hold a particular interest, wound up in the collections of several other collecting friends.

What I’m left with are simply three areas: USA (with special focus on the Bureau issues and rotary coil joint-line pairs), early Germany, German states and colonies, and 19^th century Portugal and colonies – with even that last one being a very recent addition, influenced by my new home.

Collection creep, though, still remains an ever-present danger. Recently, after one of my YouTube videos in which I discussed the stamps of Bahawalpur, a viewer sent me a book on the stamps of the Indian feudatory states. I found it so interesting that I started looking online for some of those stamps to acquire. I checked my impulse before I could follow through. I have always bemoaned the fact that I never had the discipline to thoroughly study, i.e. to specialize in, any one area. Now that I have streamlined my collection and narrowed my focus to the areas mentioned above, I’d like it to stay that way. We’ll see how that goes. LOL

So, anyway . . . that’s where I am right now. The hobby has undergone many changes over 50 years. (I know, what else is new, Captain Obvious?) This post will deal with my beginnings in the hobby.

I started in 1974, at 19, a late-bloomer compared to most collectors of my generation. I have no idea how or why stamps had escaped my attention, except, perhaps, because I was all-consumed with my passion for comic books. In the 1960s, glass soda bottles had a 3c deposit on them. When I wasn’t in my room getting my fill of the latest adventures of my favorite DC super-heroes, I was outside scouring the environs for discarded bottles and returning them to Thrifti-Mart to collect the deposits. I could exchange four bottles for one comic, and it was not hard to fill a grocery bag or two with bottles. Talk about free money . . .

I enlisted in the Air Force in 1973, and after 9 months of tech school in Biloxi, Mississippi, I got stationed across the bay from San Francisco, atop Mt. Tamalpais, at Mill Valley Air Force Station. It was there a workmate of mine happened to mention his stamp collection. I asked if I might see it, and he was more than happy to show it off to me. He took down his volume 1 Scott International and, upon opening it, the first thing I saw was a page of Australian ‘roos. I was immediately drawn in. In fact, I was so enthralled by the ‘roos, I don’t even have any recollection of the other stamps I saw. This might lead one to presume I must have started out collecting Australia. That’s not the case, though. I drove “down the mountain” and into San Rafael where I found a stamp shop. There, I had a more wondrous experience than I’d had when .

Growing up, I had never seen any stamps but the regular Lincoln and Washington definitives that my parents used on postcards and letters, and the airmail stamps that went on my mother’s letters to Germany. As far as I knew, these comprised the whole universe of United States stamps.

I had never seen nor heard of a commemorative stamp. I didn’t know there were different kinds of stamps other than regular and airmail. Now, inside this stamp shop, I discovered the world of United States commemoratives. One issue in particular set the hook in my cheek and my fate as a stamp collector was sealed. While it was still 2 years before the American bicentennial, the US Postal Service had already been issuing stamps in anticipation of it. One issue depicted the Boston Tea Party. However this was not simply one stamp with a picture on it, this was one picture forming a continuous design across a block of 4 connected stamps. Fantastic!

Upon further inspection of the stamps on display, I discovered other equally fascinating designs, such as . . .

and . . .

and . . .

This was amazing. I wasted no time in purchasing all of the basic supplies I needed along with a stock of stamps to get me started. Oddly, I can’t recall what I used for stamp identification in the beginning; a Scott Catalogue was beyond my budget at the time. If anyone knows how I got by, please let me know. LOL

I also picked up a Linn’s Stamp News, on that first shopping trip, and when I got back to base I immediately sent off for a subscription. Those weekly newspapers would lead me into the next phase of my philatelic journey. And, in case you’re wondering if I might have found a stamp mentor, or, at least, a collecting partner, in the guy who had sparked this new pursuit of mine, the answer is no. We had completely different personalities and hung out in different social circles. Our friendship never developed beyond being workplace acquaintances.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of how I got started in this great hobby. In the next part, I will look back on some of the memorable moments and milestones, both in my personal collecting experiences and in the general hobby. I hope you’ll join me then.