Philately will get us nowhere!

An estate sale company for an invitation-only sale called in Zander and me to view what was presented as a hoarder house. We had no idea what to expect, other than knowing that the woman running the sale would never take anything truly disgusting. We’d come prepared with bags, sheets (used to cover our finds and keep others out), “sold” stickers (for any larger items), and gloves (just in case). Although cluttered, the living conditions hadn’t been bad. We scooped up many treasures we’re looking forward to selling in the coming weeks. Things too delicate to expose to the dirt field at Elephant’s Trunk we’ll sell on this site, with pricing provided in the captions.

We love books but know we aren’t going to get Bookfinder prices at a flea market, so we seldom spend time at estate sales poring over shelves. This sale was different, since I knew that anything we left behind would likely wind up in a dumpster. On the first pass, I snagged The International Postage Stamp Album from 1897 and an oblong book called Imperial Stamp Album. I paused long enough to make sure there were a few stamps pasted inside before scooping them up and allowing my mind to wander to radio shows and short stories in which bazillion-dollar stamps were critical plot points.

About an hour later, I spotted two shoeboxes on a closet shelf with “STAMPS” written on the top of one. The larger one contained canceled stamps from the 1970s, and the other was filled with pre-WWII stamps, all loosely sorted by country. Seeing stamps from around the world that had been canceled in the late 1800s turned out to be strangely fascinating. As a hobby, I never thought of it other than as a plot point, yet I still find myself marveling at these small snapshots of history.

Discovering an uncanceled Confederate stamp evoked a childhood memory of that Little House on the Prairie episode in which Pa Ingalls inherited all that worthless Confederate cash. Turns out ol’ Jefferson Davis is worth $15 today. Sounds about right. Good thing we didn’t risk the farm…

We know that some say this hobby is going the way of buggy whips and opera glasses but we welcome any information you can share.

This lovely sticker was released only two months before the Titanic sank.

I know that these are stickers and not stamps, but they're too cool not to share.

According to the internet, this Jefferson Davis stamp pre-dates when stamps were perforated.

Man landed on the moon on my second birthday (July 20, 1969), so I've always been a fan of Space Age nostalgia.

Many of the stamps were intentionally franked.

If only ALL collections could be contained in such a small space!

Sample spreads from both albums. Many stamps were loosely sorted, but not glued. The ones that are glued are hinge-mounted to the pages with strips of paper so as not to damage the glue on the stamp. Today collectors prefer hingeless mounts (clear chemically neutral plastic holders).

#Philately