New Directions

It is summertime, here in the US Pacific Northwest. Historically, I never did much with my stamp collections during the summertime-- I expect this holds true of many collectors. That said, during my childhood years in Denmark, rainy days at the summerhouse usually meant bringing out the stamp collection to entertain myself.

Earlier this year, I wrote about having to sell my Denmark stamp collection out of necessity... a rather long process that is nearing the end. As fall and shorter days close in, I have had time to consider the question I have been asked a number of times: "Are you giving up stamp collecting?"

Not necessarily.

But I will be going in new directions.

For one, I just won't be spending much money on "serious" stamps, anymore, and the future of my stamp collecting endeavors will probably be limited to specializations of inexpensive stamps and collecting town cancels and postmarks on fairly low price stamps. What's more, any new acquisitions have to be funded completely by the sale of stamps I already have.

For seconds, life is now such that I work seven days; about 70-80 hours a week merely to keep our lights turned on. So I won't really have much time for stamp collecting, for the foreseeable future.

"Will you still be writing about stamps and collecting?"

I plan to, in a somewhat limited way. Recently, I had to let go of two of my stamp web sites-- the cost of hosting and domain services for something that couldn't pay for itself was no longer feasible. In a sense, it was a bit sad... one of the web sites had been "up" since 2001-- which could be considered "ancient" in terms of the age of the Internet. But if it doesn't help us live, we really don't have space for it.

"Are you still going to sell stamps online?"

Well, as long as I have anything worthwhile to offer, yes. Still selling off from my Denmark collection, and now I am going to move on the my collection of town cancels on classic Swedish issues. In general, if you'd like to see what I have available, look at the "Places Where I Sell Stamps!" box in the right hand column.

Otherwise, I will generally be moving more towards "nice stamps" in a lower price range. I still have thousands of duplicates from almost 50 years of collecting, and I will trade them online... perhaps moreso than before, as I simply can't afford to have "unneeded material" sitting in my closets.

"Are you sad/angry/disappointed about having to sell your collections?"

I have gotten a lot of enjoyment from assembling my collections. I am grateful that I followed my father's advice to "only buy the best quality stamps you can find" because he was right: top quality stamps offer a "store of value" you just don't get from "spacefillers" or low quality stamps. So whereas I am a little sad that I don't get to continue my collections into retirement, I am also grateful that my efforts now help us survive during difficult economic times. On top of which, there's also the opportunity offered in terms of starting new collections.

Even if I don't really have any time on my hands for it.

Till the next time-- thanks for reading!

Debut of new "Stamps for Sale" page

As this blog and web site approaches its 10th Anniversary, I have been doing a bit of "house cleaning" around here, checking to make sure that everything posted (links and so on) is actually working.

I do this periodically, because (to me!) there are few things sadder than finding what seems like a really nice web site... only to discover that it feels like "nobody has been home" for several years.

I have never made a secret of the fact that I occasionally sell stamps. I don't do so "for profit," and I don't consider myself a "stamp dealer." Rather, I am a very active collector who trades duplicates online-- and I think that in the "Age of the Internet" I am not alone.

Anyway, as part of yesterday's site update, I decided to add a new feature here... which is a "Stamps for Sale" page. You can get to it either by clicking the link, or by clicking on the "Stamps for Sale!" tab immediately below the site name and description.

I don't actually sell stamps here on this blog site, but the new page has links to-- and descriptions of-- what you might find at each of the sites where I do offer my duplicate stamps to fellow collectors. As of this writing, the links connect you directly to almost 3000 items for sale-- almost all of them "extras" from my own Scandinavian collections.

I hope you'll go take a look!

As part of my "housecleaning" efforts, I also updated and added a number of links to forums and web sites for stamp collectors, trying to remain true to the idea that this is a site primarily about Scandinavian philately.

As always, I appreciate your visits here!

Do Stamp Collectors EVER "Get Organized?"

Sometimes I find myself wondering if I am ever going to get my stamps "organized."

I haven't been keeping up with this blog recently, in part a reflection of the fact that I have been making a serious attempt to actually organize my stamps, rather than just write about them.

Well... that's not entirely true.

On the whole, my stamp collections are actually fairly well organized. The main source of chaos in my stamp "holdings" is all the stuff that is "not in a collection." I expect that's an issue that faces many collectors-- at least those who build specialized collections the way I always have: By buying accumulations, remaindered collections and box lots and "cherry picking" the stuff I want to keep.

Of course, that leaves "leftovers." For me, the pile of leftovers has grown quite large. I am not the most ambitious person to ever set foot on this planet, so I have had a tendency to set aside the "overs" with the thought of dealing with them later, rather than right away.

These "leftovers" became the reason I ended up selling stamps online, as well as buying them.

The other day, I was considering the way the Internet has changed stamp collecting-- making stamps and other collectors far more "accessible" than they used to be. I suppose that is both good and bad. It's easier to build a collection, but it's also easier to become a "hoarder" or "accumulator."

I sometimes wonder if my pile of "leftovers" would be much smaller, if there were no Internet? Then again, because there is the Internet, I have been able to already pass along many of my leftovers to other collectors through online sales. It's the whole "One man's trash is another man's treasure" principle.

Part of my effort to "get organized" has revolved around making not-needed stamps available for sale to others. The thing is, these stamps are just sitting in boxes, in my closet-- nobody gets to enjoy them there. And that's a shame.

Anyway, it's a HUGE amount of work to sort, identify, scan and list stamps for sale on web marketplaces. I have come to deeply admire those who eek out an actual living by doing so... I can't even imagine the amount of time and effort needed to build an online "inventory" of 50,000 items. For me, even 500 or 1000 items feels like a mountain of work.

For the last couple of months, I have mostly been working with stamps from Denmark. As a 40-year collector, those are the easiest for me to deal with-- especially as far as identification goes.

Sometimes I am amazed by what sellers consider to be a "description." I have seen listings on eBay that read simply "Denmark, very old. Rare!"

OK. So it's up to ME to identify the stamp from a scan? One question, though-- if you don't know the catalogue number of the stamp, how do you know it's "rare?"

A lot of times, the word "rare" is just used as what Internet "gurus" refer to as "click bait." I find it rather annoying-- don't call something "rare" unless it actually has some measure of rarity. And "being 100 years old" does not-- by itself-- make any stamp "rare."

Then again, I tend to be a stickler for describing stamps "properly" and that slows me down considerably, compared to someone who just uploads scans and lets potential buyers pretty much "guess" as to the ID and condition of the stamp. Maybe that works for people-- as a buyer, it has never worked for me. I know a lot of sellers say things like "If you need a better scan, let me know." Personally, I'm too lazy to deal with that... besides, why not just upload the "better scan," in the first place?

Maybe I'm silly, but I tend to favor sellers who actually identify a stamp correctly, and mention things like "has a thin" or "hinge remnant" on their listings.

So anyway, the upshoot of the "organization project" is that I have been listing 100's of my old duplicates for sale since November. Part of the process was not only organizing the stamps, but choosing where to list... something that seems to be on many casual traders' minds.

Which sites "work?" Which sites do not? What is the relationship between fees and sales success?

Since I am not really in it "to make a profit," my criteria are probably a little different from a regular stamp dealer's. For one, since I sell much material at 20-50% of catalogue value (sometimes less), what's most important to me is that the stamps are seen... because I know that as long as there are people looking at the stamps, the prices will drive sales. But if nobody is looking, it doesn't matter if you are giving away free hot bread, so to speak. And that's an issue with many online marketplaces that bill themselves as "alternatives to eBay." It may be cheap-- or even free-- to sell things there, but if there are no buyers, "free" doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

I currently use SIX different venues... and have "rejected" about 15 others as "not worthwhile." Later in the spring, I hope to write about each one I DO use-- and these are only sites where I have actually sold stuff-- and what it's like, and how it works for me. "Site reviews," if you will. I figured it might be useful to other collectors.

In the meantime, I'd like to invite you to visit my eBay Stamp Shop! I have lots of better material from Denmark, as well as some useful Iceland and Sweden. Although I normally deal just with Scandinavian material, I am also offering some better stamps from Switzerland.

I think you'll like what you see there.

Thanks for reading, and "till the next!"

Classic Denmark and Swedish Cancels on eBay

With fall around the corner, and the weather outside not as friendly as it has been, I have been working more on organizing stamps and sorting through old lots.

As a result, I have been adding new items to my eBay stamp store. As always, I focus on listing good quality and desirable material. It continues to sadden me how many stamp sellers use eBay to "dump their junk." I definitely do not choose to be part of that philosophy... and to the degree I sell "junk" stamps, I usually lump them into one large "floor sweepings" lot, clearly marked as "stamps with problems."

So, what's new?

Denmark 4RBS Chestnut Brown

Right now, I am in the process of adding Danish stamps, most of them pre-1930. There are quite a few from the "Bicoloured" issue, although I have not spent time plating most of these... however, the scans are large and clear enough that collectors should easily be able to determine printings and positions from the scans. I have also been listing a number of better varieties and plate flaws... although I am not going to get into specifics about these, as it seems like they sell almost immediately.

Among the better items going up for auction later today (start Sunday, October 9th, end Sunday, October 16th) is a very presentable copy of Denmark's 4RBS brown (Scott #2b/AFA no. 1IIIe) in the rare chestnut brown shade. Although not listed in US catalogues, this shade is valued at US$300.00+ by European catalogues. As with all my auctions, I start bidding at 99 cents, and no reserve.

Meanwhile, I have been sorting and cataloguing a large lot of Sweden Officials and Postage Dues, bought at auction earlier this year. This has turned out to be a very interesting lot, containing not only some nice varieties, but a large number of really nice town cancels. The lot has an interesting "history," in that it contains all Swedish stamps, but was assembled by a collector in Canada, then sent to Denmark to be auctioned, and now has ended up with me in the USA. An excellent example of how stamp collecting truly is a Global hobby!

Normally, when I sort "messy lots" like these, I end up with a lot of defective and uninteresting stamps. This group, however, has been "cleaner" than most with a surprising number of good cancels. After picking out many stamps for my own collection, there has still been a lot left over to sell as duplicates... or as simply not fitting in with my areas of interest.

Current new listings include this copy of a 20 öre red "long" official with a nice strike of the fairly rare "VESTRA KARABY" town cancel. Valued at 500:- SEK (about US$72.50) in the Swedish Facit Postal cancel catalogue, this is one of the rarest cancels I've had on eBay in several years. Although stamp collecting may not be thriving in a worldwide sense, the collecting of postal history and regional town cancels in Sweden is going strong. Known to many as "Hembygsfilateli" (literally: home area philately), this is a highly specialized area of Swedish philately, where collectors focus on postal history from their county or region. This may sound relatively simple-- on the surface-- but it can be surprisingly challenging, as many small towns and places of the 1800s are no longer active postal places, and some were in use for very short period of time.

I hope you'll take a moment to check out my eBay stamp store, today!

Scandinavian Stamp Specialist shop on Bonanza

This is to announce the opening of my new online stamp shop on the "Bonanza" web site. Formerly known as "Bonanzle," Bonanza is a web site where sellers can create online stores to offer items for sale.

Bonanza is not specifically a "stamps venue," but the new shop I've opened is ALL about stamps... and the web site has other stamp vendors, as well.

The focus of the store is "Better Scandinavia." You can expect to find some of my higher quality stamps there-- especially from Denmark and Sweden-- all listed with good descriptions and large clear photos. The stamp pictured is just one example of the type of material you can expect to find.

I hope you'll check it out, and bookmark it to check back, from time to time. Click on this link to visit the stamp shop!