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Post by dpgolden215 on Dec 21, 2023 1:01:13 GMT
Hello Everybody!
Apologies if this is a little long, my wife says that I can be long-winded at times. You've been warned. I've been meaning to join this forum for months, but to be honest I kind of forgot that it existed. In my defense, I have a young baby girl at home and most of my attention (and energy) goes into caring for her, so cut me some slack. No matter, Ted the Talking Stamp Collector made mention of the forum in one of his latest videos, which reminded me to sign up and participate a little.
Anyway, my name is Dan and I've been collecting for a little over two years. I mostly collect U.S. stamps with a wide-ranging focus, but in particular I really enjoy collecting topics like sports (more specifically baseball), railroads, sailing, nature scenes, battles/wars, anything to do with Chicago (where I grew up, go White Sox! [don't laugh]), and literature. I also enjoy collecting first day covers and even make my own FDC's for most of the new stamps that USPS releases each year.
Despite my best efforts to focus solely on American stamps, friends of mine have gifted me sets of foreign stamps from several countries including Germany, Russia, Norway, and Ethiopia to name a few. While these were certainly nice additions to my collection, I still tried to focus on American stamps. After all, collecting everything around the world can get very overwhelming, very quickly.
However, some recent exciting news is that I intentionally branched out a little and began actively collecting Irish stamps! Irish blood runs deep in my family, so the connection was strong from the start. As a result, I knew if I ever decided to start a foreign collection Ireland would be at the top of the list.
Throughout my collecting journey, Ted the Talking Stamp Collector's videos have been instrumental in deepening my knowledge of stamps and inspiring me to curate a unique collection based on what I enjoy. Well I guess Ted shares that honor with Graham from Exploring Stamps, but I discovered Ted's channel first so he gets the credit in my mind!
I'm happy to be here and I look forward to discussing philately with all of you! Happy Stamping Everyone!
- Dan Golden
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Dec 21, 2023 1:45:52 GMT
Hi Dan. Good to see you here. Thanks for the kind words. Beware of collecion creep. It is an ever-present danger in this hobby. TTSC
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Post by fairyfoot on Dec 21, 2023 19:39:21 GMT
Hello and welcome. Don't forget also to be a nice stamp user rather than "ordinary" postage labels. You never know, you might just spark someone else's interest in stamps. Can't quite recall offhand when the USPS issued round textured stamps of various balls. Haven't received all of them yet on post to me in the UK!
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Post by ClassicPhilatelist on Dec 22, 2023 8:28:50 GMT
Hi Dan, Great to have you here. What era of US do you collect, and how deep into the "back of the back of the back of the book" do you go? Looking forward to some great conversations in this area. Cheers, Scott
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Post by dpgolden215 on Dec 23, 2023 0:02:37 GMT
Hi Dan, Great to have you here. What era of US do you collect, and how deep into the "back of the back of the back of the book" do you go? Looking forward to some great conversations in this area. Cheers, Scott Howdy Scott, I'm not sure what you mean by "back of the back of the back of the book", but I haven't narrowed down my US collection to a specific era. Frankly I collect whatever catches my eye, which can be a dangerous (and expensive) game to play at times. I also DIY all of my own album pages in order to showcase things the way I like, which makes collecting that much more personal and enjoyable!
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Post by ClassicPhilatelist on Dec 23, 2023 15:43:31 GMT
Hi Dan, I think one of the signs of moving from "collector" to "philatelist" is making one's own pages. A little like to be a Jedi you have to make your own light saber. Back of the back of the back of the book are the really obscure items, like Sanitary Fair, Distillated Spirits, Private Die, War Savings, Beer stamps, Telegraph (comical that wired communications still needed a "stamp), that kind of odd ball stuff WAY in the back of the Scott Specialized Catalog. I'm a big fan of the weirdness.
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Post by dpgolden215 on Dec 27, 2023 16:18:13 GMT
As a big fan of Star Wars I appreciate being spoken about on the same level as a Jedi Knight. My 10-year-old self would go nuts at that compliment and promptly spend the rest of the day in the backyard pretending my wiffleball bat was a lightsaber.
I can't say I get too far into the back of the back of the book, mostly because out of the list of stamps you mentioned I've only heard of one, War Savings. Granted, I'd love to get into collecting War Savings stamps later on due to the historical value they have, and I have a fascination with studying war especially on the home front. But that is probably a more far off goal of mine to start collecting. I want to finish a couple of the philatelic projects I have on my plate before I branch out again with the War Savings stamps.
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Post by khj on Dec 27, 2023 16:37:08 GMT
Welcome to TTS Forum, Dan! Yeah, some of us are willing to stay in Texas, unlike... k
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Dec 27, 2023 18:41:28 GMT
. Moi???
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Post by khj on Dec 27, 2023 21:32:11 GMT
Tedski, you're so vain, not everything is about you! But as it turns out, in this case, it is! k
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Post by ClassicPhilatelist on Dec 28, 2023 0:10:30 GMT
Hey Dan, Thanks for the details. Now let me turn you to the Dark Side and take you down the rabbit hole of Private Die. If you like "war at home" kind of ideas, Private Die is the pinnacle of war philately. When the Civil War broke out, Lincoln soon realized it was going to go on for a while, and that it was very costly. The US (And to this day still the only country in the world to do something like this), introduced tax on Matches, Medicines (which is why Private Die is often referred to as "M & M", as the vast majority of Private Die stamps were in this category), perfume, playing cards, and late toward the end of the war, canned fruit (only one design for this was ever issued, and they are quite scarce). The interesting twist here though, is that the government, in order to throw bone to the manufacturers involved, were allowed to create their own designs for the tax stamp that would go onto their packaging (so long as it met certain criteria, and I'm not aware of any design that was rejected by the review committee). By far, "patent medicines" were the most creative, and the most extensive group. (They outnumber all the other groups combined). The tax was meant to run until the end of the war, but it was more costly than expected, and it continued for several years after. Then the Spanish-American War erupted, and the whole plan was extended, adding new private die. Now here's where it gets really funky. After the Private Die tax was finally lifted, many of the manufacturers had come to use their private die stamp as a type of brand recognition. So they wanted to keep the stamps running, but because they were tax stamps with a denomination, and contained the words "US Internal Revenue" (in some form) on them, this was problematic. So the government sold the dies back to the makers who wanted them, and they were reused as a sort of brand recognition as "facsimile" (but in a very different usage of this term from usual philatelic facsimile). They removed the Internal Revenue from the stamps and replaced it usually with something like "Trade Mark" instead. These facsimiles are fairly abundant, but little known, because they are not listed in Scott (though myself and Charles DiComo have done a lot of work to bring a new extensive catalog of these together). I've also created full color album pages for all the private die issues (no one else on the planet has done this), as well as full color pages for facsimile, which I provide free of charge to those who ask. You just have to print the PDFs onto the paper of your choice. Private Die are fun in that they come in multiple paper varieties in most cases (depending how long the company lasted). They include "Old Paper" (which is just the usual soft porous stamp paper that was laying around at the time of the start of private die printing), silk paper (like that used on 2nd issue revenues), pink paper (a subtle to heavy pink color that no one knows why it exists), USIR watermarked paper, after the bureau took over printing, and and experimental silk paper which is among the most scarce of all paper types for most issues, which was between old paper and silk paper issues. The cool thing is, save for experimental silk, most of these are easy to distinguish. So collecting by type is not difficult. The only "fakes" you see in Private Die are of the pink paper type, because pink paper types are always more valuable than the old paper, so there is that tendency for fraudsters to try to take advantage there, but otherwise, not so much. One nice thing is, very few were "canceled" in the traditional sense. Because these were a tax applied to the package, there was no cancellation involved, and many were destroyed or heavily damaged during package opening. A few examples (like stamps on covers) can still be found on old packages or bottles (for perfume or medicines). Revenue on Piece in this area are scarce. So... how about it? Are you in yet? There is a HUGE range of Private Die as well to meet the budget of collectors, ranging in price from a $1 or $2, up to around $125,000 (for the top prize, a unique stamp with the only surviving copy currently held by Eric Jackson and is for sale... I held it in my hands earlier this year at NapEx where the asking price is $125k. Having left my suitcase full of cash back in my hotel room, I had to pass this time, but maybe next time I can add it to the collection. I would say about 50% of private die can be had for less than $100 a stamp with average price around $25 - $35. The mid range stamps from $200 - $500 are plentiful. After that the scarce stamps become more difficult with some cases between 10 and 100 are known, and can range from $1k to $4k. Then the high value material (actually not that many in this range, similar to FoB), $25k - $125k. It's a RICH area to explore, it takes two full-size D-Ring Lighthouse wide binders to hold the collection. More than twice the usual "Back of Book" items. I could talk about Private Die all day... Hooked yet?
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Post by dpgolden215 on Dec 28, 2023 4:43:24 GMT
I think I learned more about Private Die in that post than perhaps any other philatelic topic in any other post on any forum anywhere. It certainly seems like an interesting area of stamps to explore, and very tempting to try my hand at! For now though, my stamp collecting needs to be done on a budget since I'm a young dad and kids are expensive. Maybe in the future!
Regardless, thank you for educating me on Private Die. That's what I love about these stamp forums! I always learn something new and interesting!
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Post by ClassicPhilatelist on Dec 28, 2023 12:30:47 GMT
Hi Dan, Well that's about the best compliment I've ever received on a post of mine in any forum as well. I'm a passionate philatelist and expertizer, as several here will attest to. If it's US, I have it covered. Still... 100's of private die under $30. Taunt, taunt.
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