10-11-2025, 07:56 AM
Hey all, good question Hugh, and the answer to it is one of the reasons I love stamp collecting - there is NO END to the sheer VARIETY of things one can do with a collection from day to day, in no particular order:
- Check my as-yet-undone little "things to do list" (or add to it) in my little black Moleskine "Carmen's Little Stamp Research Book" - I just had to put some duct tape on the spine, and I feel like Indiana Jones with his dad's Grail Diary every time I grab it, so it's subtitled "My Indiana Jones Book"!
- buy/hunt for stamps or have them given to me (example: my friend's father sent me three Costco Tim Horton's Keurig coffee boxes full of stamps and postal sets; another friend's brother has sent me probably 40,000 stamps over the years as well. He got them from a Canada Post employee who had received permission to collect them from all the mail that came into their office.
- receive, catalogue and put away my monthly stamp offering on approval from Arpin (and less fun: paying for it, LOL!)
- sort stamps
- soak stamps
- catalogue stamps (in my case, using EZStamp)
- look at stamps
- research "mystery" stamps (usually in some foreign language I don't recognize) - this has been made MUCH simpler with the advent of Google Lens, that's fer sure
- read the latest issue of The Canadian Philatelist, Topical Time, Canadian Stamp News, or whatever other philatelic mag with a nice cup of tea
- read one of the (many!) back issues from the above, and see what was going on back then
- read a chapter from one of my philatelic-related books - this might inlcude opening some sort of Dictionary of Philatelic Terms at random and seeing what I learn from that page
- look at the childhood collection someone has inherited and passed on to me to see if they have anything interesting in it for them (I always warn them, though, that I am NO Stamp Expert and generally-speaking, childhood collections won't get them retired early!)
- annoy the heck out of everyone around me, starting with my poor husband, by talking about the latest (fascinating to ME, anyway, therefore fascinating, tee hee!) stamp story
- hop onto the KSC fora and contribute, as I have just now!
Did I forget anything? I know eventually, "start to clear out and narrow down my collection" will become a thing as well. BUT NOT TODAY.
- Check my as-yet-undone little "things to do list" (or add to it) in my little black Moleskine "Carmen's Little Stamp Research Book" - I just had to put some duct tape on the spine, and I feel like Indiana Jones with his dad's Grail Diary every time I grab it, so it's subtitled "My Indiana Jones Book"!
- buy/hunt for stamps or have them given to me (example: my friend's father sent me three Costco Tim Horton's Keurig coffee boxes full of stamps and postal sets; another friend's brother has sent me probably 40,000 stamps over the years as well. He got them from a Canada Post employee who had received permission to collect them from all the mail that came into their office.
- receive, catalogue and put away my monthly stamp offering on approval from Arpin (and less fun: paying for it, LOL!)
- sort stamps
- soak stamps
- catalogue stamps (in my case, using EZStamp)
- look at stamps
- research "mystery" stamps (usually in some foreign language I don't recognize) - this has been made MUCH simpler with the advent of Google Lens, that's fer sure
- read the latest issue of The Canadian Philatelist, Topical Time, Canadian Stamp News, or whatever other philatelic mag with a nice cup of tea
- read one of the (many!) back issues from the above, and see what was going on back then
- read a chapter from one of my philatelic-related books - this might inlcude opening some sort of Dictionary of Philatelic Terms at random and seeing what I learn from that page
- look at the childhood collection someone has inherited and passed on to me to see if they have anything interesting in it for them (I always warn them, though, that I am NO Stamp Expert and generally-speaking, childhood collections won't get them retired early!)
- annoy the heck out of everyone around me, starting with my poor husband, by talking about the latest (fascinating to ME, anyway, therefore fascinating, tee hee!) stamp story
- hop onto the KSC fora and contribute, as I have just now!
Did I forget anything? I know eventually, "start to clear out and narrow down my collection" will become a thing as well. BUT NOT TODAY.
Carmen G-O'Donnell
RPSC / American Top. Assn
Canada, Cats, #1s, Religion, Royalty, Soccer, Stamps on St, Titanic