Lets hear it for not collecting stamps!

Post Reply New Topic

Bad manners?

Was expecting a stronger response than that.

Like maybe "You masticate in public!?!?!?! That's OBSCENE!".

I prefer not collecting debt. I'm a non-debt collector.

Sometimes you've just gotta do it. You shouldn't fight the urge. Mastication has been scientifically proven to be good for your health, potentially adding decades onto your lifespan. And let's face it, it's really enjoyable. Heck, I'm masticating right now.

Aldous Huxley makes a contemptuous remark about stamp collectors near the beginning of Brave New World, though I forget exactly what it was, or why he said it.

Some early stamps are very attractive for the simplicity and purity of their design, IMO. Like this 1840 Twopenny Blue:

Britain invented postage stamps in the early nineteenth century, and the UK is still today the only country in the world that does not put the name of the country on its postage stamps.

When I collected when I was a school kid the German part of my stamp album was the most interesting because you could see the country's tumultuous history in its stamps. You could see the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic of the 1920's: stamps of 200 and 400 marks, and then stamps in the "Tausands" of marks, and then in the millions, and then in the hundreds of millions of marks. Even stamps that apparently got recycled before they even left the plant: pretty 400 mark stamps with "five tausend" stamped in heavy black ink over it ( I guess the price went up even before the stamp even got to market).

Then comes the swastikas, and the portraits of Hitler. Then after the War Germany becomes two countries: the Communist East, and the non communist west. Both were prolific stamp producers. The west was rather pedestrian in its postage stamps, but the East had some quite cool and brilliant stamps. I stopped collecting long before the end of the cold war and reunification though.

I'm a die hard fundamentalist non-stamp collector.