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Bag of Stamps (part one)

Sunday, August 23rd, 2020

While in a craft store looking for storage items, I came upon this:

150 stamps, 50 of which were guaranteed to be different dinosaur stamps! It was only $8 and I couldn’t resist the dino-temptation so it quickly became mine.

A quick comment on the packaging before I open it. It’s a plastic bag, drawstringed closed and heat-treated to stay closed. A most unusual way to sell stamps I though, and hardly tamper proof. It gave the whole package a distinct air of amateurism… but it was only $8 🙂

Here’s the contents: a yellowing envelope full of dinosaur stamps, and a jumble of other stamps folded up in a thin cardboard flyer advertising other products by the same company. Putting aside the dinovelope, I started by examining the ‘mixed’ stamps.

As can be seen here, every expense was spared keeping the stamps in pristine condition, and quite a few were folded like this one. I started separating them and sorting them.

As you saw the packaging says (in small print at the bottom) that some of the 100 ‘mixed’ stamps may be duplicates, and in truth I expected most of them to be. I was quite surprised as I sorted them all to find the number of duplicates to be small. I was also happy to see a lot of international stamps, and became quite distracted as I sorted, closely examining each stamp as I picked it out of the pile.

There’s all the ‘mixed’ stamps! In total, there are 121 unique stamps, and a further 29 doubles (of 18 stamps). So for starters the package contained not 100, but 150 stamps! (Can you see the doubles I missed in the above photo?)

Those are the largest and smallest stamps, with the Anguilla one being about 2 by 1.5 inches. I’m not sure this is remotely important, but I always note stamp size since I’m always thinking about sticking them on postcards 🙂

Here I have separated out all the international stamps. There’s 30 in total with no duplicates, from the following 22 countries: Cuba, Sweden, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, Luxembourg, Spain, The Netherlands, England, India, Hungary, Germany, North Korea, Austria, Russia, Tanzania, Anguilla, Laos, Rhodesia, Western Sahara and Manama.

A few of these raised an eyebrow, so I did some research and learned a few interesting facts!

Rhodesia, as you know, is no longer a country. So that’s a stamp (and in fact my only stamp from a no-longer-extant country. It’s in wretched condition, but it’s over 50 years old as well.

The DPRK stamp is from North Korea. This may seem unusual but North Korea issues an extraordinary amount of stamps: more even than South Korea! The stamps are mostly propaganda (including some infamous ones depicting war with the USA) but there are a lot of animal and topical stamps as well. The main reason is to make money selling them to stamp collectors.

The Manama and Western Sahara stamps are what are called ‘Cinderella’ stamps, which are those issued by non-postal authorities. Manama is part of UAE today, but in the 60s was little more than a desert oasis that issued ‘stamps’ to sell to collectors despite not even having a postal service. Western Sahara is the same, although they have some more claim to sovereignty since they are a disputed region of Morocco. But still, their stamps are not usable for postage. (The North Korea and Anguilla stamps are arguably Cinderellas as well.)

The things you learn from stamps!

The most common ‘theme’ was unsurprisingly US flags, since the USA always has one in circulation. I like the series at the bottom, which showcase famous sights with the flag. The 4c in the middle is very pretty!

Flags aside Christmas stamps were common, with eight in total from 3 countries. The UK one – though folded and damaged – was printed with flashy gold ink and is very pretty.

America issues a lot of attractive stamps today, but looking at this group it’s clearly been the case for a long time. The wireframe science stamp is a favourite, and I’d love to put those Frankenstein stamps on some postcards!

This guy stood out for obvious reasons. So many words and it doesn’t even mention the cost of the stamp itself! It’s a 4c stamp issued in 1991 when postage increase from 21c to 25c. Ugly as hell, but curious (since 4c stamps existed then and still do today).

Now I’m sure most of these stamps are common trash to a serious collector, but for someone with no ‘collection’ (such as myself) it’s a good selection and absolutely worth $8 in my opinion. Based on the mixed stamps alone, I was happy with his stamp bag.

But what about the 50 unique dinosaur stamps? Alas this entry has been too long already; let’s save the contents of that enticing yellow dinovelope for next weekend! (And no, I haven’t opened it yet so I’m waiting too!)

See you then 🙂

Posted in Blog, Collecting, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Stamps | 1 Comment »

Postcard Sorting

Sunday, August 16th, 2020

About a year ago I started thinking seriously of sorting my postcards. I’d been storing them completely unsorted in a plastic tub, and while I wanted a better solution I had a feeling the job would be a difficult one.

Then in January while in Oz/Japan I bought some postcard storage albums. Interestingly none of these were intended for my own use (they were gifts) but when I used one to sort some of mums postcards I became impressed by how great it was to have them all viewable at a glance, and knew them I’d certainly get around to it sooner or later.

Fast forward through the pandemic, and a couple of weeks ago I helped JAF sort her postcards into a binder using postcard sleeves. They looked wonderful and at that moment I knew I’d found my solution. Within a week I’d bought binders and ordered sleeves enough for over 1000 cards, and these past few days I sorted and sleeved them all.

I’ve kept every single card ever received, with the earliest being from SMC back in mid 1994. They’re now all sorted chronologically (as best I can) by sender and for the ones sent by me I’ve sorted by country as well.

This process has allowed me to catalogue the collection. In total I’ve got over 850 postcards, about 530 of which I’d sent myself (or KLS did), and about 330 of which was sent to us by someone else – probably one of you!

Unsurprisingly the most cards are from Oz: over 300 in total (220 of which I sent myself). These past few years I’ve sent KLS at least one per day during my trips and I’m sure I’ll continue to do this whenever I can visit again. With so much from one country you may expect repetition but there’s surprisingly few cards represented more than once.

From within the USA there’s cards from many states with the most represented (outside of NY) being CA, FL and HA. There’s lots of cards from Japan, the UK and Ireland and a handful from countries including France, Germany, Canada, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Korea, China and other exotic locales. (Incidentally I’m not including Postcrossing cards in any of this; I’ve got over 220 but they’re still loose in a box!)

These cards are overloaded with memories. When I first started sending postcards to myself (over a decade ago) I didn’t write much – the goal was the card, not the message. But these days I write a lot and over time the cards have become ‘trip diaries’. Reading them brings back all the memories from the various vacations we’ve taken over the years.

That’s an example card from 2017, written in a Kyoto hotel room after a day trip to Nara to see the deer. I was well into using stickers on cards and the simple description of our day contains details that would have certainly been lost had I not written them down.

There’s an example of a card I sent from Scotland. The card itself is amazing – metallic and shiny – but the message on the back is sublime in its mundanity, and when we read it today we had a good chuckle remembering the (true) event. I daresay there’s no chance we would have remembered this had I not written it on the card in that Inverness B&B! (Incidentally I bought two packs of candy and got a second sticker that I put on another card. Who did I send that to?)

When I travel alone the messages (sent to KLS) are more introspective and I have noticed I have a tendency to dedicate entire cards to moments, as you can see in the example above (and yes, that’s a Ganesh watercolour I painted). I never run out of stuff to write, and in fact last Oz trip I sent an average of two cards a day. Sometimes when unusual or notable things happen I make a note on my phone so I remember to write it on a postcard 🙂

Here’s a similar example from my last stay in Japan:

Each of these cards is a little time capsule and having them all easily readable like they are now is something I should have done years ago. If you’ve got your own collection (and I know many of you do) then I suggest getting them out of a shoebox and sleeving them yourself. Yes it’s a little bit of an investment up front (the supplies cost me under $100) but it’s absolutely worth it!

Oh and send me some postcards! I’ve received almost none in 2020 due to you-know-what but just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you can’t send me a funny/interesting message on a card. I’ve still got empty sleeves: give me some cards to fill them!

Posted in Art, Blog, Collecting, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Postcards, Retro, Time | Comments Closed

The LEGO Treehouse

Monday, July 20th, 2020

I got this for my birthday (Thanks J & J!) and about a month ago started to build it:

It’s a massive kit, with 3000+ pieces and a 428 page manual with 894 assembly steps.

I like to build these things slowly, a few hours at a time, and this kit was well suited to that. The first part I finished was the trunk:

Note the little touches like the swing and birdhouse. The engineering that went into the LEGO pieces wrapping around the trunk with the studs facing out is very clever, and the whole thing is rock-solid strong to support the weight of the rest of the structure.

Next came the three ‘houses’:

These were the most fun to build due to the incredible detail inside. Here’s closeups of one of the bedrooms and the bathroom:

Next came the (detachable) roofs and some detail at ground level:

It’s a little obscured in the photo but the winding staircase from the ground up to the treehouse level is extraordinary. See also the ‘suspended’ walkway that wraps around the trunk connecting two of the houses.

Here’s a detail of the table at ground level:

The final step was to add the canopy:

The leaves are made of recycled plants; a preview of LEGO of the future perhaps (since they want to move away from plastic). The set comes with summer and fall leaf colours, and can be changed with the seasons:

This is an amazing kit. The engineering is first-class, it’s great fun to build and it looks incredible on display. This is the sort of kit that would have kept Bernard and I busy for months as kids, and I dare say there’s a lot of younglings enjoying the hell out of this today!

If you like LEGO and have some cash needing to be spent, you can’t go wrong with this one 🙂

Posted in Models, Otaku, Toys | 1 Comment »

Vintage

Saturday, July 18th, 2020

This little guy is over 40 years old:

He’s our Jawa Star Wars figure, which was probably purchased in about 1978. I saw ‘our’ since B and I used to mostly share these as I recall, although some figures were bought in pairs so we both had one.

This guy was one of the earliest we bought, and was one of at least a pair. Originally he had a little gun as well, but that’s long-lost by now. He took part in many elaborate Star Wars dioramas we made both indoors and out, and as with the others figures shown here today miraculously survived being melted by fireworks in the mid 1980s.

We also used to throw our figures into ponds, take them to the beach, and even tie them to parachutes and throw them off our roof! It’s a miracle he’s in such great condition.

That’s an original Yoda figure, from about 1980. As with the Jawa we had two of these, and this guy is in extraordinary condition considering his age. I always loved this figure due to its tiny size and large amount of accessories.

I remember we used to occasionally get one Star Wars figure each when we went shopping, but when the Empire figures hit shelves in 1980 dad bought us a whole bunch at once, including this guy. I can remember being overwhelmed as a kid by all the new figures before I’d seen the film, and had fun imagining what roles some characters would have.

That’s the final vintage figure I have, a guy named Squid Head from the Return Of The Jedi line that came out in 1983. I always loved this character (who was on screen for only seconds) and it was one of my favourite figures from that film. This figure I recall as being distinctly mine, although I don’t recall why.

I remember a trip to Sydney with B and dad in the early 1980s. We stayed in a bright apartment and went to a nearby mall every day. We played video games at a tiny arcade and dad let us each select some Star Wars figures from the toy store. I think that’s when we got Squid Head, because I recall playing with him (I would have been 11) in the garden patio of the apartment.

I asked dad about that trip last year, but he couldn’t remember. I wish I knew more about where we stayed and exactly when.

When I came to America I didn’t bring these guys with me: Bernard sent them to me years later. Back in the day we had loads of Star Wars figures, but some were melted and some sold off. Maybe these were saved because they had cloth parts? Maybe just because they’re cool? I wonder if B remembers?

Whatever the reason I’m glad they survived, because they’re now amongst my oldest possessions. Each of them trigger many happy memories of my childhood, and I’ll treasure them forever 🙂

Posted in Blog, Collecting, History, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Toys | 2 Comments »

Cannon Bull

Saturday, June 13th, 2020

I bought the above in Japan in January. I vacillated on the purchase since luggage space was tight but I decided in the end to make it fit.

It’s a ZOID! But not a plastic model version; this is a toy version. You still assemble it, but it’s much easier and the pieces aren’t on runners. I’ve done one like this before, but they still make and sell new ones and this one seemed to be a new release.

Assembly was trivial, but I was surprised to see (since I apparently didn’t bother looking closely at the packaging) that it has a battery powered motor in it! I selected this kit for its appearance though, and think it looks quite nifty.

That’s the finished product. According to the ZOIDs wiki this is a medium sized ‘buffalo type’ weapons platform that has a mass of 50.4 tonnes and carries a 9-barreled missile pod for long range attacks!

And there he is attacking! He moves at a good clip and the barrels of his missile launchers click as they ‘fire’.

A fun little toy. Next time I’m in Japan I’ll be picking myself up another one of these I reckon…

Posted in Animals, Crafts, Miscellaneous, Models, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

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