Yes, I have been an unabashed stamp nut for decades. My journey through philately has brought me into contact with 1960s cigar-chomping philatelist stamp shop owners in Boston to so many incredibly nice and knowledgeable people over the years at various shows.
Without waxing too nostalgic about all of that past time, I began to wonder about people here: When you are not enjoying your stamps, what do you (or did you) do in the work world.
I'll get started.
I wrote for a large circulation daily newspaper for many years. I also was the chief editor for both business and entertainment monthly magazines when such publications were commonly found printed upon paper. Imagine that.
Seeing the writing, so to speak, on the wall, I jumped over to online editor for a large Midwestern corporation for several years.
I have also written for national and international publications specializing in Jimi Hendrix and also the blues world.
Now, in semi-retirement I enjoy meeting people as always from all walks of life, walking, watching the birds (though not professionally) and generally exploring the world.
My collecting took off in 1991 after a car accident had me off from work for about six months. I was planning on selling my collection but got hooked.
I have been a professional Fire Fighter/EMT in Philadelphia for about 30 years. I retired in 2014. I have had other part time jobs, mostly in home repair and painting. I raised one son with my wife. Neither have an interest in stamps or postal history.
As a kid I was always trying to make a buck and then spend it on my collection, that is until girls came into the picture. There were several stamp shops in Philly in the 60's and 70's. Also had the stamp department in Gimbles downtown. I lived a few blocks from the El so I could get anywhere in town with a quick train ride and or bus.
I have been very involved with Philately since I caught the bug back in 1991. I was treasurer for PNSE (Philadelphia National Stamp Exhibition). Also was chairman for Merpex (Merchantville, NJ Stamp Club) for several years. On the board and eventually President of The U.S. Cancellation Club. Currently the treasurer for the Greater Philadelphia Stamp And Collectors Club.
I may have read some of your articles on The Blues. When I retired I started my new career as a DJ (volunteer) on a local community radio station that it's main music format is Big Band and Swing. Tuesday afternoon 12-3 I have a 3 hour show "Tuesday Afternoon Bandstand" and Wednesday evenings I am on 10-1 with my other show "Blues In The Night". You can listen on the internet, we stream 24 hours a day. WRDV.org
I am as busy now as when I was working especially being Pop Pop to my two granddaughters.
I have been collecting stamps ever since I was 7 or 8 years old, which makes me a collector with almost 40 years experience now. A friend from school got me interested and soon I had my own stock book (just a few pages at the smallest possible size, probably my mother thought it was just a craze that would not last). My grandfather became enthusiastic and when we visited my grandparents, me and my grandfather used to go to the attic, looking for old postcards and letters to soak the stamps off. We even found one very exotic stamp from Brazil. I now know it is a very common stamp, but to an 8 year old it was a wonderful discovery.
Collecting became less important when I grew up, and I became interested again in the Internet Age, when it became possible to exchange stamps with people all over the world. It’s something I have continued doing ever since.
I do not remember when I became involved with Stamporama, but that was a long time ago. I contributed regularly to the Rambler in the days when Jerry was still around running the club, so that must have been at least 15 years ago.
Now for the “normal” life, I studied mechanical engineering and am currently working as a Quality Manager for a company that produces air filtration units. I work at the head office in Alkmaar, the Netherlands, but there are offices in the USA, Canada, Germany, France and Thailand as well.
In my spare time, I write reviews and do interviews for a music magazine specializing in heavy metal and all kinds of rock. My specialties are psychedelic rock (both sixties and modern), doom metal and all kinds of alternative metal (I know, there are about as many sub-genres as there are bands). If interested I could do some name dropping, but I am not sure if many of these names will ring a bell here, as it is mostly underground stuff. When time (and finances) allows I visit a few festivals, but that does not happen more than two or three times per year. Right now, I am getting more and more competent in painting and carpentry as we have just bought a new home. In seven weeks we have done an awful lot already, but there still is a long list of projects that have to be finished before everything is as we want it. With three children age 13, 5 and 4 and a couple of pets, that means there is always something to do.
Dialysis, damned if you do...dead if you don't 19 Jul 2017 07:37:03am
re: Stamp Nut, Yes...But...
I have collected since 1976; I had previously collected coins but a local stamp dealer nurtured and steered my collecting proclivity into stamps. I quickly joined APS and my local stamp club where I later became an officer. As I finished school and started a family the stamps went onto shelving and I became an avid collector and restorer of Studebakers.
My wife opened a local retail pet shop while I joined a technology company as an engineer. Later I was promoted to VP of Engineering and also became a partner on the company. We designed, developed and manufactured embedded devices such as kiosks, laser scanners, motor controllers and other edge of network equipment. I have always had a strong interest in Information Technology and love developing solutions which helps people access information when and where they want it. Applying technology to stamp collecting has been something that I have been doing for the last 15 years or so and was the catalyst for renewing my interest in the hobby.
A few years ago and at age 57 I was diagnosed with Urothelial cancer (bladder and kidney cancer) which resulted in End Stage Renal Disease and dialysis. This took a bit of the wind from my sails and drove a career change. I became VP of Technology for a small medical R&D company that has been doing research into fall prevention. Working out of a state university, we have been working on an evidenced based fall prevention system and got patents for the technology. This was a good fit for me since I can work from home, the dialysis chair, and the infusion chair.
But I also really enjoy developing and implementing technology solutions for our hobby. I tried for a few years to assist some of the various existing organizations and clubs with their website but was met with a lot of push back and resistance. So finally about 4 years ago I started Stamp Smarter website and put my time into it instead. I have also been a Moderator over at the SCF forum for the last two years.
My wife (of 35 years) and I live in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina, a truly remarkable place to be.
Don
I started collecting both stamps and coins with an emphasis on coins at age 12 during a friendship with a fellow sixth grader who had returned to America from Liberia where his father was a missionary plus another friend we made on our school bus ride when we started seventh grade who was a high school senior who, also, collected. I really liked seeing the stamps he had collected from all over the world. Shortly after the seventh grade both of our fathers moved to new churches in different towns/cities (both were pastors in different denominations).
I continued stamp and coin collecting through high school then sold everything to raise money for college. On graduation from college I attended a stamp show in Ft. Walton Beach, FL and purchased a starter collection of stamps to resume my collecting activities. Silver was approaching historic highs and coin collecting had ceased to be economically viable for me especially the silver dimes, quarter, halves, and silver dollars which had made up the bulk of my coin collection. For thirty years I concentrated on a USA collection then branched into a world wide collection about ten years ago. A year ago I bought a starter Canadian collection at a local stamp show which allowed me to return to looking for quarter a piece or less fun collecting. Also, I discovered Jim Jackson's http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/ site and the http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/ site which provided evidence that a Scott International Part I collection might actually be something that could be attainable as a significant completion item or even a complete collection. With those examples in place, I have succumbed to the idea of working on a fairly large International worldwide collection. Today I printed off the Big Blue Checklist on archival quality paper as I expect it to keep me busy for quite a while. I have also dabbled in a fairly large Minkus Global Supreme collection through 1966, Great Britain, France, and Brazil collections. Yesterday I started building a checklist for the International Part II and International Part III albums so that I can contribute a bit to the idea of Big Blue based collections. It should keep me busy for quite a while.
I started my first job out of college as a computer programmer and college instructor in programming languages at my alma mater and have maintained an involvement in computer programming or IT support areas for four decades including 15 years in the IT director role at a college plus 8 years as a lead system analyst at a university plus some other stints in data processing management and as an adjunct faculty member for three different college/universities as well as my current position doing computer support for clients for a national managed support provider. As a programmer I wrote about 750,000 lines of code in thirteen different programming languages before moving on to other areas. I worked with IBM 1130, CHI 2130, HP 3000, HP 9000, and IBM AIX systems before moving into the Microsoft DOS then Windows environments including networks of personal computers with supporting servers.
What a wonderful thread this is. To be able to glimpse a bit more of our members is a very special treat. Thanks to you all for the effort and the sharing. In my own case, I was going after a boy scout merit badge around 9 or so,and just kept on going!
Fast forward across time, past the school years, personal therapy,courtships, finding my other half, marriage,children, grandchildren and just recently losing my sweetheart after 60 years of marriage. In the journey I became civilized, an educator on the secondary and higher education levels, and after 36 years retired from private practice
and teaching in 1990. Stamps have continued to occupy some of my attention and time throughout the journey. Involvement with SOR began with Jerry Abern and some contributions to his newsletter which later became the Rambler.
To whatever extent that I could offer any assistance to the small group around Jerry I was happy to do so. Full disclosure requires my admitting that I still retain my chisel and clay tablets, that I communicate in smoke signals, that I had been replaced by a chimpanzee (in trying to help the Secretary of SOR) , and from time to time in various non-technical posts at the pleasure of the President.
Why do mention this last stuff? Clearly the folks who have posted so far are technically astute and have much to offer to SOR if their time permits. Consider this a plea from an old stamp nut to reach out to the President or Management Team of SOR to offer your expertise. The offer would be most appreciated, and could be a wonderful lifelong (if desired) helping hand paying forward.
Great thread... and I noticed that I neglected to add my later years, so here goes...
Like many folks I lost my interest in stamps in my late teens. I didn't get rid of anything, it all got packed away. When eBay was new I got involved in buying and selling automobilia, collectibles around antique cars. In the early days you could do rather well, and I noticed there was a stamp section. The first thing I saw was my Ben Franklin booklet pane. I had always lusted after that, but had never even seen one in person. And there was one up for bid. So I bought it. That got me hooked on my Franklin collection once again, since suddenly I could shop from my computer, and spend the easy profits I had made on eBay. So I kept up searching eBay for anything interesting on Scott 300 and 314, building a considerable collection of the private perforations. That kept me happy.
Two years ago my wife had an operation and I worked from home for 8 weeks to keep an eye on her. I figured it was time, so I broke out the boxes of stamps and decided that my project for that down time would be to sort through it all and build a decent USA collection. My plan was not to buy anything, only organize what I had (Ha!). Shortly after that I found Stamporama and I've been building that collection ever since. While sorting, I found my New Jersey postmark collection and got into that one again as well! And that leads me to my current obsession! Hey, a guy has to keep busy.
Life wise, I am from New Jersey and moved to a suburb of Philadelphia 7 years ago. I've been married for 36 years and have two grown daughters who remained in NJ. One got married last year and we are now expecting our first grand daughter in December.
Professionally, I'm still among the working and have been in facility management for pharmaceutical companies for the past 35 years. I've done everything from the day to day management of large sites of office, labs and manufacturing, to construction projects, and capacity planning. My current gig is running a global network for reliability engineering, building best practices at the manufacturing sites around the globe. I communicate with people around the world on a daily basis by phone, Skype meetings and email. I can work from home just as effectively as on the company property since I don't meet with people in person that often. It's an interesting position!
I started collecting worldwide perfect bound albums while we were stationed in Germany -- living fairly close to East Germany. When we moved back to US the collection was lost (stolen in transit). My dad's coin collection disappeared too. No real interest until I was 14 when we visited a neighbor who had a mostly mint collection in a Scott National album and really got into it. I got a Liberty album, crystal mounts, and frequented two dealers in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn like Brooklyn Stamp and Coin. We also made trips to Nassau Street for some weekend stamp shows. This was when Subway was in NY.
My dad collected some stamps but he was very big in coins. I never like coins or the people who often sold them. Dad sold coins so I sat behind bourse tables more than few times. I continued collecting a little through high school (new issues) but went dormant during college. I did restart out of college and switch to Scott National but still mostly modern material.
In the 90's I slowed down dramatically - got cheap since stamps got more expensive to fill spaces then went dormant in the mid-2000 period. My dad started giving me year sets of US stamps (sheets) as my only Christmas gift but mostly keep them in a box. I tried collecting Malaysia, Singapore, etc. after I spent a lot of time in that area on business but did not do much. I was not putting in more than a few hours per month at best. Stamp shows did not really offer much.
Fast forward to last year during a snow storm (stuck in the house), I decided to start organizing what I had and now it occupies much of my free time.
I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and work in the IT industry in development (R&D) of purpose optimized devices.
Hello Bruce, Your post caught my eye...at first glance, I didn't recognize having authored the post, and then realized I hadn't! I'm the stampnut of TheStampNut.com website and so dubbed the StampNut many many years ago. I've been posting for decades under that name and when the time came, launched my first website which was crude and really not E-Commerce and later went all in with the latest upgrade, a fully functional website with all the sophisticated bells and whistles one would want in a professional website. I'm also on many other websites as well as facebook. Please visit anytime.
I have also dabbled in a fairly large Minkus Global Supreme collection through 1966, Great Britain, France, and Brazil collections. Yesterday I started building a checklist for the International Part II and International Part III albums so that I can contribute a bit to the idea of Big Blue based collections. It should keep me busy for quite a while.
