Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy.. 19 Aug 2019 09:58:18pm
re: You have to dig,dig, dig like a gold miner !
Which is why I love to bid on those lots that are
near the end of almost every auction labeled: Worldwide - Accumulation as Received.
Varied mix of mint and used stamps
Balance of Consignment in One Carton.
Slightly messy
Bulging Banker's Box.
Eclectic consignment -
Collection as Received.
Wide ranging worldwide lot,
Postally used Machins including regionals,
face values to £10.00,
A battered old stuffed Minkus album,
Banker's box containing, in no particular order,
A fat stock book packed and 102 cards
European Themed Banker's Box.
Carton packed with semi-sorted envelopes
Worldwide - Hoard in Stockbooks and Pages.
Banker's box full to the brim
Carton of Collections, as Received
Do I believe that no one has actually peeked
into the mess to check for obvious gems,
absolutely not. But a close examination takes
time` and the sorters and lotters are experienced
to know that a cursory look through will barely
be rewarded.
It takes some dedicated collector sitting in the
wilds of Canada, the lonely Texas prairie in
the dead of night in his or her room to have
the time or desire to dig through whatever is
included, buried under a pile of junk To find
those twenty or so Aussie Kangaroos all identified
102 cards that some long gone spirit set aside
for that rainy day that never came.
Undiscovered super rare blocks of the penny
magenta ?
No not likely, but almost always tons of useful
material in the medium low price range forgotten
and unrecognizable to the time-pressured auctioneer
and his staff who can make enough profit
selling the whole kit and kaboodle at one time
with no complaints from the likely compliant
collector..
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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
Charlie, back in the 90s (1990s not 1890s) i used to love to drive down to Dutch Country Auctions in Wilmington Delaware and go through the box lots the day before the auction. For a few hundred dollars i could come home with a back seat full of albums and boxes. Then i noticed a change...the dealers from Baltimore and Philadelphia would bid up all the box lots..they bought in volume (like a van full) so they did not seem to care if they paid $400 for a lot i thought was worth $150. I asked one bidder who seemed approachable about it and he said he took out what he wanted and bought the boxes back for the next auction in 7 weeks. I am sure those guys did not spend hours like i would going through a box..things could be missed.
My wife watches those silly bachelor TV shows. She always falls asleep, I don't think she's ever seen a full episode! She collects nothing, and thinks I'm an obsessed person.
A few weeks ago I bought a full set of the Kansas / Nebraska stamps. Mint hinged, from one of the thieves on eBay. I put them in my album, so proud to have filled those pages. I attempt to show her my newest acquisition and she breezes by me that she's busy and I'm obsessed. I reply that she doesn't deserve to see my new stamps and put the album in the stamp closet.
That got her goat! She then suddenly WANTED TO see the new stamps. I told her too late and she missed it. Every time I walked through the living room she'd say, "You better show me those stamps!" And I'd ignore it. Finally I showed her and there was no real reaction.
I am on the opposite side of the clutter discussion. I manage to keep my collection confined to my stamp den (except when soaking in the kitchen), but hubby’s hobby room / office just isn’t big enough for his computer hobby. He has dozens of old towers, and every computer part you can imagine. When we moved here from Michigan, he traded his enormous basement hobby room for a 12 x 12 den and part of the garage. I finally caved and went along with renting a storage unit for his loot. We do have an agreement that we WILL keep our hobby clutter out of the rest of the house which we call the “hobby crap DMZ”.
But, you know what? We are both HOME, happily immersed in our hobbies. That is what is most important of all, right?
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"Just one more small collection, hun, really! LoL "
I can only plead guilty for myself...between us we have 52 years of clutter. I understand that some people move and that reduces clutter..but i believe it just returns.
If you want to watch one of the funniest bits EVER about clutter and junk in the home, watch the video below. Just to set it up, everyone in the audience has been given a big screen TV ...
having problems with the link ... just a sec ... ahhh there we go! Enjoy!
"But, you know what? We are both HOME, happily immersed in our hobbies. That is what is most important of all, right?"
Amen! I've posted my concerns about people who retire to smaller quarters and curtail their hobby because they don't have room for it anymore! Heck, once I'm retired I intend to step up my work on my hobbies! What else is there to do, watch "Dancing The The Stars" with my wife? PS- Happy to see you back posting!
" I understand that some people move and that reduces clutter..but i believe it just returns."
Agreed! I got my "collecting" gene from my parents, only I'm more focused on stamps and model cars!
My parents were kept honest by being a military family. Every 2-3 years we had to pack up everything and have Uncle Sam ship it somewhere, often International. There were weight and volume restrictions. We only owned what we could ship!
Once they moved to their final home when I was 14 things changed. This was the first time they actually owned a home, and they relaxed on what they amassed. It got to the point that there were stacks of "stuff" everywhere. They blamed each other for the clutter!
My mother subscribed to every ladies magazine. She belonged to book clubs and wound up with many more volumes than she could ever read. My father even made her a full wall of book cases to hold it, and that wasn't enough.
My father became the neighborhood Fred Sanford. Someone puts an old washer out for trash? He'd be out there pulling parts off of it. "Never know when you'll need something" was his motto. His garage got to the point that you could not walk through it. And he never threw out anything.
My father died and guess who got to clear it all out? It was like an episode of Hoarders without any bio concerns. My brother in law and I played a game of who could find the most unusual item in the garage! My father was still alive when I found the document glass from a large Xerox machine, very thick glass and brand new in it's box. I asked him about it and he said that back when he was working, the Xerox tech got that part by accident and put it in the trash. He thought it may be useful someday and added it to the garage hoard. And he was right, it's now the glass top on my workbench that I build my model cars on!
And when a young friend of mine bought his first house and said he needed to buy tools, I just brought him to my garage and told him to pick out what he needed! I had multiples of everything. Still do. My jigsaw died? Toss it and grab another one off the shelf. And I will never again need to buy a nail or screw in this lifetime!