I decided to make my future daughter in law a gift by framing a small collection of African stamps from my childhood collection, she is nuts for travel. Gift went over well, and working with my old albums rekindled my interest after 37 years. Been reading boards like a madman and hit some eBay auctions.
My plan is to create my own pages, concentrating on colonial african issues. Some very dark history, but I am drawn to the old school stamps. I'm starting with Belgian Congo, French West Africa and it's predecessors, and Bechuanaland Protectorate. Roughly 3000 stamps needed from reading the Scotts standard catalogue.
lots of us just a bit south of you, in Northern Dutchess. welcome. also, there's a great litlle club here, in Red Hook, meeting 2nd and 4th Thursdays (like yesterday). you're most welcome.
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Welcome Tom! I've tried all the stamp sites on the internet and Stamporama has the best of all of them. Don't hesitate to ask a question - you'll be amazed at the depth of knowledge here and cornball wit to boot! We're friendly and diverse and inclusive and just plain FUN! Glad to have you with us!
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"Just one more small collection, hun, really! LoL "
amsd: thanks for the invite, looks like 60+ miles. First I will look a little closer to home. I am going to the Capital District stamp show in Troy next Sunday 1/18/15. After my a Rip-Van Winkle nap from collecting I need to see what's new in supplies and such.
michael78651: We moved into the area in 2000, my wife wanted to be closer to he family. Not sure if the name rings a bell, but the Dinosaur BBQ from Syracuse opened in Troy now. Good music and eats.
Thanks to all for the greetings, friendly and welcoming. Also I have been avidly reading the site, great info abounds.
Welcome to the best of the best. All the volunteers that make this possible are also the best
of the best.
Also Don't be shy about sharing your own experiences and knowledge, or images of your fav-
orite stamps or album pages. The areas you mentioned are some of my favorites as well. And
altho I collect mint/used of the entire world, all my albums end at 1971 (Big Blue), to the 1970s
to 1981 (big green & gold). I just don't care for the newer stamps because they look terrible.
So I quit buying supplements.
I have the Scott's Specialty (big green & gold) for British Africa. I also like French Africa too.
When I need an album page I use CorelDraw to do the layout. CorelDraw comes with great
B/W clip art of Victorian decorations that make great page borders. The application can do
align/distribute, which will line up the rectangle frames for the stamps and make the spaces
between them equal automatically. Very powerful software. Most of my albums have enough
white space that I can add a few extra minor catalog numbers in the empty space, and still
look nice.
Welcome and good luck with you new collecting efforts. I agree that the colonial African stamps are beautiful and such interesting history and geography to learn from them.
Feel free to ask any questions you might have along the way
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