This past weekend, my mom's 30+ years of collecting and study paid off when she won the Grand Award for best stamp exhibit in Portland. She'll be in the APS Champion of Champions next year! Her topic: Cancellations of the Provisional Era in Latvia: 1919-1921.
I know this may go further than "stamp collecting" as many know it, but it's so much fun to show your areas of interest and research in shows!

These are probably some of my favorite yet!

Designed by Nat Power, an Austin, TX based tattoo artist, based on American cryptids. 2027.

Had the opportunity to visit Mystic a while back. I got to see and hold their inverted Jenny! This one is position 63, with w blind perf at the right. It lost its gum during the London air raids during ww2 when the silver vaults flooded from firefighters extinguishing the buildings above. Closest ill ever be to owning one! 🤣

Every week for the last 5 years I’ve asked the clerks about buying this item. I don’t particularly like the new design with the big eagle logo.
Every time they would say is not for sale or it is unable ring on the register. Until last year the postmaster or a supervisor took it off the shelf and hid it in the back.
Today I asked the clerk if they had more in the back and he brought it. Rang it manually for $16.

You have no idea how happy I am. Perhaps is not that rare or not that big of a deal but it has been a side mission on my queue for quite some time. For as much as I want to use it I love how it looks in the packaging…

Thrilled to share that I recently participated in my first-ever Philatelic Exhibition! 🎉 It was an incredible 3-day event hosted right at my alma mater in collaboration with India Post, the Philately Bureau, and the Forest Department.

Even though I have been collecting stamps and participating in Postcrossing for years, I was initially hesitant about how to present my collection. But with a little encouragement, I took the leap and curated a 2-frame exhibit entirely dedicated to Birds 🐦, showcasing special incomings, stamps, and covers sorted by different species. The event was a phenomenal learning experience. A few major highlights for me included getting a special cancellation release on the occasion of World Forestry Day (where I created my very first Maxicard!) and connecting with fellow philatelists, renowned artists, and supportive faculty members. A special shoutout to our newly appointed and highly proactive Postmaster, who was incredibly encouraging about seeing youth participation in philately and snail-mailing. We even had a great conversation about collaborating on more events in the future! Attached are my certificate of participation and a beautiful gift I received from the post office. A massive thank you to everyone who encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone, and to the global snail-mail community that keeps this hobby so vibrant. Here's to preserving history, art, and culture through stamps, and to many more exhibitions in the future! 📮💌

Finally got these today from a local stamp show. Mint, never hinged. Figured if I am going to get these, I'd better go in style.

Growing up, my father collected and these were always on his wish list. He could never afford them, and then he passed during Covid and I had his collection passed down to me. Now I can finally fill those spots he was never able to.

Swiss Pro Juventute stamp from 2024 compared to the ones from 1915.

I like big stamps and I cannot lie

Recently I acquired a $10 blue whale stamp from 2010, Canada's largest ever stamp.

Like the other high denomination stamps in the Canadian wildlife series, the stamp has several interesting security features:

Pic 2 - there is micro print along the top of the stamp (pic 2) that contains the scientific name of the species, balaenoptera musculus, including one deliberate mis-spelling- so if you have a perfectly spelled stamp you have a forgery. Isn't it ironic, as a famous Canadian once said

Pic 3 - the value is printed in special ink that changes colour depending on the viewing angle

Pic 4 - there is micro print in the waves around the whale. There is also a scuba diver (to scale with the whale) that is only visible under UV light- unfortunately I don't have a UV light handy to see it.

Got a set, 60 stamps, $20. So glad someone else put these together! Now I see there are 59, not 60, but I don’t care. I find these so satisfying to look at. Going to frame them and hang them on the wall. Enjoy!

Waited to post this until I actually gave it to him:

My dad's 90th birthday is coming up, and in general I SUCK at gift giving on a schedule. I'm the type of person that just sees something, it reminds me of someone, and I buy it for them. (Unrelated but this is how my wife ended up with stuffed Capybaras on a completely random day a few months ago).

But when I was a kid, my dad started buying stamps for me. I never got the impression that he even knew much about them, just thought it'd be something I liked.

My dad also taught me to play chess. And he would absolutely *wreck* me at chess. The thing is... He didn't talk trash or anything, every loss was a lesson. (This served me well during my time as an athlete 😆)

I continued accumulating stamps in spurts over the next decades, but certainly not "collecting" them.

A few months ago, I decided that I wanted to make my stamps into a real collection. And the bug hit me hard.

I also knew my father's birthday was coming up.

The obvious answer was stamps.

First idea was 90 submarine stamps (He spent years in the Navy on a submarine).

Holy crap... I could do that with a few years notice, but I was running out of time.

And then one day as I was flipping through my Michel Mitteleuropa catalog, I found *this*.

I immediately knew this was it.

He got it today.

And in all my years of seeing him receive gifts at various functions, this was the most excited I've seen him about one in a while.

Then he said something I'll never forget:

"I'm taking this to my chess club next week to show it to them!"

He still goes to chess club every week.

He's about to turn 90.

Rock on, dad. I'm gonna get you those Hungarian translations eventually, I just ran out of time.

I had SO much fun at the expo, I hope I can go again some day. No one complimented my stamp shirt but that's okay, it was for me 😅

Am in Washington DC on business and had the day off, so went to the National Postal Museum, one of the smaller Smithsonian museums and home to the US National Stamp Collection. This must be one of the finest collections in the world, and you can view some true rarities (They probably have just about everything related to US stamps). There is also a big global stamp collection. There is a table where you can choose free stamps to start a collection, a gift shop selling packets of inexpensive stamps as well as a US Post Office where you can buy all new issues from the last few years. Had limited time, and could have spent much longer there. Enough other exhibits to interest non-collectors as well (Postal inspector display, airmail aircraft, rail post, etc)

I always check the postage required for different letters when I'm at the post office and then struggle with sorting and finding stamps of different denominations to stick on different envelopes. Started using a business card holder to make this easier.