Stamps

[vilakins]

At work, we rip stamps off incoming mail and put them in a plastic container and when it's full, one of us sends them to a charity which sells them. I do it because they have to be sorted into NZ and foreign first, and I save the more unusual overseas ones for a collector friend, and take a handful of interesting ones home. I don't feel guilty because it's less than 5% of what we send away, and besides, the person at the charity they go to told me that they're sold in bulk by weight.

Anyway. I brought five home, and have scanned three I thought might interest people. (The other two were a small yacht like the one I used to sail, and Scott Base in the Antarctic for Greg.)


From left to right:

• A British one showing a nebula and two star clusters--first time I've seen an astronomy stamp
  
• A NZ one showing our No Nukes policy. It says "No nukes are good nukes', and I especially like the mushroom cloud being partially a tree. The legislation was passed in 1987 and as well as prohibiting nuclear power here, also bans US and other ships which are nuclear powered or carrying nukes. Proof that we're part of a free world which is not led by Bush (an oxymoron if it were, surely?)
  
• A Swiss stamp which sadly didn't come out well: the silver printing scanned in as black. It says:

  The Final Problem
  Arthur Conan Doyle
  1891
  Reichenbachfall

  then Helvetia and the amount. I'm disappointed it didn't come out very well.

Comments

[vandonovan.livejournal.com]

Oh wow~! That's really neat. I used to collect stamps when I was 9 or 10. I had some pretty interesting ones too, ahahaha. I wonder what happened to my stamp collection! It must be in a box somewhere.

These are all great.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I don't actually collect them; just take a few I like home. When I was a kid though, I had some interesting old ones from a great-uncle including a Nazi one complete with swastika. :-P I have no idea what happened to them. My mother probably threw them out with everything else I owned when I was overseas. :-(

[vandonovan.livejournal.com]

Oh, that makes me sick. D: I'm so grateful my parents are packrats. I mean, I sort of wish they weren't, because I have so much CRAP and can't ever bear to get rid of anything. But I'd be so depressed if all the things from my childhood were tossed. Especially without my permission. Sigh.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The astronomy ones were to celebrate The Sky at Night's 50th anniversary. Here's (http://www.norvic-philatelics.co.uk/2007/02b-sky_at_night.htm) the full set.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The others are lovely! The connection with that bastard Patrick Moore puts me off a bit though.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was very upset. I missed my books and my train set the most. She moved house and just decided to chuck my stuff--yet after my father died, she kept his socks and clothes in their drawers for years. Shows how much she cared about me, doesn't it? I think I must have annoyed her somehow in a letter and she decided to punish me. She was not a forgiving person.

[vandonovan.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear that. It seems terribly selfish of her. I know what few things I lost as a child I've since repurchased as an adult, although it's never the same. I hope you're never like your mother in that regard. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Of course not!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of the Swiss stamps from (http://naurwen.livejournal.com/profile)naurwen (http://naurwen.livejournal.com) as she knows I am a fan

I also collect stamps for charity here

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The Sherlock Holmes series? Cool!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

yes :0)

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

The astronomy one is nice. But love a Sherlock Holmes stamp!

We need some B7 stamps!

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[kerr-avon.livejournal.com]

I suspect if she'd moved again, your father's socks and clothes would have gone. It's much easier to leave things where they are when you're not moving. It's entirely possible she wasn't punishing you, but simply didn't stop to think about you at all. Which doesn't make it any better, really.

(Oops, sorry, forgot I was Avon... I'd delete it & repost as me, but then you'll get ANother notification)

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Only later did I realize that editing a comment also causes it to send another notification.

*bangs head on keyboard* Ehouse rots my brain, I think. Sorry about that.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I used to collect stamps but don't any more. However the Sherlock Holmes one is tempting!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can imagine her either:
getting into a tizz about something I said in a letter, or just being annoyed I was away for so long, and dumping my stuff
or:
just tossing it because old toys and books had no sentimental value to her.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I wish the silver printing had come out.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I don't care. I do it if I need to. It's better than leaving a typo there.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

There's a whole Swiss series; zoefruitcake says she has them.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Apparently there's a Swiss series of SH stamps.

We do! They'd be the right shape for icons too!

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Without knowing her, I can only guess- but I suspect it was just 'ah, old junk, who needs this' because I *think* if it was done out of spite, she'd have contacted you while you were away to gloat.