Most of the places I see stamps pictured online are websites that deal with stamp collecting. Yesterday morning, however, I received an e-mail from the Jacksonville Public Library system highlighting some of the library’s planned activities for Black Heritage Month, and the message’s header was full of stamps!
Interestingly enough, nothing in the library’s message had anything to do with stamps or stamp collecting. Apparently someone there decided the sampling of United States stamps would make for nice artwork, and I can hardly argue with that.
This is not the first time I’ve seen stamps used as illustrations in a non-philatelic e-mail message; I previously highlighted a fantasy stamp pictured in a World Market marketing e-mail. I don’t know that that sort of thing is necessarily going to inspire anyone to take up stamp collecting, but it’s still neat for me as a collector to see.
Have you spotted any stamps lately in e-mails where you wouldn’t expect to see them?
This past week, the shipping manager where I work gave me several stamps he had clipped off the incoming mail. Among them was one of the Wilt Chamberlain stamps issued last year, a stamp that was previously missing from my collection.
I was naturally pleased to receive something new, but when I went to add the stamp to my album, I discovered I made an ironic mistake when creating the page: the spaces for Mr. Chamberlain’s stamps were too short!
Chamberlain album page error
While the error was amusing in a way, given the basketball player’s legendary stature, I would rather have everything consistent, and I’ve updated 2014 page 3 with spaces tall enough to contain the Chamberlain stamps.
A quick heads up for you here if you live in the Sunshine State. The American Stamp Dealers Association is holding its Florida Winter Stamp Show in Fort Lauderdale, February 13–15. I received a post card promoting the event this week.
It feels like this week has been especially busy—with work, with family, and yes, with stamps. Oddly enough, I don’t have much of anything to show off when it comes to the last of those.
I did prepare a few first day covers for Philosateleian Post’s upcoming Penny Black issue, and I have a few more of those to ready either Saturday night or Sunday.
I also went through a box of surplus covers and rounded up those that were too far gone to have philatelic value, and mailed them this evening to mail artist Linda W. Linda says she may be able to turn those old bits of paper into something worthwhile. I hope she’s right!
And that, dear reader, is about all I have for you for now. How was your philatelic week? Leave a comment below.
When I stopped by the post office this evening, I found this post card from the Letter Writer Alliance’s Donovan Beeson in my box.
Post card with sparkly stuff in plastic wrapper
It doesn't show especially well in this scan, but Donovan used some sort of sparkly material to make it look like it “snowed” inside the plastic wrapper that contains the post card. A nice treat at the end of a busy work day!
