Downsizing comes in four forms for me. 1) Selling collectibles
that are well worth the time it takes like the western memorabilia stuff I sold last summer, 2) donating
the household goods to Goodwill that I no longer use like small kitchen appliances,
3) giving stuff away because I want to see it stay in the family like the
wicker suitcase that held all my grandfather’s worldly possessions when he immigrated
here in the late 1800s, and 4) the category of downsizing that I call Jean’s
Antique Adoption Center. This latter category of downsizing covers old things with an obscure market but they have a history that deserves to be preserved
by someone who appreciates it like the Fisher Body Neapolitan Coach I blogged
about last fall. The Adoption Center also covers collectibles that my husband
and/or I once invested a lot of time or money in. However, the resale market is all but gone yet I’m still sentimentally
attached and can’t bring myself to just trash the stuff. My lasted project falls in the latter category. I’ve been working on ‘stamp adoptions’ for the past three
days but unlike the Coach I sold for a huge profit, the sales that will be
generated out of a 9” x 16” x 22” plastic box of postage stamps will be at a loss. If I can even find buyers. Stamp collecting in America is all but dead and there is a glut of sheets, blocks and single stamps listed on e-Bay.
Before we met in 1970, both my husband and collected stamps as teens and our early twenties that we carefully soaked off envelopes or bought by mail order and using stamp hinges, we placed them in our Harris albums. It was a time intense hobby. After we met we switched from buying single stamps and started buying sheets and blocks, thinking they’d be good investments. And in our defense, it might have turned out that way if the internet hadn’t come alone to slowly choke the life out of the U.S. mail service. By the ‘80s we quit buying stamps altogether but we still tore stamps off envelopes that came in mail but otherwise we ignored the hobby. Nineteen years ago, when Don had his stroke and we moved into this house the box of stamps got put in the basement and hadn’t been touched since this week when I bit the bullet to do The Great Stamp Sort.
Before we met in 1970, both my husband and collected stamps as teens and our early twenties that we carefully soaked off envelopes or bought by mail order and using stamp hinges, we placed them in our Harris albums. It was a time intense hobby. After we met we switched from buying single stamps and started buying sheets and blocks, thinking they’d be good investments. And in our defense, it might have turned out that way if the internet hadn’t come alone to slowly choke the life out of the U.S. mail service. By the ‘80s we quit buying stamps altogether but we still tore stamps off envelopes that came in mail but otherwise we ignored the hobby. Nineteen years ago, when Don had his stroke and we moved into this house the box of stamps got put in the basement and hadn’t been touched since this week when I bit the bullet to do The Great Stamp Sort.
Three days of sorting, writing up auction descriptions, photographing postage stamps and prepping them to ship, I now have 30 lots of stamps ready to list on
e-Bay. It was probably a waste three days of my life to put that much effort
into this project. I probably should have just said to myself, "These have served their purpose
back in their day" and put them in the recycling bid or sent the box to the
auction house where someone might not know they’d be bidding on albatross. But I like the idea that I’ll be
coming full circle and giving the stamps a fighting chance to find new homes. The
unused stamps I’ll list at half their face value just to stand out from all the
others online. The big three mail order stamp companies are still in business
and they might be attracted by the price when they can see a bigger profit in selling
them overseas. And my two huge foreign lots from the first half of the
20th century might do well enough to make the effort worth the
trouble but I’m not counting my chickens before they’re hatched. However, I've got to admit that my "Great Stamp Sort brought back the thrill of the hunt that attracted me to the hobby in the first place, especially when I mistakenly thought I'd found an error stamp worth over $2,000. It was so cool until I found an article online on how to tell the recalled error stamp from the corrected issue.
I’m getting close to the end of my sorting collectibles
projects. I have a Cracker Jack metal and plastic toys collection but that’s been
sorted into dates for thirty years. It doesn’t take up much room and it still "brings me joy." I'll keep that if I can. Same with half my seashell collection and the ones that don't make the cut will go to Goodwill. Other than that, I only
have a couple more, small collections to deal with and before the winter is over I hope that stuff will be photographed, written up
and ready to list in the spring. At least that's the plan. I'm working on political pinbacks now.
But the sort/sell job I’ll be leaving for last or maybe even
after I move is fountain pens. Before my husband’s stroke he accumulated a small collection
(under two dozen) of the fancy ones---marble, exotic woods, floaters and others that are still holding their values.
After Don's stroke when we could no long go on collecting safaris his instinct to
collect was still there. He’d pick up free ballpoint pens from offices or where ever. More than a
few times he even pulled pens out of doctor’s pockets and admired them to the
point the doctors would give them to him. You’d be surprised how many give-away
pens a person in a wheelchair can collect in twelve and a half years. Of
course the post-stroke ballpoint pens have no value and ever since Don died nearly eight
years ago I’ve been reverse, un-collecting them; every time I leave the
house I stick a few pens in my purse and leave one behind whenever I
write a check. I’ve enjoyed my secret life as The Pen Fairy and I'm outing myself now because I've only got about two dozen yet to go. ©
