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. .
. . from Germany
Stamp Collecting is Fun, but You need Assistance
Time has come to say
"Thank you very much' to our friends of Kreta Ayer Stamp
Club in Singapore and to all their kind representatives
and members. It's especially Miss Tai Foong Choo
(Connie Tai), who keeps the connection, between Kreta
Ayer Stamp Club in Singapore and Orchid Cover Collectors
Club in Germany. Without her assistance in searching
for interesting and rare orchid stamp and phonecard
items we would have plenty, of gaps in our collections.
And I know that many of her club members help her to
serve us.
And that is the reason for
this article: stamp collecting is fun, but you need
assistance.
Our grandparents, who
collected stamps already in past times, mostly had no
big choice in choosing any thematic. There nearly only
existed unique stamp series' depicting faces of
royalties or coats of arms of different countries. So
everyone collected "his own" king or queen in different
colours and values. And those collectors with (at that
time) unusual international correspondence could also
collect foreign stamps. By the time some clever postmen
invented "commemorial stamps" and stamp collecting
became more interesting and more colourfull. But from
where to get those stamps? Without assistance of
friends it had been mostly impossible.
During my early
times of stamp collecting in the 1950s and 1960s there
was help offered already by stamp dealers and you could
find their addresses in stamp magazines. So it became
easier to get some desired rare stamps which we could
find listed for countries and time of issue in different
stamp catalogues, such as Stanley Gibbons from
the United Kingdom, Scott from USA,
Yvert
etTellier from France and
Michel from Germany, to name only the most important
ones. Stamp dealers are mostly specialized in countries
or in recent times in thematic too. With their
assistance you can complete your stamp collection by
country or thematic quite soon, according to your
financial situation. But what is about some special
editions, such as stamp booklets, special cancellations
or rare phonecard sets,99% of all dealers cannot help
you, not for a kind "please help me" nor for any money.
So we must search for new
sources, which are able to help us with our
collections. The most important way since many years
already is to join your local stamp club.
The bigger your local
stamp club is, the better chance you have to find
someone, who has some stamps or other material available
for completing your own collection. And often your club
mates have valuable information for you, where to find
or get your desired stamps. So Kreta Ayer Stamp Club
must be an ideal source for any stamp collector. Very
many club members come together regularly each Sunday in
China Town in Singapore to offer and exchange stamps and
phonecards. I myself visited such a meeting some years
ago during my holiday stay in Singapore. And I could
find plenty of new and valuable material for my
collection.
For thematic collectors it
is often not possible to get the wanted assistance in a
small local stamp club. Since many years already there
are some worldwide acting stamp clubs for the thematic
collectors. The biggest one according to my knowledge
is ATA (American Topical Association) with about 1O.000
members worldwide. They issue a members list for topicals, for countries and for member's names. I
joined this club about 20 years ago and I found several
collectors of my topic "orchids" and we all made friends
in the meantime. We inform each other about new stamp
issues, we mostly know, what items our friends need and
we purchase them whenever we identify them, so we can
help each other in collecting very much. Since 11
years already we founded our own "Orchid Cover
Collectors Club" and today have nearly 100 members in
all continents (Asia, Australia, Africa, North America,
South America and Europe). We issue our own stamp
magazine which is issued 4 times a year with 36 pages of
each volume all in full colour! If someone of my kind
readers is interest to see our bulletin, so please ask
Miss Tai Foong Choo, who sometimes gets a copy of it.
Until now I told about
"traditional" stamp collecting and traditional
assistance. Since several years already the internet
may help us to find more items for our collection. You
can do your own search when asking "Google" for any name
or word and you will get hundreds or even thousands of
possible references.... But it needs plenty (!!!) of
time to read them all and find one possible assistance
for your collection among a thousand of offers. Then
you are able to contact your possible new source by
email directly. That is a quick and low cost way for
correspondence. (How much money did I spend 20 to 30
years ago for airmail postage? And it was mostly in
vain! And a letter to overseas needed about 10 days for
traveling, so you could hope for reply after one month
only). Today you get a reply sometimes within one hour
already and ... if your new connection can offer any
interesting item ... you are able to send money by electronical banking or Paypal and you receive your
wanted item within mostly one week. More special for
any advanced collectors is any internet auction, such as
international running a game with open end! You have to
place a bid for your desired item.., and you may get it
for low cost, if nobody else is interested in this
item. But mostly the rare cancellation you found in the
auction is also interesting to other collectors. Then
it becomes the sad story that "only the rich people get
the sweetest fruit". Or if you are not rich and you
want to get many rare items against other bidders.., you
soon become poor!
As I told you,
stamp collecting is fun, but you need assistance!
I
told about plenty of possibilities where you may find
any assistance. But the best way for assistance is to
have good friends such as in Kreta Ayer Stamp Club and
especially, in a good friend as Miss Tai Foong Choo.
And I also need to mention our friend Mr. Johnny Lowis,
who is represented in our orchid stamp collections by
file many nice designs of Singaporean
commemorial cancellations
depicting orchids. Many thanks to him too!
Kreta Ayer is a great
stamp club with great members!!! We wish long enduring
friendship and success in your collections for all your
members.
Rainer Schurbohm,
Orchid Cover Collectors Club, Germany
13th September 2005
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