Greetings From The San Francisco Bay Area!

Hello!

I've been collecting since 1973, when I was seven years old. Back when I was a kid, I collected anything I could get, but of course I've had to narrow my scope somewhat! I've assembled a decent collection of mint U.S. stamps over the years, but since 2005, when I stopped trying to keep up with all the new U.S. issues, most of my collecting has been topical, reflecting such interests as J.R.R. Tolkien, runes and runestones, and various pop culture icons.

My main focus for the past twenty years has been stamps, stationery, and postal history pertaining to constructed international auxiliary languages. The lion's share of the collection deals with Esperanto, far and away the most successful language of this sort, but I've also managed to find postcards and covers featuring Bolak, Esperantida, Ido, Interlingua, Panroman, and Volapük.

Here's my most treasured piece from that collection (though not the most expensive): an 1888 postcard sent by Charles E. Sprague, the highest ranking Volapükist in the United States at the time, to the main office in Konstanz, Germany.

Welcome to SCF!

The diversity of interests is good for all.

Thanks for sharing and if you have any questions do not be hesitant to ask!

Greetings, Esperanto I have been familiar with but not the others. Fascinating stuff, I wonder how many living eople can translate from Bolak!

Not many, I would imagine! Here are scans of both sides of my postcard in Bolak, also known as the Blue Language or la Langue Bleue. It's also one of the treasures of my collection, simply because of the extreme rarity of actual correspondence conducted in this language.

I have a couple of reference books on Bolak from 1899-1900, so I was able to decipher the text, despite a couple of errors in it. I've misplaced my full translation, but the gist of the message is that Señor Rovira found Madame Cahn's name in a list of Bolak scholars and would like to correspond with her in the language and exchange stamps from their respective countries. That's a very typical sort of message that one often finds on postcards written in these international languages.

Welcome erilaz!

Very nice postcards and an interesting niche of philately that you pursue.

Look forward to more of your collection shared with the forum.