We Close Our Eyes & Still See Stamps.

Please! Nobody open a window or door!



After 10 years of collecting kiloware, packets, bundleware & stock books of Australian decimal stamps we, as a family, are trying to put together 60 complete sets in stockbooks & another 100 sets each of 600, 800 & 1200 different in bundleware. We have a lot of stock to work with ~ approx. 45 kgs off paper. If it was not off paper we would be soaking for 4 years.

We also have 2kgs or so of high denominations off paper & 4kgs on paper. We have been at it for 9 weeks now & what can be seen of the images we have done 8 times with another 8 ~ 10 times more to go & then slow it down to 1 day per week. what a start to this year's stamping season. It is very nice for me to have my whole family involved in stamping again. They are not so keen on the boring KGVs as I am told.

Many of the 45c, 50c & 55c stamps are already in bundleware. As a pile of stamps gets too high it goes straight into plastic packets to build up the sets of many different stamps. The 60s to 80s stamps we have already in large numbers in plastic packets. Onwards we go!

Why are Australian stamps so voluminous?
Is it because we are a great letter writing country?
Is it because we are languishing on an island down at
the fanny end of the world?
Is it because we owe so much money, creditors are sending heaps of
reminder letters?
or is it just my observance is skewed because I live here, there appears to be mountains of the things.

KGV,
You mean to say that theres such a thing as a boring stamps?

rod,
I wish we had that volumious problem here in the USA. Almost all our mail is metered nowadays. I/we should write the our Poster Master General a letter to make one week or month stamp week/month. Only stamps for postage no metered mail ,no delivery.

What a tremendous effort by your family and you! Wow!

Amazing in many ways. The concerted effort, the further bonding through a shared task, the aching backs and arms (and eyes), the motivation, the driving force and guiding force too, the stick-to-it-iveness.

Now that's the kind of exercise I would enjoy!

Any thoughts on making a stamp sorting video? Or even an exercise video? (3 more, 2 more, stretch those arms now . .) (joking, kind of) Be a great addition to your website too!

Very inspiring and pleasing too to see stamps all sorted out and organized. Very calming.

Maybe have a picture of one of you having a big smile on your face while placing a stamp on a pile. Or all of you! What a great shot that would be. Maybe just keep that one for your own archives.

Good idea Puzzler

That is truly amazing ! Well done to you and your family.
Maybe I should start collecting Aussie stamps !

I know where to go for my first purchase.

Londonbus1.....Thanks for sharing the story

I remember doing that. My grandmother and I would take the first week of every other month and start soaking the stamps from bundles that we had just picked up for fun. We'd soak stamps on and off for days, then peel, lay them on paper towels, cover with paper towels, and then lay her custom cut dining room table protectors on top of all the stamps. The sorting, matching, cataloging for the rest of the month. WOW, I'm getting back into that!?!? Ya, I am. I miss that part...lol

This is an ideal example where a visual database is invaluable,

Go to your database hit 1990 and voila, you can sort
the year into ascending order of issue date.

(and identify the missing )

Rod, you've darn near got me convinced... What software do you use?

-Allen

Just an old, old early FREE version of ACDSee, Allen
Version 3.1
I just looked at the version under "Help"
and it has "copyright 2000"
How that happened I have no idea,
perhaps ACDSee updates old versions.

Just scan your stamp, give it a good text string
(eg cat num, date of issue and details)
and your finished.

Under options you can select ACDSee to open all *.jpg
scans and word documents
so you can have your stamp scan and text file adjacent.

hope this helps

Here's what it looks like at the coal face:

down the bottom left, I can see I have 2,652 stamps in my
Australian collection that eats 449 Mb of disk space.

What is the retail price of a 600 count packet of Australian stamps? How much more for the 800 and 1200 count packets? A hundred of each size packet is a lot of stamps. There must be an interesting story here.
My collection at the present time has 628 stamps from Australia. States are not included.
Lizardly,
halflizard

There are so many possible mistakes that a single person can never learn them all.

Rod, what resolution do you scan your stamps? That is always my dilemma - I want details, but the disk can fill up fast, even today with inexpensive drives.

All your comments have greatly encouraged our families stamping endeavours. The interest shown by you all has surprised us with a very positive effect and a strong keenness has been rekindled. It truly is a mammoth job at hand. When the idea of sharing our stamping target with decimal stamps on forum there was a little reservedness that it might be seen as being totally over the top. So it is even more special to us that so many people have shown us much kindness. A VERY BIG THANK YOU to all from John and Family. Happy stamping! Keep smiling!