Why we collect what we collect
Bob Ingraham
evening I was looking through my collection of quotations (a collection that
began when my sister sent me some of her favorites when I was in navy boot
camp in San Diego) and found a couple of quotations which help to explain
two of my collections.
---
One of my collections is of airmail stamps and covers, especially if the
stamps picture aircraft or are otherwise related to aviation. I also collect
postcards picturing "propliners" -- propellor-driven airliners.
My father was an airplane nut, and I grew up with my eyes raised, along with
his, to the sky, whenever an aircraft came into view. No doubt it was his
idea (not my mother's!) to give both my sister and me our first airplane
ride, about 1946. Here's a picture, if you are interested:
http://www.ingraham.ca/bob/firstflight.jpg
A quotation by Leonardo da Vinci seems to sum up my reason for collecting
airmail stamps and covers and propliner postcards:
"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,
for there you have been, there you long to return."
It's interesting that da Vinci could even conceive of the effect that flight
would have upon those who would fly.
--
I also collect stamps and covers related to the Second World War, and the
pre- and post-war periods.
I can't articulate clearly why I am drawn to this material. Perhaps it is
because I am myself a combat veteran (Viet Nam) and will spend the rest of
life wondering just what the hell happened over there, and what caused it to
happen. Surely my experiences there mirror to some degree the experiences of
soldiers in the Second World War.
My interest in war certainly has to do with the fact that I was a war baby,
born almost exactly in the middle of the conflict, if you date its beginning
from Germany's attack on Poland rather than the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor. The deeper I have gotten into my collection, the more I realize how
very much our world lost in that war, and how great a threat our
civilization faced. Tonight I ran across a quote by William Shirer, from his
book Berlin Diary, which seems to sum up my understanding:
"Berlin, October 8, 1939
"I left Geneva exactly two months ago. I did not know. Two months! What an
age it seems. How dim in memory the time when there was peace. That world
ended, and for me, on the whole, despite its faults, its injustices, its
inequalities, it was a good one. I came of age in that one, and the life it
gave was free, civilized, deepening, full of minor tragedy and joy and work
and leisure, new lands, new faces and rarely commonplace and never without
hope.
"And now darkness. A new world. Black-out, bombs, slaughter, Nazism. Now the
night and shrieks and barbarism."
--
Bob
Ann Mette Heindorff
news:B9677D68.1481B%b.ing...@shaw.ca...
> Recently someone asked why we collect the stamps that we collect. This
> evening I was looking through my collection of quotations (a collection
that
> began when my sister sent me some of her favorites when I was in navy boot
> camp in San Diego) and found a couple of quotations which help to explain
> two of my collections.
Speaking about quotations, here is one of my favourite ones by
Lev Tolstoy that might explain why I collect art stamps.
"Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission
of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen"
I have collected stamps since the beginning of the 1950s when I
was ten, but in the end found it rather boring to collect and arrange
stamp1, stamp2, stamp3, and so forth from "my" countries" in an
album. But that was what a stamp collection was at that time.
At the same time I was, like most kids, very interested in drawing
and painting, and I spent much of my free time with making nice
paintings, inspired by photographs in books and magazines.
The photographs in National Geographic and Life Magazine
were a treasure trove for me :-)
So I was delighted when the big series of art stamps began to
appear from many different countries by the beginning of the 60s,
and nearly every month I bought a set of art stamps from any
country that "came my way". And visited art exhibitions whenever
I could.
Over time my collections became more "structured", so I settled
on some of the great artists and began studying their lives and
works more closely, so that I could set up small books of art
history, illustrated only with philatelic material of a given artist's
works. Some of these are (partly) on display on
http://arthistory1.school.dk/frame_chagall-intro.htm
http://arthistory1.school.dk/frame_hundertwasser-intro.htm
http://arthistory1.school.dk/frame_picasso-intro.htm
Some exhibitions I have visited this year in Copenhagen were
about Georgia O'Keeffe, and a "medley" about the Austrian
painters Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka.
No need to say that I was delighted to recognize some of their
works from my stamp collections :-)
But also another aspect of arts on stamps fascinates me, and
that is stamp art, the engraving of stamps, which is well known
to everybody from my Slania-site
At present I am working on Byzantine Art History, illustrated
only through stamps. A huge job, which will be presented on
my site at a later date. This demands patience, but as
Michelangelo has said, "Genius is eternal patience" ;-)
Mette
Ann Mette Heindorff
news:ahumc0$vrcaj$1...@ID-137480.news.dfncis.de...
- snip -
How ignorant of me to give the wrong links !!! :-(
here are the correct ones:
http://arthistory1.school.dk/chagall-intro.htm
http://arthistory1.school.dk/hundertwasser-intro.htm
http://arthistory1.school.dk/picasso-intro.htm
Mette
Paul R. Davis
Here's my collecting story:
I started collecting stamps when I was about 9 or 10. I collected
whatever came my way. I was interested in history at the time, and
naturally I gravitated to stamps depicting American history. When I
married in 1974, my collection was pretty much dormant and I did not
keep it up. About two years, I sold the majority of my collection to
Mystic, which I now consider a big mistake, as I believe Mystic was
not the best choice I could have made. Since then, I have been
rebuilding my collection to be primarily US, particularly 2 cent Reds,
Bicenntennial mint sheets (now complete), transportation coils (now
complete), American music FDCs for a show being held in October
(CINCOPEX) at Turning Store Casino near Verona, NY on Columbus Day
weekend, postal history of Syracuse, RPOs, especially New York Central
Railroad, and for my wife, parrot, frog and dinosaur stamps.
I belong to the Syracuse Stamp Club and am an active member where we
have auctions, slide shows, and other presentations. My philosophy of
stamp collecting is to collect what interests me personally, and not
to accumulate for investment or other monetary reasons, and to enjoy
the beauty and the story behind the stamps and covers I collect. I
also hope to pass along my enjoyment of the hobby and the pleasure and
education I derive from it through exhibiting at stamp shows.
Tom
I've been collecting for 7 years. I began with kiloware, which only
contained machins, too many of them. I now have respect for Machin
specialists, but dont collect them myself. I then began a Commonwealth
collection, which is too large, but which I continue to add too.
I now focus on an all world collection, striving to complete each country at
a time. Last year it was Denmark, this years the Faroes and France, unless
of course I have the oppotunity to purhcase a starter collection(which
happened with Romania). I also have a specialist collection of the Austrian
1st issues. Although I don't actively buy postal history, if it comes my
way, at a reasonable price, I buy it. I used to use Bill Steiners pages, but
now make my own, usually only a set or two of stamps per page. Which makes
the writing up time consuming, but more interesting. The historical aspect
of all the countries interests me, and I suppose thats why I collect stamps.
Cheers
Tom L-M
"Paul R. Davis" <ri...@mybluelight.com> wrote in message
news:d7cfd6da.02072...@posting.google.com...