Member postings for Gillian Hutchinson

What do you tell the charity shop, Carmen?

Gillian

Hi Trevor,

My son let me have his ring binder album, which has extra pages, so using that and those, with hinges.

Gillian

I soak all my stamps in warm water. The self-adhesives have a variety of reactions - some come off fairly easily, some tear in the process, some end up very flimsy and some end up with the envelope paper looking like tiny balls of polystyrene. Maybe I should just trim them all - self adhesives I mean - ?

Gillian

I have a lot of GB stamps which were just loose in envelopes etc. I have now started to check if I have any already mounted in my albums. When I've done that I'll start mounting them. I had been putting off doing that because I didn't have a GB Album to mount them in. One of my sons paid heed to my Christmas wish list and gave me a GB album, but without the actual pages for mounting the stamps on. That was going to cost extra, so I've decided to use another son's album, which is a ring binder and has lots of extra, blank pages, which I can put next to the GB page in the album. I do have a stock book, but am using that for overflows and stamps from way back, eg Belgian Congo, Malaya, Nigeria in King George VIth times, even Katanga - all of these came in a packet from hubby at Christmas time - another family member who paid attention to my wish list.

Gillian

Does it have to be Ronson? Not sure we have any of that stuff.

Gillian

Did you ever get that Sierra Leone stamp, Carmen? Have you seen this? I found it on a Google search.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3TwMX8Be7c

Just wondering, would simple lemon juice work? Very interesting video, about why self adhesive stamps were invented and how you can recognize them, amongst other things, although I'm not really any the wiser about the latter. I must have a look sometime at self adhesive and lickable stamps to check it out.

Eric, I usually try soaking all my stamps and if the backing paper is stubborn/reluctant to separate, I just mount those stamps as they are.

Gillian

Would you think of removing the stamps from the envelopes and putting all your stamps in an album? I have albums from my husband's youth and mine.

Which reminds me, I found a stamp from Belgian Congo - don't know where it appeared from - and am not sure what to do with it - find a space in one of those childhood albums or put it in with up to date Congo Republic stamps?

Gillian

Hi Paul,

I like the sound of the posh albums. The album is a Davo and is actually a binder, which comes in a case and has what appear to be page dividers(?) My son gave it to me and I'm guessing he couldn't afford to give me extra pages, but I would have thought there'd be more than 3 to start with. There was definitely no marked spaces for individual stamps.

Gillian

OK, this is the 3rd attempt at this because the webpage keeps logging me out. This time I have clicked Remember Me, so hopefully I won't be logged out before I manage to send my post.

Thanks, Chris and Carmen. I'll put any occupied Poland stamps on the Poland page. So far I've just seen one.

I'm confused about the GB stamp album. Is it normal to have only a few pages in an album but space for more and are those pages normally blank as opposed to squared?

Gillian

I also meant to ask where the stamp from German-occupied Poland should be placed - in Poland or on a special page for stamps from occupied countries?

Gillian

I had a Great Britain Stamp Album on my wish list for Christmas 2018. I'm not sure if there was anything else on the list. I got what I think is a GB stamp album, but it had very few pages in it and those were blank - not squared like most stamp album pages. I also got what was supposed to be a starter kit - a stock book and some stamps - no hinges. Any advice welcome.

I haven't looked at all the stamps yet, but one caught my attention. It had General Gouvernement on the front, also an eagle. I Googled it and it seems that it's from Poland from when the Germans were occupying Poland.

A funny extra note to a previous post about my little sister buying me stamps - I found an old birthday card - sent in recent years - on which she had written that she had found some stamps in the house and had given them to me for Christmas, only to be told they were mine In the first place!

Happy New Year to all!

Gillian

Speaking of people not writing letters anymore, have you noticed that you can buy plenty of envelopes, but not writing paper? At least, that's how it is in this town.

I don't so much collect certain stamps as find stamps from certain countries coming into my possession, with the majority being from Japan, the USA and Italy. I'm thinking I should have put stamp albums with blank pages on my Christmas wish list and used those for those countries. At the moment I'm using an old album of my son's for the overflows. It's one of those ring binders where you can add extra blank pages.

Gillian

Hi Carmen!

Aha, a fellow believer - wonderful. Your job sounds wonderful too and is also very necessary.

I spend most of my time looking after my family - we have three adult offspring all on the autistic spectrum and all living at home, as well as another who lives in his own place whom we see occasionally but particularly when a birthday is happening and when he has to fly somewhere as the international airport is 5 minutes drive from here.

We are members at Antrim Baptist Church where God's Word is faithfully preached. We have a team of people who deal with child protection issues and also deliver training in these fields to those involved in working with children and young people in the church. I'm not sure if the training covers issues related to vulnerable adults. I must enquire some time. I also spend one morning a week volunteering in a charity shop which was set up by a couple from the church working as missionaries in Mozambique. Amongst other things the money raised has funded the provision of wheelchairs to disabled people out there - adults and children. I mentioned the shop in a thread I started a couple of years ago about selling stamps there.

I also spend time on other for a. That's why you'll only see me on here occasionally.

Gillian

Nearly didn't get in there - the website tried to tell me I wasn't using a valid email address, but I tried again, this time successfully.

What church and what do you do - apologies for being nosy!

Naughty girl - Lee Israel that is. Looks as though it would be an interesting film, as would the book.

Gillian

Lol Carmen!

Pretty much same as what happened with mine, Trev. I didn't even think about the envelope being red or the possibility of the colour leaking.

Gillian

Well, I've learned my lesson and I have at least a couple of other stamps the same as that one.

Gillian

I guess I'll need to be careful the next time I soak a stamp off a red envelope!

Gillian

To be honest I don't know Belfast very well and am hardly ever there, but I see from a Google search that The Belfast Stamp Shop is in High Street.

Enjoy your trip!

Gillian

Well, since you’re just a youngster to me, Carmen, I consider myself pardonned for my memory not being jogged lol. Thank you!

Gillian