For those in a position to pass this on - Internet only postings,
please...

The "Freebie Stamp Project" is still on and underway. It seems I got
caught up a while ago and little traffic since then. :^)

Well, it may be time to put me back to work again.

For those that have helped, thank you - for those that may help -
welcome aboard.

For the entire rundown on this, please see the message in
rec.collecting.stamps marketplace. I will be posting it every Sunday
as I used to do.

Tracy

Theme # Of Stamps Issue Date

1. Valentine Special 4 24 January 2008
2. Rats & Mice 6 plus minisheet 24 April 2008
3. Games of the XXXIX Olympiad 4 26 June 2008
4. National Heroes 4 22 July 2008
5. UPU Special Special Cover 22 July 2008
6. Famous Artists 4 16 September 2008
7. Zimbabwe Africa's Paradise 6 plus minisheet
23
October 2008

Blair

Hello again,

I didn't count how many used stamps I have, but I am pretty sure that I have
more than ten thousand. I thought that I had so many before, but the fact
is that when I exchanged with other collectors, I noticed that many of them
had far more stamps than me.

My sources are very limited, mainly from purchasing through ebay and local
yahoo auction, and then exchanging the surplus with foreign collectors.

I get nearly nothing from receiving personal letters. I guess collectors
from developed countries may confront similar situation. Large organisation
such as bank use franking machine for postage, people communicate by phone
or mobile phone, and fax document to others. Especially in small city,
business documents are delivered by courier service, sample or document
sending to foreign countries by Fedex or TNT.

Moreover, labour cost in developed countries are relatively high, and this
means nobody will gather stamps on paper and resell to stamps dealers.

What I can get from my working life are local postage definitives~~
Commemoratives are rare~~

I don't understand how come many collectors have so many stamps.

Anybody can tell me other sources? Thanks.

Reading a recent news story about inflation passing 100,000%% I wondered what
had happened to the stamps - shades of Weimar Germany?

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jcOfKxp5Gi3IIbCYyRYOVxPgJlrg

The most recent stamps I could find on the net were a couple of years old
and were denominated in the thousands - what has happened since?

Interesting occurence,
thinking serendipity had come knocking,
I opened the US 1979 presentation pack
complete and mint, found at the bottom
of an auction lot.

Trying to lift that stamps out from under the mylar
and all had adhered.
I steamed them off but all were ruined, the black ink
from under the mylar had leached into the stamps.
http://cjoint.com/data/cxogAWWdGI.htm