Monday, July 2, 2012

Cigar Box Contents Revealed!

Guess I have made you wait long enough! There were several good guesses as far as what the box contained, but no one came up with the right answer ~ I don't think I would have been able to guess it correctly either!

Zillions of old and canceled stamps all organized by color and tied up with string ~ not worth much money, but an interesting collection and certainly an interesting way to keep them.

Oddly enough, I found the photo below on Pinterest ~ it had been posted here. As this must have been listed as an item for sale, it is no longer shown on the site where it originated, Butik Sophie, so I assume they were sold. I'd love to find out more about these ~ why would someone collect and carefully organize canceled stamps in this way? For that matter, why did TWO people do this? Wonder if it was a commonly done practice, or just a weird coincidence? If you know anything you can contribute, please leave a comment. In the mean time, I think I may see about contacting Butik Sophie and seeing if she can shed some light on these.

{image from Butik Sophie}

UPDATE: My boyfriend, who works at the library, happened to be working when the stamp collectors group came in for a meeting. He was told by one of the collectors that commons (I assume that is a term used for the most used stamp of the time) were often bundled in groups of 100 and saved in that fashion, so this must have been someone's commons collection.

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