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Neighbors, friends and hobbies

By: Decomposed in 6TH POPE | Recommend this post (0)
Sat, 12 Nov 22 9:43 PM | 35 view(s)
Boardmark this board | 6th Edition Pope Board 		Msg. 37362 of 58653
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A friend in Pennsylvania just called. His neighbor, Herb, was an avid stamp collector. When Herb became ill several years ago, my friend spent time with him, eventually spending weeks organizing Herb's massive collection of new stamps, mostly full sheets but also new singles that completely filled printed stamp albums. Herb mostly just sat, talked and looked on as my friend worked. He was already greatly incapacitated. This was enjoyable at first... comparable to doing a jigsaw puzzle... but was also a lot of work and became tedious.

Some time later, as Herb worsened, he and my friend tried to sell the collection to a local hobby shop. The shop owner demurred, explaining that he would not be able to sell it. "Stamps don't move," he said.

Herb died three years ago. His kids had no interest in stamp collecting and Herb's wife asked my friend if he would like it - as in, for free. My friend toyed with the idea and told her he did have a friend who would like it - but then he said he wouldn't feel right taking it for that purpose and declined.

Herb's wife died a few weeks ago. The kids drove up this week to work on paperwork and house clearing. Been there; done that. It's hard. One day my friend and his wife returned after being out and found boxes in the driveway. They were, of course, the stamps. Herb or his wife must have written a note saying what was to be done with them. That was nice. And I am the friend who my friend had in mind all those years ago.

So guess who just inherited a massive stamp collection from someone he didn't even know? I only have to drive to Philadelphia (six hours) to get it! And that leaves me to wonder: What happened to this once incredibly popular hobby???







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Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months

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