Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

Sometimes I get the feeling I am an island unto myself with some of the things I do with my stamp collection. I had one of those moments recently when I realized I had mailed a stack of envelopes to myself and had yet to clip the stamps off.

You may ask yourself: Why on Earth would someone choose to do such a thing as to mail anything, even an empty envelope, from your current self to your future self?

Well, if you are a collector of used United States stamps — and you are desperate, passionate, anxious, a completionist, or whatever describes it best — sometimes you will go to extremes to get a full set of that recent stamp issue.

Pictured nearby is a pile of used U.S. 2021 Sun Science forever stamps (Scott 5598-5607), all neatly cut-close from envelopes I had mailed to myself.

I know this might take some of the sport out of the effort of waiting to receive the 10 different stamps in the mail, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Why write about it? Even though at first I thought I might be alone in doing this, my guess is I am not.

I would enjoy hearing from readers sharing how they obtain used examples of stamps. Maybe we can publish a few of the responses in an upcoming Letters to Linn’s column. Please email linnseditorial@amosmedia.com or write to Letters to Linns, Box 4129, Sidney, OH 45365.

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