I missed the election vote process. Did I regret it ? I am not sure what should be the answer. Maybe in some way I regret the fact that some lowlife will be using my vote to their own advantage and try to do something with it, but on the other hand, what do I care ?
I have seen so many bad things happened in Indonesia in the past. The situation is not likely to improve in the next 10 years and by then I will be too old to do anything meaningful.
The presidential election will be around 2 months away from now. Who will win ? It is very likely that we will have or elected the same person again, i.e.: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or more widely known as SBY. He is not bad, although I would say that in the last period of his reign, he did not do very much and most of the time under the influence of his VP. Enough talk about the politic...
I left Jakarta to Toronto about 3 weeks ago, just in time for the friendlier weather. Although as usual, I still have the chance "to eat the snow", but this time there was no shoveling..... (this activities really hurt my back lately, a sign of becoming too old ???). However, no shoveling means that there is something else to do. With the end of winter, spring in coming and summer to follow; which means that we have to a lot of maintenance and repair on the house. This year we are planning to fix or to be more exact to replace our roof. This is something that never been done in Indonesia. You buy a house including the roof and you don't replace the roof of your house unless the typhoon hit your house and take away your roof. Unfortunately, that is not the case in Canada. Every once in a while, you have to replace your roof (unless you have a metal roof for your house, which they say will last a life time) because apparently the shingles that they use for your roof do not last a life time. Some may last for 5 years, other may last for 15 years, but always there is a time limit. This time our house has reached it's limit on the roof....
Another project that I was planning to finish or to start, whichever is last; will be our tool-shed or garden shed. It was a long time plan, but there is always something to do before we can start our toolshed. However, this year; my resolution is to have the toolshed build and hopefully in good working condition. I've tried to recruit some help, but it is very likely that the person will not be able to help me because he is too busy. Without his help, I doubt it very much that I can do a proper job. I simply do not have the knowledge and the skill to build something so big (at least this is measured from my skill level)...
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Friday, July 11, 2008
New stamps
Yippeee, my new stamps have arrived today. I've been waiting for this shipment for quite sometime. Some of the stamps are very difficult to get and I have to get it from a very specialized stamp dealer in Belgium.
One of the stamp that arrived today is the one on the left side. This one is part of the bigger group, but most of the time, this stamp is not included in the group. The main reason is because it was issued on separate occassion. The whole group was issued in 1949 which consist of a total 17 stamps. Later on another stamp was issued in the same pattern. This one was issued in 1949 as well, but at a later month.
However, the one on the left was not issued until 1952 and also at a much higher value as well. So most people or dealer when they are selling this group tend to "forget" about this particular stamp and just sell them as 17 stamps collection. The actual case in it should have been consisted of a total 19 stamps.
One of my problem with collection is the language limitation. I can only read English and unfortunately, if you want to have a good information, most of the time they are only available in their native origin.
So to get the best information about the German stamps, you should be able to read German, for French stamps then the language is French, etc.
Some of the basic term are understandable without having to learn the language, but the explanation are normally not easy to understand.
One of the stamp that arrived today is the one on the left side. This one is part of the bigger group, but most of the time, this stamp is not included in the group. The main reason is because it was issued on separate occassion. The whole group was issued in 1949 which consist of a total 17 stamps. Later on another stamp was issued in the same pattern. This one was issued in 1949 as well, but at a later month.However, the one on the left was not issued until 1952 and also at a much higher value as well. So most people or dealer when they are selling this group tend to "forget" about this particular stamp and just sell them as 17 stamps collection. The actual case in it should have been consisted of a total 19 stamps.
One of my problem with collection is the language limitation. I can only read English and unfortunately, if you want to have a good information, most of the time they are only available in their native origin.
So to get the best information about the German stamps, you should be able to read German, for French stamps then the language is French, etc.
Some of the basic term are understandable without having to learn the language, but the explanation are normally not easy to understand.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
What do you need to become a stamp collector
I would say there are some basic rules which are applicable to any kind of collecting hobbies.
These are the basic rules that everybody should follow and abide.
Rule 1, you should have enough knowledge
To start anything without having the knowledge is very dangerous. The chances that you are making a mistake is very high. Regardless the kind of collection you are doing, you have to know what you are doing. This is the most common mistake of stamps collector. They start small by collecting used stamps. However, since the collected material really cost them nothing, they never bother to learn what is a good way of collecting the stamps. As the collection builds up, the value is also going up. These value is not always in term of financial term, but also in the effort used for collecting the stamps. Now, if you have spend so much time, then it is better if you learn something about what you are doing. Go and join the stamp-club and learn what is the proper way of collecting stamps. Collecting stamps is not just piling up used or new stamps, there are rules to be followed and unless you are following them, then your collection will be worthless.
Rule 2, you need to have the fund to spend
Money,...one of the most important ingredient of collecting. People like to collect things. Some people collect clothes, some people collect shoes and some people collect stamps. Whatever they are collecting, none of those things come free. There is a certain cost involved and you have to pay that with money.
So in order to have a good collection (whatever you are collecting), then you need to have the juice to run it. Without the proper juice, your collection will not worth much. Your collection is some sort of investment, except the investment is not in the form of money or stock, but in the form of stamps. The more you spend on your collection, the higher its value in the future, but you still have to spend in order to maintain it.
Rule 3, you need to have guts
Okay, now you have the knowledge and it just happened that you also have the money to spend as well. Ideally you should be able to build a good stamps collection. But there is still one more element that you need to have to make a good philatelist.
You need to have guts...or simply put, you need to have the courage to spend.
Not everybody has the gut to buy a piece of paper in the size of 2 X 2 cms at the price of $ 1,500 per piece. Even when you have the money, to spend $ 1,500 on a particular stamps is not an easy decision. The decision that you will spend your money on that piece of 2 X 2 cms may enhance your whole collection,.... but are you willing to do that.
By having the gut does not mean you should go on reckless buying spree, but with the combination of the knowledge, the buying power and the gut...... the result could be very different.
Well, of all the above rules, rule no 1 is the most difficult to obtain. There is no school that you can go to get the knowledge and the knowledge most of the time is obtained by learning from mistake. The mistake could be yours or somebody else. It is not always easy to learn something if you do not know what you need to know. So there is always a cost involves in the learning process, buying the wrong stuff, damaging the material, buying stuff in the wrong place, etc. All these are the cost that you have to pay, regardless how careful you are as a person.
These are the basic rules that everybody should follow and abide.
Rule 1, you should have enough knowledge
To start anything without having the knowledge is very dangerous. The chances that you are making a mistake is very high. Regardless the kind of collection you are doing, you have to know what you are doing. This is the most common mistake of stamps collector. They start small by collecting used stamps. However, since the collected material really cost them nothing, they never bother to learn what is a good way of collecting the stamps. As the collection builds up, the value is also going up. These value is not always in term of financial term, but also in the effort used for collecting the stamps. Now, if you have spend so much time, then it is better if you learn something about what you are doing. Go and join the stamp-club and learn what is the proper way of collecting stamps. Collecting stamps is not just piling up used or new stamps, there are rules to be followed and unless you are following them, then your collection will be worthless.
Rule 2, you need to have the fund to spend
Money,...one of the most important ingredient of collecting. People like to collect things. Some people collect clothes, some people collect shoes and some people collect stamps. Whatever they are collecting, none of those things come free. There is a certain cost involved and you have to pay that with money.
So in order to have a good collection (whatever you are collecting), then you need to have the juice to run it. Without the proper juice, your collection will not worth much. Your collection is some sort of investment, except the investment is not in the form of money or stock, but in the form of stamps. The more you spend on your collection, the higher its value in the future, but you still have to spend in order to maintain it.
Rule 3, you need to have guts
Okay, now you have the knowledge and it just happened that you also have the money to spend as well. Ideally you should be able to build a good stamps collection. But there is still one more element that you need to have to make a good philatelist.
You need to have guts...or simply put, you need to have the courage to spend.
Not everybody has the gut to buy a piece of paper in the size of 2 X 2 cms at the price of $ 1,500 per piece. Even when you have the money, to spend $ 1,500 on a particular stamps is not an easy decision. The decision that you will spend your money on that piece of 2 X 2 cms may enhance your whole collection,.... but are you willing to do that.
By having the gut does not mean you should go on reckless buying spree, but with the combination of the knowledge, the buying power and the gut...... the result could be very different.
Well, of all the above rules, rule no 1 is the most difficult to obtain. There is no school that you can go to get the knowledge and the knowledge most of the time is obtained by learning from mistake. The mistake could be yours or somebody else. It is not always easy to learn something if you do not know what you need to know. So there is always a cost involves in the learning process, buying the wrong stuff, damaging the material, buying stuff in the wrong place, etc. All these are the cost that you have to pay, regardless how careful you are as a person.
One of my most precious stamp collection
Finally, I found my blog again. When my computer crashed a few months ago, I lost almost all the data and somehow I could not find my blog because I could not even remember what is the username that I am using for this blog.
Today, my e-mail was hijack again by some idiot who thinks that they can sell more by using my connection. In the process of changing my password, I found this blog again. So here it is.....
My most precious stamps is not the most expensive stamps, but I like this one best.
One of the reason is because this is my first complete train stamps.
As you can see from the picture to the left side of this writing, the stamps is very beautiful. The stamps were issued by the Belgian Postal Office. It consist of 22 stamps (very obvious) and each stamp is designed with a single colour printing process.
The stamps themselves were issued in 1980.
There are a lot of other designs from these group of stamps.
My favourite stamps are the Railway stamps from Belgium. There is a lot of debate, whether the railway stamps of Belgium can be considered as stamps or is it just something they call cinderella.
Of course this will depend on who is making the judgement.
The country or postal office who is issuing the stamps will say that their stamps have all the philatelic requirement to be considered as a stamp. However, different postal office might have different view.
A good example of this will be the stamps which are issued by little bit of island in the middle of nowhere. Some of this island may have a population of less than 1,000 people, yet they issue a full fledge stamps. One of the more famous stamps issuer is an island called St. Lucia or the one they call Nevis or St. Vincent or island group of Wallis & Futuna or maybe Davaar Island ???
I bet you have no idea where are all these islands located in the world. They are located mostly in the Carribean Sea or in the Polynesian Islands. A group of small islands who used to be part of the British or maybe the French during the colonial times. By law, they are a separate entity with their own government. However, what they have done with the stamps is so outrageous that they are doing a lot of damage to the philatelic society. Can you image the postal office on this island is actually producing millions of stamps with all kind of pictures and they are being sold to every corner of the world. Unfortunately, the victim of this manipulation is not the philatelist, but some layman who has no idea of what they are doing and they were persuaded by some sleazy stamp seller to buy the worthless stamps from these islands.
Anyway, enough bitching.... my suggestion (again I may have said it somewhere before), do not invest in the stamps unless you really know what you are doing.
Today, my e-mail was hijack again by some idiot who thinks that they can sell more by using my connection. In the process of changing my password, I found this blog again. So here it is.....
My most precious stamps is not the most expensive stamps, but I like this one best.
One of the reason is because this is my first complete train stamps.
As you can see from the picture to the left side of this writing, the stamps is very beautiful. The stamps were issued by the Belgian Postal Office. It consist of 22 stamps (very obvious) and each stamp is designed with a single colour printing process.The stamps themselves were issued in 1980.
There are a lot of other designs from these group of stamps.
My favourite stamps are the Railway stamps from Belgium. There is a lot of debate, whether the railway stamps of Belgium can be considered as stamps or is it just something they call cinderella.
Of course this will depend on who is making the judgement.
The country or postal office who is issuing the stamps will say that their stamps have all the philatelic requirement to be considered as a stamp. However, different postal office might have different view.
A good example of this will be the stamps which are issued by little bit of island in the middle of nowhere. Some of this island may have a population of less than 1,000 people, yet they issue a full fledge stamps. One of the more famous stamps issuer is an island called St. Lucia or the one they call Nevis or St. Vincent or island group of Wallis & Futuna or maybe Davaar Island ???
I bet you have no idea where are all these islands located in the world. They are located mostly in the Carribean Sea or in the Polynesian Islands. A group of small islands who used to be part of the British or maybe the French during the colonial times. By law, they are a separate entity with their own government. However, what they have done with the stamps is so outrageous that they are doing a lot of damage to the philatelic society. Can you image the postal office on this island is actually producing millions of stamps with all kind of pictures and they are being sold to every corner of the world. Unfortunately, the victim of this manipulation is not the philatelist, but some layman who has no idea of what they are doing and they were persuaded by some sleazy stamp seller to buy the worthless stamps from these islands.
Anyway, enough bitching.... my suggestion (again I may have said it somewhere before), do not invest in the stamps unless you really know what you are doing.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
What do you do with your stamps ?
Now that you have collected your stamps and organize them into stamp albums, what else can you do with it. Some people just collect stamps for the sake of collecting stamps; some people do it to make a living buying and selling stamps, some people doing it to keep them occupied and there is also some people who like to get busy with their stamps and participating in the stamps exhibition.
The one which is rather complicated is the one if you are interested in participating on the stamps exhibition. I am not an expert on this subject, although I have participated on the stamp exhibition in the past. There are a lot of rules that you need to follow and time to spend making the preparation for the exhibition.
There are several organizations involve with the stamp exhibition. In general stamp exhibition is not a private exhibition, but it is organized by countries/government organization. The participants are postal services from various countries, stamps dealers, philatelic suppliers and last but not least stamps collectors. I have no interest on the other section of the exhibition, except the one which concern the stamps collectors. During the stamp exhibition, normally there is a collector competitions. This competition is divided into several different classes or groups which are outlined below:
- Traditional - Philatelist who stamps based on country. This includes collecting all kinds of stamps, essays, proofs, watermarks, gum, errors and forgeries.
- Postal history - gathering the postage material by tracing the postal history of a country through philatelic material. This includes collecting postal articles showing markings, postal routes, postal rates, development of postal system, automation of mail. disaster mail, maritime mail etc.
- Postal stationery - the part of philately which deals with post cards, envelopes, covers, wrapper etc. The collection can include registration mail, acknowledgements, certificates of posting and telegraph mail. All the items has to be related to the post office or at least issued by the postal services.
- Aero-philately - a branch of philatelist who collects aviation and airmail stamps, postal material carried or dropped from air, cancellations, rocket mail, balloon mail and pigeon mail. Basically any postage material that are processed through the air.
- Thematic Philately - the branch of philately which are collecting stamps and other postage material related to a theme like birds, flowers, train etc.
- Literature Philately - the study of literature on stamps like catalogues, research articles, handbooks, philatelic periodicals etc.
- Fiscal Philately - a specialize branch which deal with revenue stamps and stamped documents which have been used to pay revenues or taxes.
- Maximaphilly - the group which are collecting picture postcards showing the stamp design or a picture with some relation to the stamp on it.
- Astrophilately - collecting stamps related to space, rocket mail, astronomy, history of space research etc. Very similar to Aero-philately, the dream of a man that one day we will have a postal service between the earth and the moon.
- Mophila - collection of modern stamps restricted to last 15 years. The term of 15 years is relative since at one point of time, the object on mophila will become classic as well.
- Social Philately - collection of postal articles describing the social history. The exhibit can contain upto 40% non philatelic material to supplement the exhibit.
Most people who collect stamps do not go through and participate on the stamp exhibition simply because it takes too much time and effort. However, there are benefits that you will get if you try to participate on the stamp exhibition. Being a passive stamp collector who only collect stamps does not pushed you to get more information about the stamps, whereas if you are participating in the exhibition, you need to know your stamps. In the process of getting to know your stamps, you will gain a lot of knowledge. If you want to become an investor in the stamps collecting, one of the best way to start is to become a collector who participate in the stamp exhibition.
The drawback of stamp exhibition is the cost of participating is not cheap. Specially if you are participating on the Postal History section. A single envelope with a special cancellation will cost you easily USD 1,000 and you need several of them for your collection. But please bear in mind as well that a good collection will worth more than all the item that make up the collection. There is an added value for your collection if you won a high level medal like vermeil or gold.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Winter in Canada
Saturday and Sunday 15 & 16 December 2007 were the first real snow that I have seen in my entire life. Well, the entire life I am talking about is the one in Canada. The snow started to fall around Saturday night.
The process of snowing that we had was what they called in Canada flurries, very light snow with a lot of wind. These flurries fell at the rate of around roughly 2 cms per hour and we have this for the next 18 hours. By mid day Sunday, we already have a pile of snow in our front yard as high as 30 cms.
My son start to shovel the snow around 11 a.m. to clear our drive-way so that our car can get out. Unfortunately with the rate of the flurries, it did not take very long to build up the barricade of snow again on my drive way.
By late afternoon, I have to shovel it again already and later on again around 22:00 p.m.
We have to do it late at night as well, because if the temperature is rising a few degrees and then drop again, we will have a solid ice on our driveway. This has happened in the past and it was quite impossible to clear up the driveway when that happened. So night or day, when you have piles of snow on your driveway, you have to get rid of it.
Monday come and luckily no snow. I always say that I like snow and cold temperature. I still like the cold, but snow is okay once in a while and not at the amount of what I have on Sunday.
It seems that after the wrath on Saturday dan Sunday last week, the weather has been relative nice to us. It is still cold, but cold is not a problem; at least for me.
School will also finish soon. This coming Friday is the last day for school this year. Holiday and celebration is the theme in the supermarket and shopping mall. Christmas decoration is something worth looking at, specially in downtown area.
Well, time to finish it and do something else.....
Sunday, December 16, 2007
What do you collect as a philatelist - part 3
Some people prefer to collect rather unusual philatelic material. Included on these groups are the errors, the freak stamps, special overprint stamps and some material which can not be considered as philatelic material. The last material normally called cinderela.
I will go through each material to give an explanation of what they really mean.
Error or Freak Stamps
As the title implies, the material that are included on these category are the "wrong" material. There are various mistake on the philatelic material. The mistake could come from a misprint, but by accident the misprinted stamp is being used and sold through the post office.
The misprint could be in the form of wrong colour print, missing colour, shifted print, undetected damage on the printing plate, inverted picture, misperforate or imperforate stamps.
All the stamps with these mistakes should not have been sold or distributed in the market, but again the postal office is run by only human, and of course mistake does happen. So then this material is out in the market. It is a rather specialize material and not very easy to collect.
Overprinted Stamps
There are occasion where the post office decides that they want to re-issue some stamps with different value. There are various reason for this action, one is that they have too much unsold printed stamps of a certain theme. The other reason is the is a special celebration and the time to design a new stamps is too short. In the old days, these method of overprint is also used to change the value of the stamps, e.g. during the conversion of Indonesian currency in 1966 from Rp. 1,000 to Rp. 1.00. The stamps at that time was overprinted with a new value to reflect the changes of currency value.
There are also an overprinted process which is done to indicate that the stamp is a special stamps. A good example of this is the overprint "specimen" which normally only used on stamps that is given to the UPU (Universal Postage Union) for the sample of the issued stamps. Or the overprint "official" or "military" which indicates that the stamps in to be used only by a certain organization.
The overprint method is also used to change the country's name. A lot of these stamps existed during the end period of collonial time. There were some Indonesian stamps from 1940 to 1945 which are issued by using the old Dutch stamps with some overprint to indicate that the stamps are now belong to the Indonesian government.
Cinderela
Cinderela is not an official stamps. These are considered as toys, but imitating the form of stamps. Cinderela exist in the form of food coupon, promotional material from companies and a few other specialize situation.
Most of the time, people are collecting these stamps because of the picture in it which is very similar to the theme of their stamp collection. However, some of these cinderela can be very expensive because it is very scarce.
I will go through each material to give an explanation of what they really mean.
Error or Freak Stamps
As the title implies, the material that are included on these category are the "wrong" material. There are various mistake on the philatelic material. The mistake could come from a misprint, but by accident the misprinted stamp is being used and sold through the post office.
The misprint could be in the form of wrong colour print, missing colour, shifted print, undetected damage on the printing plate, inverted picture, misperforate or imperforate stamps.
All the stamps with these mistakes should not have been sold or distributed in the market, but again the postal office is run by only human, and of course mistake does happen. So then this material is out in the market. It is a rather specialize material and not very easy to collect.
Overprinted Stamps
There are occasion where the post office decides that they want to re-issue some stamps with different value. There are various reason for this action, one is that they have too much unsold printed stamps of a certain theme. The other reason is the is a special celebration and the time to design a new stamps is too short. In the old days, these method of overprint is also used to change the value of the stamps, e.g. during the conversion of Indonesian currency in 1966 from Rp. 1,000 to Rp. 1.00. The stamps at that time was overprinted with a new value to reflect the changes of currency value.
There are also an overprinted process which is done to indicate that the stamp is a special stamps. A good example of this is the overprint "specimen" which normally only used on stamps that is given to the UPU (Universal Postage Union) for the sample of the issued stamps. Or the overprint "official" or "military" which indicates that the stamps in to be used only by a certain organization.
The overprint method is also used to change the country's name. A lot of these stamps existed during the end period of collonial time. There were some Indonesian stamps from 1940 to 1945 which are issued by using the old Dutch stamps with some overprint to indicate that the stamps are now belong to the Indonesian government.
Cinderela
Cinderela is not an official stamps. These are considered as toys, but imitating the form of stamps. Cinderela exist in the form of food coupon, promotional material from companies and a few other specialize situation.
Most of the time, people are collecting these stamps because of the picture in it which is very similar to the theme of their stamp collection. However, some of these cinderela can be very expensive because it is very scarce.
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