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[personal profile] alexpgp
On our way to Fry's earlier today, we spied a couple of promising garage sales, so we stopped for a look.

And I happened to run across a stamp album, published by H. E. Harris, whose former owner stopped collecting stamps at around the time I did—or maybe a year or two later—back when I was a kid. The album was designed to hold only U.S. stamps instead of stamps from the whole world.

In my experience, collectible postage stamps are a very unusual item to see at a garage sale, because collectors attempting to sell a collection will typically turn to some other avenue to do so (e.g., eBay or a real auction house), while people who don't collect stamps seem to often be afflicted with a loathing to give up a potential "treasure" that may be hiding within a collection, or they assume that old stamps are by definition valuable, or they've glanced at a stamp catalog and assume the prices quoted therein are what a buyer should be expected to pay.

Of these, by far the most likely scenario for non-collectors is the first, but the actual likelihood of there being a rare stamp in a casual collector's collection is pretty small. (Too, I am reminded of the advice I heard given to a fellow who walked into a stamp store a couple of years ago, wanting to sell the dealer a bunch of mint, i.e., never used, U.S. postage stamps from the 1970s: "Use them for postage, because you would be hard-pressed to find a dealer who'd buy them from you at even face value.")

In the case of the stamps I saw today, the seller was willing to part with the album (and a bunch of envelopes that were inside the album) for a song, and after looking at all the stamps at my leisure, I've concluded I just about got my money's worth (though there were some interesting items I hadn't seen before).

Talking about things I haven't seen at any garage sale, ever, I've never seen any kind of decent "player's" chess set, by which I mean one of Staunton design, with weighted pieces, preferably made of wood, where the kings are at least 3-1/2 inches tall. Nor have I ever seen a chess clock, for that matter (an unmistakable item, with two clock faces in one case).

Just some observations...

Off-topic

Date: 2013-04-13 11:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ygam.livejournal.com
I remember that some 10 years ago you translated "Ваше Благородие, госпожа Удача" into English. Would you have a link to that translation, by any chance?

Thank you.

Re: Off-topic

Date: 2013-04-14 01:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] alexpgp.livejournal.com
The most recent version of my translation of Ваше благородие is here (http://alexpgp.livejournal.com/2010/10/09/). FWIW, this was the version that was published in an issue of Чтения/Readings (No. 13, Winter 2011).

Why the interest, after all these years?

Cheers...

Re: Off-topic

Date: 2013-04-14 02:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ygam.livejournal.com
I saw another translation of Okudzhava into Polish on Facebook and suddenly remembered yours.

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