London 2010 International Stamp Exhibition

Can't believe it's been 2 years already. It seems like just yesterday when I was traveling around London with that red double decker.  WooHoo..

Anyway, yes, I was in London in May of 2010 for the international stamp show and it was my first time stepping in Brits soil.  Yea yea, I know this post is really late :(  But Eric from France has covered the show brilliantly and extensively so I thought I was not going to waste your time. Please see his article here.

I had fun shopping around and one thing that really caught me off-guard was that a lady from the Australian postal service recognized me from attending Washington 2006 4 years ago. That was really shocking, what is the odds of that happening?  Someone reconizing you from 4 years ago and had met you only 1 time?  Do I have a special face? LOL .. hope not. But it was really sweet that she remembered me. On the other hand, I am really bad with names or faces.

I had a lot of fun obtaining commemorative postmarks from various postal services. When I was in Washington DC for the 06 show, I bought a philatelic passport and was really busy stamping them. However, it was just not the same as stamping on a real COVER!

Here is a cover I made and mailed to myself. I sort of bumped into the Royal mail postal service by accident. It was not located in the main hall where Royal mail sold their products but it's in a different room on the right hand side of the main entrance to the show.

As you can see, I've sort of trying to confuse the postman by having all these stamps from different postal administrations. Haha..

 But I guess it's really hard to miss that big golden bust of the queen on this one!

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Prague 2008

Sorry about my prolonged absence and thus neglecting the blog. For now, I would like to share some pictures and words from the Prague 2008 International Stamp Exhibition which I've recently attended.

This is my first visit to the Czech Republic. As a collector I've always been impressed by the stamps of this country. They have exquisite designs and are beautifully engraved. I especially like the stamps that Czech Post issued in the 60s-80s.

The night before I leave I was very excited because this was my first stamp show in a foreign country. My plan was to attend the show for the first day and 1/2 a day the second day and then go on with my other plans in Prague.

9/11 Looking out the window while flying from France to Prague, I gotta say Air France was pretty good in terms of service and food.

9/11 Looking at the land of the thousand spires. Almost there!!

9/12 First day of the show. Long lines at the entry gate! Unlike stamp shows in the US, stamp shows in Europe most likely are not free. But, first time I felt lucky to be a woman because women and children could attend the show for free :) Great wasn't it. This worked for me because I didn't know I would be in and out of the exhibit later on.

9/12 This is a picture of the Industrial Palace in Prague. We were late for 2 hours the first day because we had no idea how to get there. Haha, but we made it following the tracks of the tram that goes to the palace.

9/12 The venue itself was quite big! But of course, it was a lot smaller than Washington2006. I walked into the exhibition hall and felt a little overwhelmed because it was really really crowded and we were like the only Asians there and (young) No offense here .. hehe..

This is the catalogue I bought, I forgot how much maybe 500 kr.

9/12 The exhibition ground was divided into 3 parts. The right side of the palace housed all the competitive exhibits, the middle section had all the postal offices from the world and including Czech Post. Finally, the right side of the palace were the dealers.

Will continue soon.

washington 2006 -Russia

Last year, I had the good fortune to attend a world class stamp exhibition in Washington DC. It was the first world stamp exhibition that I have ever attended at that kind of scale. The place was huge, definitely size of a football field. There were so much to see, so much to do and so little time even though I stayed there for a week. I am sure there will be more to come and that I will attend even more stamp shows in the future, but the first is always more memorable than the rest.

One of my main activities during the show was to visit all the different foreign postal administrations. I think more than 50 countries came, more or less, which was great. You know, the chance of seeing new issues from 50 countries at the same time and at face value is rare. Most of the world class stamp exhibitions only take place once every 10 years for the host country.

I stopped by the Russian postal booth because I have always liked stamps from Russia. Maybe it's because of the funny looking Russian alphabets? or whatever it is .. :) but I think Russian stamps are pretty. I asked the lady behind the booth if she can sell me stamps worth the rate of sending a letter from Russia to the USA, but the lady didn't speak English. After about 10 minutes of sign language and body gestures, I finally bought a set of stamps issued in 2001, beautiful paintings of the city of St. Petersburg. I knew it was about St. Petersburg because the lady kept saying St. Petersburg, haha... I bought the whole set thinking the postage will be enough to mail a letter from Russia to the USA but I was wrong!

A while later when I affixed all the stamps on an envelope and handing it to the lady, at the same time, another lady appeared and she spoke English and she asked me if I needed help, so I handed the letter to her instead. She looked at it and asked if I wanted to have the letter mailed from Russia and I said yes. She was like, oh no, the postage is not enough, and she took a 100 p definitive stamp and put it on the envelope. I asked her how much and she was like, it's ok, no need. I was thrilled. About a month later, I received my envelope back. It was very nice, first self-made letter from Russia. Although, to this day I still have no idea why she put a 100p stamp on the envelope, the 100 seemed very high!