I was an avid stamps and coin collector. I have got coins of over 20 countries and stamps of world over. I have coins of pre independent India. I have mint, unused and used stamps of India. U.K., USA, China, Cuba, Japan, Czecheslovakia, etc. etc. I have collection of pre independent India. Perhaps I have a very large collection of German stamps. I am now trying to separate them according to themes instead of countries.
I became interested in stamps and coins due to the interest my father had in stamp collection. . My father was a stamp collector but not an expert in that field. I am writing about the days of 1940s. He had some circle of friends who were interested in stamp collecting. They had a good collection of stamps . He had also a circle of friends who were occupying high positions in life. So for him, collecting or perhaps (?) exchanging stamps was not a problem, I think that is how in his collections, I could see several Japanese stamps of 1930s and 1940s. There are sheets of Japanese stamps. Several pre independence stamps and stamps of princely states etc..
When we children grew up, we started adding stamps to our father’s collection which we got from our friends whose parents worked either in the gulf countries or Far East or Africa. Sometimes we used to exchange stamps and there was excitement in adding new stamps. The stamps grew in numbers and varieties.
This naturally attracted me to pen friendship and exchange stamps with our foreign pen friends which helped us not only to increase our collection but it helped us to widen our horizons by constantly learning more about new countries, their way of life, their fauna and flora, their national heroes, way of life, culture etc. This had a salutary effect on my attitude. It speeded up my desire to contact people of new countries. I joined some international stamp exchange groups. In those days India Postal Department was not bringing out stamps on themes or colourful stamps. The policy of the Government used to be to bring out stamps of leaders and heroes etc. Only limited number of new stamps used to be brought out every year. There were no colourful stamps unlike of late, which are almost like match box labels. This was a stumbling block to exchange stamps. That apart value of our stamps when compared to foreign stamps was less and hence we had to send more stamps in exchange to get their stamps. However when I took over the stamp collection from my father and other brothers, though the collection was very small, I added hundreds of stamps to the collection. About the year 2003 or 2004, my interest started diminishing or waning and my collection came to a grinding halt. By that time Indian postal stamp industry had grown and more and more colourful and thematice stamps started coming out.
Now my stamp collection has come to a stage when I may not be able to continue with this hobby. I find none of my relations are interested I have therefore reluctantly decided that they should be disposed of to any one who can buy the entire collection from me. It is very sad to part with the said collection but I though that instead of my collection falling into the hands of unknown persons or being disposed of without knowing its worth, I felt that I should sell them for a fair price.
My collection ranges from the pre independent period not only of my country India, but of the stamps of the contemporaneous period .till today. It is a huge collection Since I had not specialized in any particular branch of the hobby, it is random collection.
I think coin collection is part of stamp collectible. Since I was traveling to several countries, I collected coins and currency notes of those countries also I have a good collection of British India and East India Company coins. I have post independent period coins also.
Why I mentioned about my stamp collection is to explain why I have not written in this site since sometime. The reason is because I am occupied with the arrangement of keeping my stamps and coins in a presentable condition so that anyone who wants to buy the same in one lot should be able to appreciate it’s worth/value etc.