Kitty on books from Mary - Stamp King / opium den

I really hope I remember to put some stamps in thought bubbles. It's probably cutest when the stamp features an item that one would dream about. The flowers are stickers and tomorrow there will be another one from Mary, using those stickers. Very clever. The stack of books is clever. 

 ***

So one of my alert readers spotted an article about the very last shop in Chicago that sells stamps - old stamps for stamp collectors. She knew I ventured into Chicago once in a while and as luck would have it, I had a short trip coming up. Mr Wilson and I were going to drive in on a Wednesday to hang with the grandkids while their parents had a long weekend getaway with friends - and then we'd head home on Monday. 

I checked the address of the stamp shop and it was literally one block off of the interstate - so it was going to be really easy to pop in. There are no words to describe how much stuff was packed into the shop. Multiply this photo by about 6. Six times that much stuff. 

There was space to walk between the stacks that were at least 5-feet high - but, it had to be single file and it would have been challenging if two people needed to switch places. I should have had MrW stand next to a pile so you could see that they were at least 5-6 feet high.

The name of the shop is Stamp King. Mr King invited me to sit down at his desk and he cleared a space that was about 24" x 24" and asked me what I was interested in. I wondered what the process would be if I asked for something that was in the bottom box in a stack of 6 banker's boxes. I took a chance and asked him if he had any stamps that he sold for less than face value.

I lucked out, because he was able to quickly retrieve a fairly small box (about a third of a banker's box) and I was able to choose some. He was disappointed that I was on a tight schedule and only had 20 minutes to shop. Unfortunately, it was like shooting heroin again after being straight for a few years. 

Since the price has gone up to 60-cents, I started wondering if any of the 30-cent stamps were old favorites. There were no 30-cent stamps. They jumped from 29 to 32. So, I searched 32-cent stamps and what I found has launched me into a really precarious place.

Stamps were 32-cents from Jan 1995 through Jan 1999. 1995 was the exact year I got seriously hooked on stamps. All I know is that I went a little bonkers when I saw all the 32-cent stamps. Like crack. It took me back to the euphoria of the early days.

On top of it -- I have the ongoing greeting card project with someone who has been as smitten as I am with postage and we've decided to revisit our local stamp dealer. I had stopped going a while ago. She stopped going because of covid.  Our dealer has moved -- so, we're going to venture out to his new space and see if we can get some stamps for less than face value. 

There's a longer story - but, I'll save the rest of it for when I report the outcome of Jean and Jan's Excellent Adventure.