Stamp Of Approval

My neighbor is a philatelist, dealing in a philately. I had never heard the term. Stamp collector, yes, of course, but a philatelist? Never. The word comes from Latin meaning to tax, like stamp tax? I guess you could say placing a stamp is sort of a tax on correspondence. What do I know? Not much, a Jack London, a James Dean and a Georgia O'Keefe flower, first issue stamps are all about as close as I've come to any collecting. 

My neighbor has shared some of his collection with me. A bit overwhelming in their beauty and historical significance. He told me he just sold some for $4,000 at the stamp show in Sacramento while he was showing me his old Nazi Germany stamp collection. Stunning. He's kind of cleaning house for the Sacramento stamp show in the convention center. I'm encouraged to go. It's free. My kind of tax.

The Sacramento Convention Center is a cold block of cement, vast, filled, and I mean filled, with stamps. If you know the movie "Charade" with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, there is a scene among the booths of a Parisian stamp show when the characters whirl and twirl in a dizzying realization of what's around them — the clues to the fortune they seek — stamps. I'm a bit like that in the presence of all the stamps. I'm also a bit relieved of my advanced age by the more advanced ages all around me, most definitely a senior citizen endeavor.

My neighbor, who has been collecting all his life, tells me the younger generations have no interest in philately. It's most obvious here, the younger generations too Internet- and phone-obsessed. That's not a guess.

Now I'm looking for a specific of the Disney Nautilus submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

There are 20,000 and more boxes and briefcases and packages and binders and stands, presentations and conditions of stamps and more from $1 to hundreds to thousands, an upside-down Jenny — an early aircraft — worth a fortune, nothing fancy about the presentations, almost all like well-kept basements.

My first encounter was with a collector of early Mickey Mouse, a childhood's album to delight your memories of. No Nemo's Nautilus. There was a collection of just submarine stands, the nuclear Nautilus and a World War II submarine. No Nemos.

Spain, the Spanish Civil War in my heart. Here are stamps of Franco the fascist and letters stamped from 1937 Barcelona before the fall, all around nooks and niches of historical to national to part of a standing display of Donald Duck at war with Hitler, to those famous, even I know, duck stamps, each collector-presenter eager to talk, eager to help out, decorating and selling and pitching all around quietly, no auctioneer's gavel, sitting at the bare snack bar with a fellow who's been here as a regular just looking to see if something catches his budget, sharing some of his knowledge with wide open me.

Sports. Endless. I want a Sandy Koufax something, having just come back from Cooperstown, New York, and the Baseball Hall of Fame where I at least saw my icon Sandy Koufax. But nothing here, the dealer showed off a signed Ted Williams postcard. I did mention there was more than just stamps. That's it for today.

I was back paying $3 to the American Topical Association to get some information on a Nautilus stamp. Barbados issued a $5 stamp of the submarine, but nowhere to be found around here.

It's all part of comic-con for adults alongside Ben Franklin, our nation's first postmaster, civil war stamps galore, posted on the actual envelopes from the war; envelopes posted from everywhere, artifacts someone touched, someone wrote — Amelia Airhart, lovely, the art of the stamp.

I took them for granted somewhat. But now they've shown their true worth. On and on I investigate. My stamp of approval.