By Ken Perkins
Swap meet time again at Sequoia. Everybody’s invited to bring in all that ‘how did I ever end up with this’ stuff.
Jim Giacomazzi translated ‘swap meet’ into ‘cigar boxes’. Half of his many tables seemed to be covered with cigar boxes filled with other little boxes: Ex-Lax boxes, match boxes, smaller cigar boxes. Miriam brought an album filled with cigar bands and a curious little book about fine cigars. Sadly, nobody brought any cigars.
So much for the Sequoia Fine Cigar Club.
But there were stamps too! A pile of stamps to sort through, only 3¢ each. Tiny envelopes labelled “Children’s Weekly Offering at St. Charles Borromeo’s Church in San Francisco”, c. 1957, from Darlene, each envelope filled with stamps from a foreign country: name your price.
Craig gamely tried to get rid of that long box of stamp-filled glassines he picked up at one of our auctions. I think his lovely wife told him she’ll let either the box of glassines or Craig himself back into the house, but not both of them. Nevertheless, he stoically ignored my suggestion that he try selling them by the ounce.
Kristin was offering some lovely U.S. Revenue proofs, beautiful examples of the printer’s art, looking as fresh as the day they left the presses well over century ago.
As I circulated around the room, annoying people with my camera and flash, I saw the whole world of philately spread out before me. There were ordinary stamps and extraordinary stamps. Beautiful stamps, ugly stamps. Singles and whole albums. And best of all, a lot of friendly stamp collectors having a good time.
If you haven’t attended one of Sequoia’s Swap Meet evenings, you should try one. You might just find something, or someone, you like.