Canada stamps (1)

Last visit to the stamp museum in Tokyo, I scored a nice collection of common Canadian stamps in an album – just the overstock from one of the dealers. None of the stamps were particularly special, but I had very few stamps from Canada and wanted to boost my collection a bit.

Besides, the price was right and the album and stamps came together. I moved the stamps to one of my albums and gave the just-purchased album to my daughter for her collection.

Until now, she has just had a couple pages in one of my albums, but now she has her own album. This is very important to a six-year-old!

There were basically two types of stamps – long series of profiles, and outdoors / nature / wildlife. You can guess which ones my daughter wanted for her collection.

Anyway, I am not a huge Olympics fan, but congratulations to Canada for hosting a successful Winter Olympics.

日本語 hints:
scored = got, bought, purchased – it is a bit informal

overstock = extra copies or duplicates they don’t need, 供給過剰

boost = add to, improve -- also a bit informal

the price was right = in this case it means the price was low, it was a good deal

just- Notice that we can put “just-“ in front of almost any verb, together with a dash

you can guess = you probably know

Olympics – Notice that the word is usually plural (複数) by itself, but is often singular (単数) when used together with another word: Olympic games, Olympic sport, etc. vs. the Olympics

I want to trade for more Chinese stamps

New Year Stamps

I spent much of my New Year’s holiday working on stamps – soaking thousands of stamps off envelopes, and drying them, and flattening them. I haven’t yet put them into my album as I am trying to reorganize and I don’t want to move them all again in the future.

In the beginning, I just put them in an album in ascending order from 1 yen to 1000 yen. But now, having bought a catalog of all Japanese stamps ever issued, I see that I am in way over my head. I will likely follow its system: grouping by themes such as furusato, commemoratives, and so on. Then, it arranges chronologically within each theme. Fine enough, but now I have to move and shuffle about three billion stamps.

It was so simple when I was young. Maybe 30 years back, I had a giant Harris album with little Xeroxed pictures of every stamp in the world (or so it seemed). Find the country, find the picture, put a hinge on the stamp and stick it on the page. So neat and orderly!

So far I have four albums with no end in sight (and all those thousands I bought just before the new year…). I suppose that is part of the joy of it all – imposing order upon chaos. Strange connection, but it seems that is what my latest favorite TV show, Deadwood, was all about – the director was interested in how chaos is transformed into civilization. (Deadwood was one of the last Wild West towns in the US and had a brief period of near-anarchy before it was formally brought into the US.

Well, heavy themes aside, you can find in the picture my themes over the New Year holiday: postage stamp work (drying on the plates), good beer, and daidai citrus fruit to mix with shochu alcohol. Hmmm, it is getting late at night and cold in my room. Maybe it is time to heat some water and shochu….

日本語 hints:
ascending order – moving up from smaller to bigger = 昇順

in way over my head – the project is much too difficult (お手上げ！)

chronologically – in order by year = 時系列順

Xerox -- the name of a photocopier company. The word is now used as noun AND verb in English (similar to new internet-related verbs like ぐぐる or うぃきる?)

hinge – in this context, a small item which is used to stick the stamp into an album without damaging the stamp

imposing order upon chaos – tough one. “impose” is something like 果たす or 押し付ける. Chaos = 無秩序 or 混乱状態. Order = something like 秩序. So this phrase means to change chaos into an orderly situation.

anarchy – 無政府

焼酎 – This is best left as “shochu” in English, maybe together with “Japanese distilled spirits” to stress that the alcohol content is higher than the more-commonly known お酒 or sake. Using both E and J together is often best for unique Japanese foods and drinks.

pay to work

Most people get paid for the work they do. Some people don’t. In my case, I am paying to do work.

Not all the time, but certainly so in the case of stamps.

Until very recently, I took pride in never paying for stamps, not being concerned with their monetary value. I collect used stamps and just enjoy the collecting. I am not searching for particularly valuable or collectible stamps.

So I have been quite satisfied with the flow of used stamps I get from here and there (though I would like to start trading with other amateur collectors!). But the other day, when visiting the Stamp Museum, I changed tactics – I found two bags full of used Japanese stamps at one of the private vendors’ stalls. The price was low so I snapped them up and everything was great…

…until I realized how much work I was in store for. The reason they were so cheap was that (a) none were rare (b) all were still attached to the corners of envelopes, meaning I had hours and hours of work ahead of me.

I have been soaking, peeling, drying, and flattening stamps for weeks now and have finally finished all the stamps – in the smaller of the two bags!

But I have no complaints – this work is fun for me and I am forging ahead with my collection of Japanese stamps. Another one of the private dealers had some bags of Canadian stamps – also common and still attached to the corners of envelopes. I have had my eye on them and will probably pick them up next time.

Thankfully the bags are much smaller…

日本語 hints:
take pride in = be proud of something I do

vendor = someone who sells things (by the way, do you know what 自動販売機 is in English? vending machine

snap something up = buy it quickly, buy it on the spot

how much work I was in store for = how much work was waiting for me

to forge ahead = to make great or rapid progress

to have your eye on something = to be watching it (or, in this case, to be waiting to buy it)