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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kirispupis, post: 7645704, member: 118780&quot;][ATTACH=full]1314623[/ATTACH]</p><p>My mother saved this cover that I mailed from Viet Nam. I used to doodle cartoons on many of the envelopes; this one shows a Viet Cong chasing my letter.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p><p>Funny seeing the Rochester, NY address! I grew up just south of there in Rush, NY. My grandfather, from whom I received Luxembourg citizenship, collected stamps from when he was a kid - mostly the US and Luxembourg. He got me involved in stamp collecting and many a summer I pored through his albums. Once a year for my birthday, I was given an allowance of $25 to buy stamps from a store in Midtown Mall. It was the only time of year we went downtown. I would spend months analyzing price lists to decide which to buy. I mainly focused on smaller countries since I figured they were like Luxembourg.</p><p><br /></p><p>When he passed away, I was given the choice between his albums and two golden eagles. For me, the choice was simple.</p><p><br /></p><p>I still have his US album, though it&#039;s at my parents&#039; house. His Luxembourg album was unfortunately grabbed and sold by an unscrupulous relative before I could receive it. Since then, I&#039;ve focused on rebuilding his Luxembourg album and also collecting from the former Soviet Union.</p><p><br /></p><p>I stopped adding to the collection several years ago when I picked up photography (expensive hobby), and now that I collect ancient coins I have no idea when I&#039;ll pick it up again. However, it does seem like stamp collectors are dwindling, so perhaps the prices will go down enough some day that I can resume.</p><p><br /></p><p>One final piece of mystery: before my grandfather died 30 years ago he said one of his US stamps was worth $40k. He knew other relatives would sell his albums before we could obtain them, so he removed the sheets from the album, stuffed them in a drawer (so they didn&#039;t appear valuable), and told my mother where the sheets were - but not which stamp it was. I received the sheets, but as a kid I wasn&#039;t able to determine which stamp it was from my Scott catalog. I did find one stamp with potential, but I came to the conclusion that the grill size was wrong and something like 2mm was the difference between $40k and $4. To this day I have no idea if there&#039;s a valuable stamp in the pile, but I&#039;ve decided to not find out since a) I don&#039;t trust anyone with the stamps and b) I&#039;d rather have the mystery than the suspected disappointment.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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