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| EDITION 525 - 07/16/2024 |
| Minnesota Stamp EXPO is Friday the 19th through Sunday the 21st at the Crystal Community Center. |
| The library will be closed this Saturday to allow all members to attend the Annual General Meeting that will be held during the Minnesota Stamp EXPO at the Crystal Community Center at 11:00 AM. |
| Immediately following the meeting at 11:45 I will be giving a presentation that I have titled, "My Personal Journey into Collecting Postal History". I would like to invite everyone to attend. I do have a table at EXPO, but our current president Tim and one of our past presidents, Gene have both offered to cover my table while I do my presentation. If you have never attended a presentation at library, this will be a small sampling of what we do every month at the library. It will be informal. Questions and input by participants are always welcomed and encouraged. There will be several presentations at EXPO. Some will be done by our library members. Our hope is that you will enjoy them and choose to attend future presentations at our library. |
| My cover this week is a repeat. This postcard is what started me in collecting Postal History. It is not rare and has minimal value. My story with stamp collecting is a common one. I collected stamps as a boy and by the time I was in my late teens I had many other interests and stamp collecting became a lower priority. When I collected as a boy a lot of my stamps came from family mail. I would cut the stamps off the envelopes and soak them from the paper. I would also cut the postmarks into squares attempting to collect as many cities as possible. It was an affordable way to collect. When I was not actively collecting, I continued to accumulate stamps. During this period of time of accumulating stuff, I just stuffed everything into a file cabinet without sorting or identification. I also did not take the time to cut or soak anything. This turned out to be a good thing later on. After about a dozen years I pulled out my collection and discovered a few things. First my collection that I did not initially spend much on was worth exactly that, not much. Second as I went through all the postmarks, I had so carefully cut off from family mail I found that I did not have a single one from the town I grew up in. How was this possible? I grew up in Fridley and I was a regular visitor to the post office there. The last thing I discovered was that during the time of accumulation much of that accumulation was covers, and some of them were pretty interesting. They took on a different meaning for me. Suddenly my focus shifted to places, people, rates, purposes, etc., and it all came back to the elusive, (for me) Fridley. I had a lot more questions than answers and this was long before the internet. My research often took me to the library. I eventually found out that the post office that I so often visited was a branch office for Minneapolis, but Fridley did have an active post office from 1879 to 1928. This post card is the first thing I found with a Fridley postmark. The cancel is weak, but it is a prized part of my collection. During my search for Fridley, I had picked up many covers that for one reason or other I found interesting, and a collection was born. |
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| If you have anything that you want shared let me know at pjflaherty58@gmail.com |
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| Upcoming Events: |
| Date and Time | Third Saturday of the Month |
| Event | Upcoming Library Programs |
| Location | Crystal Community Center 4800 Douglas Drive Crystal, MN 55429 Program by Pat Flaherty "My Personal Journey into Collecting Postal History" |
| Date and Time | Tuesday 16, July 2024 at 7:30 PM |
| Sponsor | Saint Cloud Area Stamp Club |
| Event | Monthly Meeting |
| Location | Atonement Lutheran Church 1144 29th Ave. N St. Cloud Please use South entrance |
| Socializing, Trading and Identification |
| Date and Time | Tuesday 16, July 2024 at 6:00 PM |
| Sponsor | First Tuesday Stamp Club |
| Event | Monthly Meeting |
| Location | Gloria Dei Lutheran Church 1212 12th Ave. NW Rochester, MN Room 10 Please use the back entrance |
| Socializing, Trading and Identification |
| Date and Time | Tuesday 16, July 2024 at 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. |
| Event | Monthly Meeting |
| Sponsor | Minnesota Postal History Society |
| Location | Southdale Library Ethel Berry Room 7001 York Ave. So. Edina 55435 |
| Program TBD |
| Date and Time | Wednesday 17, July 2024 at 10:00 a.m. to Noon |
| Event | Stamp Academy |
| Location | Northern Philatelic Center, 1110 Lowry Ave No. Minneapolis, MN If you want to know anything about stamps, this is the place. There is an expert on staff every Wednesday between 10:00 a.m. and noon with over 30 years of experience cataloging stamps for some of the largest dealers in the country. For those people that have a collection that was handed down and are looking for what to do with the collection, this is a great opportunity to learn about your options. |
| Date and Time | Friday July 19, 2024, 10:00 to 6:00 PM Saturday July 20, 2024, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Sunday July 21, 2024, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM |
| Sponsor | Minnesota Stamp Dealers Association Twin City Philatelic Society Lake Minnetonka Stamp Club Maplewood Stamp Club |
| Event | Minnesota Stamp EXPO |
| Location | Crystal Community Center 4800 Douglas Drive Crystal, MN 55429 |
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| Date and Time | Saturday 20, July 2024, 11:45 a.m. |
| Event | Program by Pat Flaherty "My Personal Journey into Collecting Postal History" |
| Location | Minnesota Stamp EXPO Crystal Community Center 4800 Douglas Drive Crystal, MN 55429 |
| Date and Time | Wednesday 24, July 2024 at 10:00 a.m. to Noon |
| Event | Stamp Academy |
| Location | Northern Philatelic Center, 1110 Lowry Ave No. Minneapolis, MN If you want to know anything about stamps, this is the place. There is an expert on staff every Wednesday between 10:00 a.m. and noon with over 30 years of experience cataloging stamps for some of the largest dealers in the country. For those people that have a collection that was handed down and are looking for what to do with the collection, this is a great opportunity to learn about your options. |
| Date and Time | Thursday 25, July 2024 at 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. |
| Sponsor | Maplewood Stamp Club |
| Location | Community of Grace Lutheran Church 4000 Linden St White Bear Lake, MN |
| Event | Monthly Meeting |
| Auction |
| Date and Time | Wednesday 31, July 2024 at 10:00 a.m. to Noon |
| Event | Stamp Academy |
| Location | Northern Philatelic Center, 1110 Lowry Ave No. Minneapolis, MN If you want to know anything about stamps, this is the place. There is an expert on staff every Wednesday between 10:00 a.m. and noon with over 30 years of experience cataloging stamps for some of the largest dealers in the country. For those people that have a collection that was handed down and are looking for what to do with the collection, this is a great opportunity to learn about your options. |