Coins and stamps

Last Tuesday I went into town and met up with a representative of the Stamp and Coin Auction House, Stanley Gibbons, or its Australian counterpart.

I was hoping that I could sell my father's stamp collection and my mother-in-laws coin hoard. Father went through a period where he bought a block of four of every new issue of stamps and for some reason he passed them on to me. I think that he did it as an investment because the stamps in those days were extremely uninspiring, not to say boring.

And my mother-in-law's hoard of coins. (I have been reading about dragons lately and hoard is really the only way to describe it.) When my sister-in-law and I cleaned up her house ready to sell it we came across money stashed all over the house to the extent that we used to take time off at lunchtime to take a big bag of coins and notes to the bank where one of my cousins worked and she was happy to count it all out and put it into my mother-in-law's account for us. She also hoarded stamps; not in any sort of organised way and for years I have been raiding her collection when I was short of stamps

However, what was left over was a huge heap of pre-decimal coins dating back to 1910. I put them into an album, filling in as many gaps as I could (face and obverse of each coin).

The Stanley Gibbons man wasn't interested in any of the stamps and advised me to use the decimal ones on my letters. I will probably never need to buy a stamp ever again and the kiddie collectors will probably lap them up.

However, he did take the coin collection which he said might bring in about $100. It was either that or bin them so they have gone off to be auctioned. Someone, somewhere, might love them; I certainly didn't want them.

And, hopefully, someone is coming tomorrow to take away my exercise bike which I have always hated and which I most certainly won't take with me when I move. My proper bike will be coming to Claremont although I recognise that the chance of me riding it ever again is pretty remote. ... but I love it!