My chosen collecting specialty was balloon covers and for a time my life revolved around their collecting and study. I was what is called a serious collector. Simply put, I found them fascinating. Poring over dusty albums and boxes in ill-lit shops, or under the florescent glare at fancy hotel stamp shows, I followed my passion. Yet I didn’t at all resemble the stereotypical collector with his nose stuck in an album and the world held at bay by a wall of philately. But I can’t take credit for that: thanks belong to the collector groups I had joined.
Let me emphasize the value of joining a collector group related to your stamp collecting area of interest. The American Philatelic Society is a good place to start and can open up a wide world of collecting for you, through its specialized and local chapters catering to stamp interests of all types and topics.
In my case a membership in the American Air Mail Society first exposed me to Don Holmes, author of Air Mail: An Illustrated History 1793-1981 and creator of covers, including those commemorating the first U.S. air mail flights in 1918. His covers, cacheted and pilot signed, were carried at the Rhinebeck NY Aerodrome in a Jenny, one of the original government planes, and the type pictured on the famous Inverted Jenny error. It is commonly known as the upside-down airplane stamp.
The AAMS also allowed me to meet the balloonist who would fly the covers that I had made for the first day of the block of four balloon stamps, the U.S.’s philatelic contribution to the bicentennial of manned flight worldwide celebrations in 1983.
Getting a taste for creating covers through the group led me to design the cachets for the AAMS's diamond anniversary, which also happened to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Chicago Flight of the Graf Zeppelin. That airship wasn’t a balloon, obviously, but it holds a special place in the world of aerophilately, thanks to numerous mail carrying flights. There are many zeppelin post collectors, casual as well as expert, who are walking troves of information about this fascinating area of air mail collecting.
True collectors know how easy it is to be carried away by the objects of their desire. I confess to such a lapse of common sense while attending the Northeast Regional Balloon Championships in Balloonsbury -- actually the town of Bloomsbury NJ, renamed for the duration of the event, a sort of hot air Brigadoon -- in 1983. I impulsively handed a group of postcards franked with balloon stamps and the event cancel to a pilot to carry on his flight. I did this even though I knew the flight was only up and down: the balloon was tethered and only giving five minute rides to Balloonsbury attendees. Perhaps I can get the covers into the record books as the shortest mail carrying balloon flight event cover ever?
But back to AAMS influence; it was through that organization that I met Robert Schoendorf, author of the Catalog of Classic American Airposts and Aeronautica, 1784-1900. It was a reading of that book that allowed me to identify a patriotic envelope in a dealer’s cover box that was available for a fraction of its actual value. And careful study of the AAMS Catalog armed me with knowledge that allowed me to pick up an unassuming air mail cover that I later sold for thirty times what I had paid for it. Unbeknownst to the dealer it was a rare crash cover. Thanks, AAMS!
Being able to recognize a bargain is a nice benefit, but it’s not the best reason for joining a collecting group within your range of philatelic interests. The ability to make connections with like-minded collectors and experts in the field, as well gaining access to a store of knowledge, are the things that should put joining a group that shares your stamp collecting interest at the top of your want list.
