Where DO you get all those awesome old stamps?

I am getting this question so regularly that I must do another post on a source. I posted on him a while back, but I didn't use any pretty pictures.



First, I should say that a great majority of my stamps come from my dear beloved Grandfather, who is 90 years old now. He worked for the post office for most of his adult life, and he collected stamps casually over many, many years. Now my mom and I share his stamp collection, and we both use them.



Second, I do troll eBay for a few favorite stamp designs. I generally won't pay more than face value for them, which means I don't find the deal I want very often. But I've picked up some Muppets stamps, bat stamps, and a few of the peachy letter-writing type stamps that way.



My BEST recommendation, though, I will repeat from this post I made back in May. (For those of you that have already read this and given Errol your business, sorry for the repetition.)

On the Stamps post at Letters and Journals, I read about Errol Murphy (emurphy at cot.net emurphy3101 at gmail.com see end of post for updated info). He sells mixed lots of older stamps in great condition for mailing, and sells them in $20 increments. You pay face value plus shipping, and the shipping for the order I just placed was a whopping 42 cents for letter rate postage. (Sorry, folks, you'll have to pay 44 cents now, since the rates went up in May.) But here's the best part: you can request a theme!! Olympics, nature, animals, politicians - I gather he's got quite a collection. I wasn't sure about buying from someone without a website, just out of the blue, but Jackie at Letters & Journals seems like a reliable gal, and she said she'd been buying from Errol for 2 years. So I contacted Errol on a Monday about a stamp order, he took me at my word that my check to him was in the mail (it was), and must have sent the batch immediately, because I got them on a Thursday. I am just as pleased as punch with the batch of stamps he sent. NOW, when folks ask me where I get all my groovy old stamps, I will point them right to Errol. To quote what he said when I asked if I could promote his services on my blog: "I'm so glad you like the stamps. I do this as a hobby and enjoy it when I can provide stamps at a reasonable price to appreciative collectors and stamp users."

So, if you're looking for a batch of old/vintage stamps for fun postage, Errol is my top recommendation.

As a side note: even the stamps that he used on his envelope to add up to the 42-cents postage were very cool!

[UPDATE: as of May 19, 2014, Errol Murphy's most recent contact info can be found on his website, murphs-stamps.com.]