Pastimes

Apparently Out-of-Fashion
A newsletter for the dedicated hobbyist.

Jennifer Fatz, editor, December 2014

Collecting stamps over time

By Stan P. Kholecter
Since their first appearance in 1840, the idea of making money from stamps came later. The rage of stamp
collecting dates back to the 1930s, while it had dawned
on the general public that stamps could be worth a
fortune in the first third of the twentieth century. And
just in time for the Great Depression; when out-of-work
folks effected by unemployment really needed to come
up with some quick cash.

By the 1940s Americans presumed it was easy
in principle to build an investment portfolio by buying
stamps. Stamp stores sprung up all over the country, but particularly in New York City. Nassau Street
became the center of philately in the U.S., with at one
point dozens of stores doing brisk business in the little
bits of gummed paper.
The 1950s through the 1970s marked the pinnacle
of the panes. That is, people would buy full panes (the
technical term for sheets of stamps) of every issue the
post office could produce-in fact, often multiple panes.
Why? These stamps were sure too pay off, as they could
only increase in value. Stamps were a good investment!

United States No. 1, the countrys first postage stamp, issued in 1847.

And they
did pay off!
For the post
office. For the
collectors?
Not so much.
Because what
the informed
stamp collectors always
knew was this:
stamps sold by
the millions
will never
become rare,
and will never
will be worth
much. What
the public did
was to set
up standing

Stamps to page 2

NDSU Contract Bridge league to host bridge tournament

FARGO, ND-- The North Dakota State University
Contract Bridge leagues tournament at 8 p.m., January
3rd, in the Fargo Civic Center. Organizer Irving Nern
says he hopes to reinvigorate the game among young
people by offering cash prizes.
We have really seen a drop-off in bridge among
people under 50, Nern said, Bridge used to be the hot
game at college campuses. Youd see groups everywhere.
Now its nearly unheard of, except at the high-level places with a lot of brainy students.
We need to rehab the image of this game, he said.
Its not just a coffee cake game for senior citizens. It
can be highly competitive, and the way we play it takes
out all the luck. Duplicate bridge is totally a game of
skill, Nern said.
Nern says popular games today among young people,
like poker, are mostly luck. Poker does have an element

of skill, but you also have to get the good cards, Nern
said, But poker is big because its played in glitzy places like Las Vegas. And the cash prizes can be huge!
The club is offering a total of ten thousand dollars
cash to the winner, $5,000 for second place, $1,000
for third. How could such a small club come up with
this money? We found a benefactor with the deepest
pockets ever, Nern said. Bill Gates is an avid bridge
player, and supports bridge clubs around the country.
He donated the prizes.
Players may register for $25; students are welcome
for $10. Detailed information is available on request at
the clubhouse, 338 Minard Hall, or at www.ndsubridge.
com. The Fargo Civic Center is at the intersection of 4th
Street North and Third Avenue North, free of charge to
watch the tournament.

Pastimes pg. 2

Stamps from page 1

orders with philately stores to purchase many multiples of every new issue. Knowledgeable
collectors carefully chose old and rare
stamps that could only increase in value.
No amount of a Scott Number 968, the
infamous poultry industry issue of 1948,
could match one Scott No. 292, the cattle
in storm issue of 1898, which has been
called the most beautiful stamp America has ever issued by some collectors of
American classic stamps.
As collectors from this postwar period aged, they decided
to help fund their retirement
by selling their accumulation
of stamps issued during this
period. For most it was a shock:
not only would dealers not pay
a premium for their unused
stamps, they wouldnt even pay
face value! If they made an ofThe Penny Black, worlds fer at all. Stamps from this era
first postage stamp, issued had glutted the market. Almost
53,000,000 poultry industry
in Britain in 1840.
stamps were produced, and
that was average. The dealers
recommendation to these hoarders? Use the stamps for
postage.
Even today, you can go to stamp shows and buy
sheets of unused (mint) common stamps at a discount
from face value. In principle that should be attractive to
people who hoped to save a few bucks on postage. Not
so much today. The forever stamp program began in
2007. That means you buy stamps, and use them forever, no matter how much future postage rates increase.
In affect, then, you will always buy stamps at a discount from the future.
As the luster for lucre in stamp collecting lost its
attraction, the king of hobbies and the hobby of kings
began to lose momentum among average folks. Specialists drove the hobby to greater complexityyou needed
to be quite knowledgeable to effectively collect stamps,
or so people began to think. And the children that used
to drive the hobby by collecting everything and anything turned their interests to other hobbies. The age of
video games, with their power to create an imaginary
extravaganza of effects for kids, pulled them away from
fascination in bits of paper. Stamp collecting was for
nerds.
Came the end of the millennium, and the beginning
of the digital age. The significance of the U.S. Postal
Service declined as email first cut into their business,
and then social media and online commerce drove most
of the population away from a formerly intimate relationship with the mail. People even began to quit sending invitations, thank-you cards and holiday greetings.
Most people dont think much anymore about collecting

Pastimes pg. 3

stamps.
The irony is this: there is no better time than now
to collect stamps for investment. Why? Because people
arent doing it much anymore. Take a look at your
mailif you still get any.
How many pieces have an
actual first-class stamp?
Of those, how many actually use a commemorative,
instead of a definitive issue?
Its a good guess that if you
get even a half dozen a year, you are getting more than
average. The collecting trend today is taking a new turn
toward saving postal historythat is, entire letters,
and not just stamps. Today really is the golden age for
stamp collectors who want to join the hobby for fun
and maybe profit!

Can-vention to feature brewing memorabilia

Vintage comic books comeback in

style

Three cone top cans produced before flat top cans replaced
them in the 1950s.

Theres no better time

than now to collect
stamps for investment

Once the rage of the adolescent mischief-maker,

and the scourge of the concerned teacher, comic books
have fallen out of fashion among children. Circulation
of Mad magazine, hailed as brilliant in art and satire,
has fallen from a high of more than 2 million in 1972 to
below 200,000 in 2008. Many other less known comic
periodicals have scaled back
publication, gone online only, or
quit publishing altogether. It is
not an auspicious time for the
magazine cartoonist.
While todays comics are not
popular with young people, comic collecting has become bigger
among those who grew up with
the magazinesBaby Boomers.
Vintage comics are fetching
princely sums indeed. The most
valuable comic, Action Comics
Action Comics No. 1, the No. 1, most recently fetched
worlds most valuable
$2.47 million. Here are the other
comic.
nine most valuable comics:
2. Detective Comics No. 27, $2.23 million.
3. Superman No. 1, $538,000.
4. Marvel Comics Number One, $486 thousand.
5. Amazing Fantasy No. 15, $407,000.
6. Detective Comics No. 1, Four hundred three thousand.
7. Batman No. 1, $381,000.
8. All-American Comics No. 16, 348,000 dollars.
9. Action Comics No. 7, $304,000.
10. Fantastic Four Number 1, $272,000.
(Source: Nostomania.com.)

By Stan Cann
The East Gulch Brewery Collectibles Club is holding
a convention for beer can aficionados this month. The
event will be 8 a.m.-5 p.m, December 14, in the Community Center in East Gulch, N.D. Admission is $5 plus
a donation to the beer garden.
It was the rage of the 70s generation! Collectors
became fascinated with the colorful metal cans used to
sell beer to the masses. Beer cans had been invented
in the 1930s, but even forty years later, they still have
no respect. They were considered to be a low status, a

poor substitute for the beer bottles that all high-class

breweries preferred. Still, while held in mild contempt,
beer cans proved to be popular, and most manufacturers offered their brews in both cans and bottles. Why
not? Cans didnt easily break and were more easily
transported and, as it turned out, actually protected
the product better than the bottles that allowed light to
strike and spoil fresh beer.
By the mid-1970s perhaps thousands of beer can designs had been produced, and most of them ended up in
dumps and landfills. Thats where collectors began their
search for the interesting can labels from the past. The
rare cone top cansproduced before the 1950ssoared
to values in the hundreds of dollars. Everyone seemed
to be scanning the ditches as they drove American highways, hoping to spot that elusive high-value can.
Can-ventions are not as common as they once were.
But collectors who want to pursue this out-of-fashion
hobby will still find can-ventions and there happens to
be an opportunity coming up soon.
The convention will feature several dealers in cans
and brewing memorabilia, along with a trading room.
Seminars will include beer can history 1935-1980, the
fabled Soul beer of the 1960s riots, marvels of Keglining, and a grading workshop, entitled One to Five:
Clean and Bright or Rusty Dumper?
Details are available from club president, Chester
Pack, at eastgulchcancollectors.com, or the national
club site, www.bcca.com.

Blast from the past workout routine

Doing high-impact workouts and still
looking good

Aerobics was popular kind of exercise in the 1980s.

Actress Jane Fonda released her first workout tape in
1983. A new aerobics style of exercise exploded into
American fashion, and health clubs around the country
scrambled to respond. Aerobics studios were created
from empty rooms with hardwood--or even carpeted
concret--floors. Instructors set up pounding routines
designed to challenge the young women who wanted to
look like Jane.
The routines were mostly floor-based, and they were
hard! Hard, that is, on knees, hips and feet, as participants stomped, jumped, threw their weight around the
floor and pounded their joints to perky 1980s pop music.
The real hard-core aerobicizers, mostly women, attended class daily. Maybe more than once.
As a fitness routine was it affective? It sure was, if
youre joints held out. You can still try these old-style
high-impact classes, as Iva Nern features 1980s poundit style aerobics once a week at the Gulchline Health

Center. Ive been teaching high-impact aerobics for

a quarter century! said Nern as she cued up a CD of
1980s hits. Ive got my Michael Jackson, Madonna,
Whitney Houston and, of course, Prince.
Nern said she was limping a bit because her knees
hurt most of the time.
Youll see this kind of thing
among a lot of us old aerobics instructors from the
80s. We were no-pain-nogain groupies. And, sure,
high-impact aerobics puts a
lot of stress on your joints.
But if you are careful and
dont go stressing your joints
everyday, you really will
get in great shape. Look at
Jane Fonda made aerobics
Jane Fonda! Look at Rich- popular in the early 1980s
ard Simmons! We can still with her fitness videos.
do these great high-impact
workouts and still look good.

A series of frequencies
By Ray DEhoh, staff writer

Breaker One-Nine, Whats your 20? Do you know

what that means? If you were around about 40 years
ago, you surely would! Its CB radio lingo, and it was
once the hottest fad in America.
CB stands for Citizens Band radio. It refers to
a series of frequencies the FCC granted to the general

Pastimes pg. 4

website, 10-4 Getting a Handle: CB Radio and the New

Millennium. This writer called Nern at his home in
The Nickel (Buffalo, N.Y.) to find out more.
Q. Id like to ask you about your book.
A. Yeah, driver, come on. Well, good buddy, back
when the speed limit was the double nickel and I had
bout 10 bear bites, I got my first ears on to keep the
bears off my back door. Seemed like every boulevard
had a Kojak with a Kodak and I was the alligator in the
roadway. So I chucked my bird dog and backed it down.
Then I realized CB could keep those driving awards
away from my bulldog.
Q. Could you explain that in English, Mr. Nern?
A. Negatory, driver, you got your ears on? You need
chicken lights? Anyway, pulling out from a convoy one
day I was at the rest-a-ree-a paying the water bill when
I realized lots of guys needed a book like this, even the
ones with roller skates. CB is 10-2, even in CB Town! A
few salt shakers are even going back to the radios, although those ratchet jaws do fill up Sesame St. But hey,
Im 10-7. Why dont you 10-25 my website, www.truckercountry.com. Hammer down, buddy, but avoid those
gumball machines and stay out of the meat wagon!
After Nerns 10-3 this reporter ran his interview
through the CB Trucker Slang algorithm to translate
for todays audiences.

Longtime trucker, Irving Nern, says CB radio is still important to truckers and others.

public for communication. The radios could be set up in

pretty much any remote location. It was particularly important for truckers who could communicate with each
other while on the road.
But it became a fad when CB radios spread from a
truckers tool to a public toy. And if you were anyone
back then, you needed a CB radio in your vehicle. You
too could say Breaker one-nine, whats your 20?,
and people would think you were a technological genius.
Cell phone
coverage is still
spotty in the
wilderness.
And CB offered
one thing cells
do notcommunity, an opportunity to talk to any old
passing stranger. Because CB radio shares the airwaves
with everyone and anyone who has a radio. Ask for a
chat with anyone, and maybe someone will respond, but
you have to know the lingo.
That is, you have to know the 10-code, and CB
trucker terminology. And for that longtime trucker,
Irving Nern, has published a new book and companion

Q. Id like to ask you about your book.

A. Go ahead. Well, Mr. DEhoh, back when the speed
limit was 55 and I had received 10 speeding tickets, I
got my first CB radio to keep the police off my truck
posterior. Seemed like every Interstate highway had a
law enforcement officer with a radar detector, and I was
that scrap of blown tire in the road. So I sold my own
radar detector and slowed down. Then I realized CB
could keep those tickets away from my Mack truck.
Q. Could you speak English, Mr. Nern?
A: No, dude, are you listening? Do you need extra
lights on your truck? Anyway, leaving a group of trucks
traveling together one day I was
using a rest areas
mens room when
I realized a lot of
guys need a book
like this, even the ones driving small cars. CB is doing
well, even in Council Bluffs, Iowa. A few winter road
maintenance vehicles are even going back to the radios,
although those loquacious talkers do fill up Channel 19.
But hey, I have to leave. Why dont you take a look at
my web site, www.truckercountry.com. Drive fast if you
can, Mr. DEhoh, but avoid those patrol car lights and
dont go needing an ambulance!

CB offered one thing cells do notcommunity, an

opportunity to talk to any old passing stranger