0_Wizard
I have a weird hobby.  I collect postage stamps
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects.
chosen_Stamp_collecting_0
Stamp collecting
chosen_topic_0_Stamp_collecting
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are printed on special custom-made paper, show a national designation and a denomination (value) on the front, and have an adhesive gum on the back or are self-adhesive. Postage stamps are purchased from a postal administration (post office) or other authorized vendor, and are used to pay for the costs involved in moving mail, as well as other business necessities such as insurance and registration. They are sometimes a source of net profit to the issuing agency, especially when sold to collectors who will not actually use them for postage.
Postage stamps and postal history of the United States
The history of postal service of the United States began with the delivery of stampless letters, whose cost was borne by the receiving person, later also encompassed pre-paid letters carried by private mail carriers and provisional post offices, and culminated in a system of universal prepayment that required all letters to bear nationally issued adhesive postage stamps. In the earliest days, ship captains arriving in port with stampless mail would advertise in the local newspaper names of those having mail and for them to come collect and pay for it, if not already paid for by the sender. Postal delivery in the United States was a matter of haphazard local organization until after the Revolutionary War, when eventually a national postal system was established.
Stamp collecting
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is related to philately which is the study of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteenth century with the rapid growth of the postal service. Stamp collecting proved to be an almost perfect hobby for collectors because there was a never ending stream of new stamps as each country sought to advertise its distinctiveness through its stamps. Stamp collecting is generally accepted as one of the areas that make up the wider subject of philately, which is the study of stamps. A philatelist may, but does not have to, collect stamps.
Presidents of the United States on U.S. postage stamps
Presidents of the United States have frequently appeared on U.S. postage stamps since the mid–1800s. The United States Post Office released its first two postage stamps in 1847, featuring George Washington on one, and Benjamin Franklin on the other . The advent of presidents on postage stamps has been definitive to U.S. postage stamp design since the first issues were released and set the precedent that U.S. stamp designs would follow for many generations. The paper postage stamp itself was born of utility (in England, 1840), as something simple and easy to use was needed to confirm that postage had been paid for an item of mail.
Postage stamps and postal history of Bhutan
The first postage stamps of Bhutan were issued in 1962, the same year that the first motorable road was opened. Before that there was a mail delivery system in place for official mail using mail runners, and between 1955 and 1962 revenue stamps were accepted as payment for internal mail. With the opening up of Bhutan in the early 1960s, a formal postal system was introduced. The American entrepreneur Burt Todd assisted in establishing a postage stamp program in the country and Bhutan became known for the unusual designs and materials of its stamps which were chosen by Todd specifically to attract attention.
Postage stamps of Ireland
The postage stamps of Ireland are issued by the postal operator of the independent Irish state. Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland when the world's first postage stamps were issued in 1840. These stamps, and all subsequent British issues, were used in Ireland until the new Irish Government assumed power in 1922. Beginning on 17 February 1922, existing British stamps were overprinted with Irish text to provide some definitives until separate Irish issues became available. Following the overprints, a regular series of definitive stamps was produced by the new Department of Posts and Telegraphs, using domestic designs.
Postage stamps and postal history of Turkey
The postal history of Turkey and its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, dates to the 18th century when foreign countries maintained courier services through their consular offices in the Empire. Although delayed in the development of its own postal service, in 1863 Turkey became the second independent country in Asia (after Russia) to issue adhesive postage stamps, and in 1875, it became a founding member of the General Postal Union, soon to become the Universal Postal Union. Turkey became a republic in 1923, and in the following years, its postal service became more modernized and efficient and its postage stamps expertly designed and manufactured.
1_Apprentice
That's actually really cool! How often do you actually find new ones worth collecting? 
0_Wizard
I was just about to say, I haven't found many new stamps to collect these days in the age of email and digital shipping labels.
They are sometimes a source of net profit to the issuing agency, especially when sold to collectors who will not actually use them for postage.
self_Postage_stamp_3
Postage stamp
self_0_Postage_stamp
Postage stamps and postal history of the United States
The history of postal service of the United States began with the delivery of stampless letters, whose cost was borne by the receiving person, later also encompassed pre-paid letters carried by private mail carriers and provisional post offices, and culminated in a system of universal prepayment that required all letters to bear nationally issued adhesive postage stamps. In the earliest days, ship captains arriving in port with stampless mail would advertise in the local newspaper names of those having mail and for them to come collect and pay for it, if not already paid for by the sender. Postal delivery in the United States was a matter of haphazard local organization until after the Revolutionary War, when eventually a national postal system was established.
Postage stamps and postal history of Palestine
The postage stamps and postal history of Palestine emerges from its geographic location as a crossroads amidst the empires of the ancient Near East, the Levant and the Middle East. Postal services in the region were first established in the Bronze Age, during the rule of Sargon of Akkad, and successive empires have established and operated a number of different postal systems over the millennia. In the era of modern postage, the postal administrations in Palestine have included Austrian, French, Italian, German, Egyptian, and Russian post offices (through arrangements made with the Ottoman Empire), the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces, the British Mandate, and various interim authorities in the lead up to and after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Postage stamps and postal history of Mexico
The Mexican postal system has its roots in the Aztec system of messengers which the Spanish adopted after the Conquest. A postal service was established in 1580, mainly to communicate between the viceroyalty of New Spain with the motherland Spain. During the 18th century, Spain established a formal postal system with regular routes. In 1856, Mexico issued its first adhesive postage stamps, with "district overprints", a unique feature among postal systems worldwide, employed to protect from theft of postage stamps. In 1891, the postal and stamp issuing authority was created as an administrative division of the Secretaría de Comunicaciones (Secretariat of Communications).
Passport stamp
A passport stamp is a rubber stamp inked impression received in one's passport upon entering or exiting a country. Passport stamps may occasionally take the form of sticker stamps, such as entry stamps from Japan. Depending on nationality, a visitor may not receive a stamp (unless specifically requested), such as an EU/EFTA citizen travelling to an EU/EFTA country, Albania or Macedonia. Most countries issue exit stamps in addition to entry stamps. A few countries issue only entry stamps, including Australia, Canada, United States, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and El Salvador. Hong Kong, Macau, and Israel do not stamp passports upon entry nor exit, but issue landing slips instead.
Postage stamps of Ireland
The postage stamps of Ireland are issued by the postal operator of the independent Irish state. Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland when the world's first postage stamps were issued in 1840. These stamps, and all subsequent British issues, were used in Ireland until the new Irish Government assumed power in 1922. Beginning on 17 February 1922, existing British stamps were overprinted with Irish text to provide some definitives until separate Irish issues became available. Following the overprints, a regular series of definitive stamps was produced by the new Department of Posts and Telegraphs, using domestic designs.
Stamps.com
Stamps.com is an American company that provides Internet-based mailing and shipping services. Stamps.com is a public company and trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol STMP. The company's main offices are located in El Segundo, California. Founded in 1996, Stamps.com was created under the name StampMaster by Jim McDermott, Ari Engelberg and Jeff Green, who at the time were MBA graduate students at UCLA. StampMaster was among the first companies to obtain USPS approval for beta testing and introducing Internet postage to the market. The Postal Service began announcing proposals for digital delivery of postage in 1996.
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postage stamps issued by that country and its various historical territories until the present day. The postal history of the United Kingdom is notable in at least two respects- first, for the introduction of postage stamps in 1840, and secondly for the establishment of an efficient postal system throughout the British Empire, laying the foundation of many national systems still in existence today. The story begins in the 12th century with Henry I, who appointed messengers to carry letters for the government.
1_Apprentice
I figured things would get a lot harder for people who collected stamps, I mean it makes sense.. What are some of your favorite stamps?
0_Wizard
My favorite stamp, my most prized stamp is one they made for Calvin and Hobbes as part of a series on newspaper comics.  It is one of the only officially licensed pieces of Calvin and Hobbes merchandise, ever.
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects.
chosen_Stamp_collecting_0
Stamp collecting
chosen_topic_0_Stamp_collecting
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes is a daily comic strip by American cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", "Calvin and Hobbes" has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic interest. "Calvin and Hobbes" follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. Set in the contemporary suburban United States, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and his friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin's relationships with family and classmates, especially the love/hate relationship between him and his classmate, Susie Derkins.
Bill Watterson
William Boyd "Bill" Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes", which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing "Calvin and Hobbes" at the end of 1995 with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium. Watterson is known for his negative views on licensing and comic syndication, his efforts to expand and elevate the newspaper comic as an art-form, and his move back into private life after he stopped drawing "Calvin and Hobbes". Watterson was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, whose suburban Midwestern United States setting was part of the inspiration for "Calvin and Hobbes".
Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)
Hobbes is one of the two main characters in the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson. He is Calvin's stuffed tiger and best friend, being depicted with two distinct identities. Hobbes is seen in two differentiating perspectives. Calvin perceives him as a live tiger and a best friend, capable of speech and independent action. To everybody else, he is an inanimate stuffed tiger. Hobbes is often shown to be smarter and wiser than Calvin when he is perceived as a real tiger. He is seen reading more often than his owner and attempts to be the voice of reason when Calvin tries to perform a risky stunt or engage in a dubious scheme.
Secondary characters in Calvin and Hobbes
Bill Watterson's comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" features a wide range of secondary characters. These range from his fellow students at school to monsters and aliens from Calvin's vivid imagination. Watterson has never given Calvin's parents' names "because as far as the strip is concerned, they are important only as Calvin's mom and dad." However, Watterson sometimes uses them to explore situations adults can relate to, such as the desire to enjoy leisure time as opposed to the need to work, or bad customer service and frustrations when grocery shopping. Also, occasionally Watterson takes the time to flesh out the two parental characters.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in daily newspapers, while Sunday newspapers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the development of the internet, they began to appear online as webcomics. There were more than 200 different comic strips and daily cartoon panels in American newspapers alone each day for most of the 20th century, for a total of at least 7,300,000 episodes.
Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes
"Teaching with" Calvin and Hobbes is an American children's textbook published in 1993. As a rare piece of officially licensed "Calvin and Hobbes" merchandise, it is a highly valued collectible. Written by a speech-language pathologist and a learning disabilities educator, "Teaching with" Calvin and Hobbes is a language textbook for elementary and intermediate-level students. Jan Roebken created the cover and additional interior illustrations. The book reprints fifty-seven "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strips, organized into five lesson units. Each unit begins with a series of comic strips that form a story.
Calvin's alter egos
In the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes", the protagonist, Calvin, has several alter egos including Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man, Tracer Bullet, and others who appear less frequently. Calvin often pretends he is someone else and often gets lost in imaginative landscapes. His hyperactive imagination leads him to envision himself as other characters with different abilities and goals to escape difficult situations such as school quizzes. The strips which portray these events blend fact and fantasy as Calvin morphs elements in the "real world" with his fantasies. On several occasions, Calvin has appeared as either a larger or a smaller version of himself, wreaking havoc like Godzilla or crawling across a book page as "Calvin, the human insect."
1_Apprentice
Holy cow! That's so sweet! Having those prized possessions definintely makes hobbies a lot more enjoyable!
0_Wizard
I might want to see if I can scare up a few more copies of the stamp, just for posterities sake.  I think I felt the same way my grandfather did when he collected thing (he collected coins, btw)
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects.
chosen_Stamp_collecting_0
Stamp collecting
chosen_topic_0_Stamp_collecting
The Brotherhood of Timber Workers
The Brotherhood of Timber Workers (BTW) was a union of sawmill workers from East Texas and West Louisiana that organized by Arthur Lee Emerson and Jay Smith in 1910. The BTW was most famous for the Grawbow Riot, where they started strikes against the Galloway Lumber Company in Grabow, Louisiana. The Brotherhood of Timber Workers were also known for being interracial during a time of segregation and located in the deep south where racial tensions were high, and included males and females. The BTW was created on the behalf of the terrible working conditions of the sawmills in the southern pine region.
Wicca
Wicca (), also termed Pagan Witchcraft, is a contemporary Pagan new religious movement. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices. Wicca has no central authority. Its traditional core beliefs, principles and practices were originally outlined in the 1940s and 1950s by Gardner and Doreen Valiente, both in published books as well as in secret written and oral teachings passed along to their initiates.
Nicomachean Ethics
The Nicomachean Ethics (; Greek: Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια) is the name normally given to Aristotle's best-known work on ethics. The work, which plays a pre-eminent role in defining Aristotelian ethics, consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and is understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum. The title is often assumed to refer to his son Nicomachus, to whom the work was dedicated or who may have edited it (although his young age makes this less likely). Alternatively, the work may have been dedicated to his father, who was also called Nicomachus. The theme of the work is a Socratic question previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle's friend and teacher, of how men should best live.
List of The Shield characters
The following is a list of character summaries from the FX Networks television series, "The Shield". Captain Monica Rawling is a fictional character from the FX television show "The Shield", played by Glenn Close, who received an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance. Monica Rawling succeeded David Aceveda as Captain of the Farmington precinct. A morally strong woman, she tried to redeem Vic Mackey and Ronnie Gardocki by involving them in a controversial asset forfeiture program designed to clean up Farmington, by destroying the neighborhood drug trade.
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( or ; ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment.
Characters of Casualty
"Casualty" is a British medical drama television series that premiered on 6 September 1986 on BBC One. The series was created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin. It is set in the fictional Holby City Hospital, in the equally fictitious city of Holby, and features occasional crossovers of characters and plots with spin-off show "Holby City". "Casualty" follows the professional and personal lives of the doctors, nurses, paramedics, hospital management and patients at Holby General. It features an ensemble cast of regular characters, and began with 10 main characters in its first series, all but two – Charlie Fairhead (played by Derek Thompson) and Lisa "Duffy" Duffin (played by Cathy Shipton) – have since left the show.
List of EastEnders characters (2012)
The following are characters who first appeared in the BBC soap opera "EastEnders" during 2012 listed by order of first appearance. New characters were introduced by Bryan Kirkwood, executive producer. He stepped down from the role in April. His last episode was on 13 July 2012. From 16 July, characters were introduced by his successor, Lorraine Newman. The first character to be introduced was the undertaker, Les Coker. The first regular character to be announced was Ray Dixon, the father of Morgan Butcher, followed by Alice Branning, the daughter of Derek Branning and, Alice's brother, Joey. June 2012 also saw the first birth of the year: Janine Butcher and Michael Moon's daughter, Scarlett.
1_Apprentice
Oh nice, my father collected coins back when I was a lot younger... But I do agree, you should get a few more copies, never let that hobby die!