"Mission"? "Charity"?
 

I've been shopping on eBay and I notice a number of stamp dealers
offering "Mission mixtures" and "Charity lots" and so on. Can someone
tell me what these terms mean? Thanks.


**
Captain Infinity

Hi
Many years ago church groups would collect used stamps and sell them to
wholesalers or dealers. The funds obtained were used to support foreign
religious missions. Thus the term "Mission Mixtures".
Art, the young one at 78

From: Captain Infinity
Organization: http://captaininfinity.us
Reply-To: Captain Infinity
Newsgroups: rec.collecting.stamps.discuss
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 22:42:57 GMT
Subject: "Mission"? "Charity"?

I've been shopping on eBay and I notice a number of stamp dealers
offering "Mission mixtures" and "Charity lots" and so on. Can someone
tell me what these terms mean? Thanks.


**
Captain Infinity

They are usually used stamps removed from envelopes by the members of
churches, scout troops etc to raise money. You can expect to get a lot of
common stamps in them and these lots certainly vary in quality - some folks
enjoy getting hundreds of copies of some common stamp so they can find
postmarks, printing flaws and so on.

I'd happily give a mission mix a crack - I've bought several over the years
and have bought more good ones than I have bought duds. Let's face it - if
you pay $10 for a bag and get 200 decent stamps and 1000 duds, you've still
got yourself 200 decent stamps for $10 which can only be a bargain. If
you're thinking of getting them from ebay, check the seller's feedback
first.

--
Cheers - John Mycroft
coryton_at_cobbsmill_dot_com

A story told me by good dealer friend of mine about a dealer in London
(we'll call him George) who sold 'bank' lots. These lots represented all the
mail received by the bank over a period of time. These covers were given to
a charity group by the bank(s), who in turn created kiloware from them. Our
dealer, George, bought these stamps by the pound and resold them by placing
ads for mixtures & etc.

After some 50 years in business 'George' went blind. Nonetheless, after a
short delay, he continued business as usual with all his familiar contacts.
Although, it seems somewhat unethical to buy stamps from a blind dealer,
George could then really, really guarantee that all his lots were completely
unpicked!

-a


--

Web log:www. ajvalente.com
Email:

"Captain Infinity" wrote in message
...
I've been shopping on eBay and I notice a number of stamp dealers
offering "Mission mixtures" and "Charity lots" and so on. Can someone
tell me what these terms mean? Thanks.


**
Captain Infinity