Earlier this week, I launched a new blog which I call MY COLLECTIONS. It is based on an idea that I had while on Greeting Duty one morning (it’s a fairly mindless task and my thoughts tend to meander between my wai’ed “Good Mornings”). Basically, I have long wanted to just share images of collectibles that I own without the need to do a whole of research in creating a write-up. While I could have simply added minimalist photo-blog entries to my main site, I thought that those would clog things up even further on an already cluttered site. Hence, a separate blog.
Most of the entries will include just a few images such as a single stamp or envelope with the only text being the caption. When multiple images are needed in a single entry (i.e., the front and back of a postcard, several stamps in a year set, etc.), I will include the “Read More” indicator so that the home page still displays just a single photo per entry. The majority of these will be stamp-related but I also have numerous other collectibles such as coins and currency, trading pins, music ephemera, and so on.
Over the past couple of days, I have created nine entries and feel I have achieved a bit of variety. These are fairly quick to compile; the most time-consuming aspect is creating the featured image which serves as a thumbnail when sharing posts to social media such as Twitter or Facebook. Speaking of Facebook, I have also created a page dedicated to ‘MY COLLECTIONS’.
As mentioned in my “Welcome” post on the blog, I plan to clear the scanned images that are presently on my hard drive before scanning any other items to include. I would like to maintain some variety in my posts so there aren’t long stretches of just stamps or just Olympic pins. In the end, however, it will be whatever I feel like preparing an article for on any given day. Either way, I hope you enjoy having a look at some of the many items that fill my tiny apartment in southern Thailand.
Mark Joseph Jochim 
Thanks for sharing, Mark. In all honesty, I’m not a fan of the approach. You do such great write-ups & I always learn something of interest. But simply posting pretty pictures, even of interesting material, leaves me unfulfilled. I really don’t learn anything. Since time is so precious & fleeting, I prefer the learning experience approach.
[For those who do not know, Gary Loew is a prominent postal historian and professional philatelist whose resume includes being the Director of Expertizing of the American Philatelic Society — the world’s largest non-profit stamp collectors’ organization — as well as Editor in Chief of The American Philatelist.]
Gary, thank you for your comments, which I do value greatly. This new blog is not targeted for professional philatelists but more for what I term the “TickTock Generation”. Platforms like TickTock and Tumblr confound me with their minimalism and I, too, would rather read an in-depth article rather than something so bare-bones.
However, I simply do not have the time needed to devote towards extensive research and the piecing together of detailed write-ups at this point in time. During the height of the pandemic, I had plenty of free time and devoted much of that to sharing my philatelic knowledge. Now that I have returned to full-time work (more or less), I have been frustrated as I have plenty of unblogged material. I also have a relationship that means more to me than any collectible that I happen to own.
I have seen a number of other blogs that use a similar minimalist approach and never really paid them much mind other than seeing something that intrigued me. That happened on a regular enough basis to keep me coming back. That is my intention with MY COLLECTIONS — at least getting some of my items out of the boxes and onto a blog. With the stamps and covers at least, I am including catalogue numbers and dates of issue in the captions so at least that information is tied to the picture.
Don’t worry, though. I have already ear-marked certain items that will receive a more extensive write-up at some point when I have both a wealth of time and motivation. Think of MY COLLECTIONS as a “preview site” with the occasional “main attraction” to follow. I might even take limited requests at some point! If someone comments on a particular item that they would like to know more about it, I will make an extra effort to see what I can find. Remember, as a teacher, I do have several extended holidays each year so there will be periods of downtime which I can devote to the types of write-ups I once did on a regular basis.
Cheers!