My original plan for financing my grand piano purchase fell
through. The stamp collection that I have kept and fostered and insured and
cared for over the last forty years turned out to be worth far less than I
thought it would. The buyer, who was very professional, knowledgeable and
courteous told me what I already knew: the hobby is dying. Kids have Facebook , Nintendo, X-box, and their phone, and many
of them have never seen a piece of mail with a stamp on it. No surprise then
that young people are not taking up the hobby and there is not market for
stamps, even for some as nice and relatively rare as mine.
I dove into Craiglist and it wasn’t long before I found a
Yamaha C3 (very nice piano, that) for $2000. After two days of fervently trying
to contact the seller, I finally heard back from them. Unfortunately, I quickly
realized something was amiss, and a cursory search with the text showed up
number one on a website called scamdex.com. No C3 for me!
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| Speaking of C3's: Here's a C15 stamp, one of many I will be selling soon. |
A trip to the Steinway Piano Gallery in Nashville turned up a relatively affordable
new piano made by Samick. I wasn’t impressed with its feel, but it looks and
sounds good. Still, something about, “What’s a Samick?” and “Well, it’s a
German company, owned by a Korean company...I think.” Then, “So it’s a Korean
piano?” “No, Indonesian.” I don’t know. I mean, Yamaha makes pianos in Indonesia ,
too, no big deal there, but, nobody’s going to ask me about my Yamaha.
Next phase: Try one more time to sell my ginormous,
semi-refurbished square grand piano, start piecing out my stamp collection on
ebay, and use the proceeds to buy a nice Yamaha baby grand, used. Wish me luck.
Or better yet, buy my piano and stamps.
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