Guess who’s back?

I vaguely remember 2023. There I was, chugging along with a stamp collecting blog, which had just spun off into a podcast-slash-YouTube-channel co-starring my wife. We were a few episodes in, with the promise of more on the way, and then everything just… disappeared. Blog, podcast, most of my social media presence, just gone, like a post office teller during the lunchtime rush.

If you’ve heard this before, you’ll know the excuse. At certain times of the year, my day-job requires a lot of my time, and after I squeeze the rest of life’s demands around those hours, radio silence can descend upon the blog. I’m sure that most collectors would understand. Sometimes, we need to pack the ol’ magnifying glass away while other concerns take priority. It’s just that in my case, I tend to hold my magnifying glass in one hand while typing furiously on my laptop with the other.

Well, my big news heading into 2024 is: I’m back, and I quit the job! I didn’t quite light a cigarette and toss the match over my shoulder, walking away nonchalantly as the factory behind me explodes. But it was time to take a step back into a role that will allow me to reclaim a little work-life balance. I hope this will mean fewer blog blackouts and more podcasts in 2024.

(My day job is at the Australian quiz show Hard Quiz, whose contestants bring with them an expert topic of their own nomination. It’s nerd heaven. One recent episode featured the UK’s Machin stamps! For as long as this link is valid, you might be able to watch it here. You’ll need to be in Australia – or have a sneaky VPN – and you need to set up a viewer account. But it’s free!)

The sudden halt to Punk proceedings may have implied that something terrible had happened either to my marriage or my philately. I’m pleased to say that both are in good health. In fact, another reason I’ve had less time for the blog lately has been that, ironically, I’m even more into stamp collecting. Blame my stamp club (Brighton Philatelic Society in Melbourne, Australia, if you’re taking names). After a few years of circling the periphery and dipping my toe in, this year I’ve been attending regular display nights and daytime meetings when I can, I’ve spoken at an open day, I’ve continued to pore over the club circuit books to find some gems, and I’m helping a little with the club’s social media. I even gave myself an enjoyable deep-nerd weekend at a one-frame exhibition in Hobart, Tasmania. It’s what you have to settle for when you can’t quite make it to Stampex.

Most worryingly, I’ve developed an almost physiological addiction to the club auctions. So much material, so many bargains, so many discoveries, so many new interests. In a strange way, I have found that it has helped me find focus in my collecting. My stamp cupboard (it used to be a shelf) is now bursting at the seams with stuff. In sorting through that stuff, I have worked out which of it is meaningful to me and belongs in one of my collections, and which of that stuff will be packed off to Ebay… or back into a club auction.

In recent years, the explosion of online philately has looped us all into a worldwide community of collectors, but my club membership has brought the opportunity to buy heaps of stuff cheap meet and learn from fellow collectors in person. They are two very different worlds, but in combination they give me a very rounded appreciation of this hobby. It’s certainly true to say that this blog is no longer written by the somewhat lonesome collector who started it when he wasn’t sure if anyone else was out there.

And so, on into 2024, and here once again is my ritual apology for my absence as I blow the dust off this site – and also the podcast. It’s ridiculous how very close-to-ready the next two episodes are. They were recorded months back and they’ve been in edit since, but I seem not to have found just enough time to get them out there. It really is a heavy lift, and if you lose momentum, it’s tremendously hard to regain. I have a new-found appreciation for those philatelic bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers and the increasing numbers of TikTokers who are doing a finer job than me of churning out that regular content.

I want to send particular congratulations and gratitude to the daddy of us all, my friend Graham Beck, who is wrapping up his regular philatelic series at his YouTube channel, Exploring Stamps. The enthusiastic reaction from collectors old and new to his videos is a testament to his ingenuity and passion. Fortunately for us all, they will remain online to inspire and entertain collectors, hopefully for years into the future. Even more fortunately, Graham has not been lost to the hobby. Good luck, Graham, in whatever philatelic endeavours you take on next. (If you haven’t seen Exploring Stamps, well, firstly, where have you been? And secondly, you can read my review of the channel from back in 2018.)

To wrap up this comeback post, I figured that I should mention at least one issue from 2023, because somehow that never happened on the blog last year, outside of podcast episodes. (I am seriously mortified by this realisation. For shame! At least I mentioned a few on my socials.) France’s March issue honouring mime artist Marcel Marceau seems a perfect pick.

Firstly, it’s a great design, with the subject, in iconic mime pose, perfectly framed by the stamp’s dimensions. It looks like he’s trapped inside the stamp. (It’s OK! He isn’t really! It’s an illusion!) I think that’s how I must have looked whenever I stole a peek at philatelic social media during my busy-time.
 
But more meaningfully to me, there was one other thing that got in the way of stamp blogging this year that I haven’t mentioned: Mrs Punk and I spent a whole month in France. It was everything we’d hoped from a holiday to France, except that we couldn’t see everything and we had to come home. And during that trip, I bought some of these Marcel Marceau stamps at a post office (I asked in French and all!). I hadn’t actually heard about them until they were handed over the counter – as it happened, they covered the cost of a postcard back home, so that’s where they went. Des bons souvenirs!

(Some other postcards got Marianne, and the Gustave Eiffel sheetlet is for me to keep. It was only after I posted this image on Instagram that I realised I had stuck a Marcel Marceau stamp on a postcard published by a company called Marcel. Wooo, le spooky!)

Thank you for persevering though another Punk Philatelist drought. It must have been difficult for you, but the important thing to remember is that we are always waiting for each other on the other side. Now let’s dance joyfully on into 2024 and tell ourselves that I’ll never go away again.

Watch out for the next few Stamps Aren’t Cool episodes, coming soon – in one of them, we’ll tell you more about our trip to France. Until then, wherever you are in your journey through the stamp world, all the best with your collecting for the coming year!

When the blog goes quiet, I’m still online! Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and I’m reluctantly still on Twitter in the hope that it can be saved

© Philatelic product images remain the copyright of issuing postal administrations and successor authorities