“The Second Best Day of the Summer.” -A. Draplin, Topical Philatelist

The best day of the summer was when Leigh showed up a couple weeks back. After hammering for so long, racing against all the deadlines, I was feeling ragged. And make it all good. And keep everyone happy. And all that. I was just plain exhausted. Having her here was like a cool breeze on a dog day.

The stamp show was something I had been anticipating all summer long. While the rest of the work world was hammering away that Friday—answering calls, emailing things, thinking up solutions—I was at the stamp show, digging through gummed treasures. A good afternoon. One of the best in a long time.

To be clear, I’m not interested in the value of the stamps. I’m purely in it for the graphics. And that’s it. This alleviates the need for tweezers, value books and all that sweaty friction felt between collector and dealer. “Just show me to the modernist shit, man!”

And man, what a fucking treasure trove of graphic amazement, all locked up in a little, perforated three-quarter inch by inch-and-a-half little, uh, “thing.” Hours and hours and hours of hunt, and, discovery.

I’ve touched a world that has completely blown me away. A speck of sand on a beach.

I’m sitting here, staring down a long day of pagemaking, and, all I wanna do is hop the Max down to the convention center and go digging for more greatness. Instantly addicted. I can feel it in my veins.

01. “So many booths, so little time.”
02. “Which way to the topicals?”
03. “So much beauty.”
04. “Tons of rare documents on display. Tons.”
05. “Suddenly, everything was clear.”
06. “This fella worked on the U.N. building: ‘I laid the foundation.’”
07. “The display area.”
08. “One of my favorite USA stamps.”
09. “Dollar covers.”
10. “Sizing up the crowd at the 10 center corner.”
11. “A chess stamp from Tanzania.”
12. “A Philatelic couple, getting down and dirty.”
13. “Straight out of Honolulu.”
14. “The scene back at the 10 center corner: Tough Crowd.”
15. “My 395 selections.”
16. “Laughing all the way to the bank.”
17. “The Holy Grail of the Stamp Show.”
18. “The Jenny Invert Plate Number Block: 3 Million Bucks!”