The 1800s US official stamps are my main thing.
I collect them in some depth, plate varieties, cancels, pretty much anything I can afford.
Which is odd, because I avoided them for years. Many are in bad shape, and are still expensive. But I started trying to get the ones with the specimen overprint, figured the 1 and 2 cent were possible and not expensive. ALong the way to that, I got a few really good plate varieties, and just kept going.
Eventually found and example of a 3c post office printed on an experimental press that hadn't even been described for 80 years. So long missing the experts had figured that none actually existed.
Long fun and slightly strange journey. It did get me out of the mindset of having to have things complete. Some are so expensive They were never going to be ones I had. There are some varieties that were described in the 1930's, but haven't been seen since, and may have been someone misinterpreting what they had. The writers then weren't fussy about facts.
I have a solid maybe for one of them, and a couple shaky maybes for another. But todays standard is finding two with an identical flaw. so more searching.
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