The man was literally smothered in stamps, perhaps millions of them. Someday, he said, he would sell them all as a mail approval dealer. He admitted to being more than seventy years of age and he hoped to get started within a year or two.

A survey of his stock revealed only common stamps that he had laboriously soaked from mixtures purchased on paper. Few of his stamps catalogued as much as twenty cents. Nevertheless, I wasn’t one to disillusion the old gentleman. After much pleasant talk, I left him with a “good luck.”

There is no satisfactory and profitable way to sell individual stamps such as this accumulation contained. Time, labor and selling expenses are all too costly for such merchandising. Material of this nature must be returned to mixture form. Then some collectors will buy it just to kill time and perhaps to catch an occasional “sleeper.”

I’m afraid my elderly friend has already had his return from this stock in the pastime that soaking and sorting gave him. For that is all one may expect from a mixed lot of common stamps.