Swap postage stamps WORLDWIDE by a "Chain" Letter

[fromdownunder]

Here is an idea I have been fiddling around with for a little while. It would only be a decent idea for whole world collectors, and as I am busy at the moment, I have not really got the time to do much about it.

But if enough people are interested, I might try to start it up in the next couple of weeks:

It needs 5 other people, preferably from different countries - which limits the time each group of stamps would be in circulation.

I (or anybody who starts a "chain" simply puts one hundred different world stamps (undamaged, no small definitives) in an envelope, and posts them to the first name on the list that will be developed from people expressing interest on this thread, and exchanging snail name addresses with the person starting a chain who then makes up the address list.

The starter of the "chain" would send the stamps and a list of the 5 addressees to the first person in the chain.

The first person recieving the stamps takes what he/she wishes from the one hundred stamps, and replaces them with a similar quantity, i.e., you take twenty stamps you put 20 different stamps back in.

That person then posts the 100 stamps to the next person..... this goes on until the stamps get back to the person who started the chain in the first place.

So, if I started a chain the list would bo:

Me: Post 100 stamps to "A"
"A" then takes what he/she wants. posts them to "B"
"B" - "C"
"C" - "D"
"D" - "E"
"E back to "Me"

The only cost to anybody participating is an envelope and one postage stamp to a foreign destination - a very small price for a bit of fun.

I am just throwing this at the wall at present to see if it will stick, but would like to hear other members comments.

Note anybody else is welcome to invite members to start a "chain" here and now, and ask other members to join.

Norm

===========================

Admin general note re trades updated 10th April.

Thanks for all of the input to date particularly to Ann Wiggy for being the initiator of Chain #1.

Member JeffHayward has kindly picked up the rules Ann drew up and has created a create PDF with list and rules which subsequent chain groups might like to use.

https://stamps.jeffhayward.com/Stampboards%20Stamp%20Exchange%20Chain%20Form.pdf
In summary, rules to date:

Stampboards.com - Stamp Exchange Chain

Instructions for Originator:

1. Put together a packet of 100 commemorative stamps, your choice of countries and make sure they are the quality of stamps you would like to receive yourself.

2. Post them to the person listed in the first box on the Stamp Exchange Form.

3. Please use nice commemorative stamps on envelopes to other members and not labels or definitive stamps when mailing the Chain.

4. Write a message on StampBoards.com in the section "Swap your stamps with partners worldwide" under "Swap stamps WORLDWIDE by a "Chain" Letter" noting that the circuit has started and the list of names in that circuit.

Instructions for Recipients:

1. Write a message on StampBoards.com in the section "Swap your stamps with partners worldwide" under "Swap stamps WORLDWIDE by a "Chain" Letter" noting that the Stamp Exchange Chain has been received.

2. Look through the stamps for any you would like and replace them with yours. If you take 5 then replace with 5, if you take 20 then replace with 20, etc.

3. Please make sure to replace the stamps taken from the Stamp Exchange Chain with the quality of stamps you received.

4. Send the Stamp Exchange Chain to the person below your name on the form. If you are the last recipient on the form then you must return the Stamp Exchange Chain to the Originator at the bottom of the form.

5. Please use nice commemorative stamps on envelopes to other members and not labels or definitive stamps, when mailing the Stamp Exchange Chain.

6. Write a message on StampBoards.com in the section "Swap your stamps with partners worldwide" under "Swap stamps WORLDWIDE by a "Chain" Letter" noting that the Stamp Exchange Chain has been forwarded to the next recipient on the form.

A couple of additional notes:

Stampboard members need to have made 20 posts, and have been a member here for 20 days to be able to participate in these chains. (Or to Sell or Trade stamps here.) This gives some protection to others from potential scammers etc. The '20/20' rules shows others that you have a wide interest in stamps and stamp discussions.

Any members posting about the progression of various chains should specify the Chain number eg Chain #2 to prevent confusion between simultaneous chains.

Do not publicly make a complaint against other Chain members. If you have received material that you feel is sub-standard, privately e-mail the member and attempt to negotiate a solution.

If this does not prove satisfactory, e-mail one of the Mods with the detail, and scans of the offending stamps.

This should only be done in the most extreme circumstances. There will always be bad apples on any tree, and of course unintended accidents. And when a new chain is started, either do not allow the member to join - which is your right - or do not join a Chain where the member you privately object to has shown an expression of interest. You DO NOT have to accept a member in a Chain simply because he/she has expressed a desire to join.

AND the usual Admin boilerplate info here that all will hopefully understand we MUST add!

stampboards.com has nothing to do with these swaps other than to be the conduit for folks to choose to take part - if they wish.

Please read our clear Rules for the "For Sale" forum and note points 5 and 6 most especially, as the general points there apply to these swaps as well:

https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=1338


===============

Further Admin comment May 2014.

Today, 2 chains came home. ( 212 and 218) Although I really am really not that difficult to please, it was a bit of a sorry lot. As mentioned before, many (old) common Christmas stamps, a bunch of definitives and more than 20 damaged stamps.

Look at the scans - and these damaged stamps were just the ones that were easily detected, I haven't gone through them with great effort. Suspect there will be more

Really, do you guys think this kind of junk should be in the chains? A little missing tooth now and then, - I know that can happen and I might occassionaly sent one myself without knowing - I really don't care about receiving them, but these argh!

Why should anyone dump their junk in a chain in exchange for some nice additions to their own collection?

Admin comment May 2014.

I think all participants should go back and READ the rules posted many years back -

https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5367

Now they are simple, and they are common sense, and are good manners.

In essence ...

1. Thoughtful commemorative stamps to be used on ALL mailings.

2. The stamps mailed on, to be of a quality you yourself would be happy to receive.

Pretty simple really.

The Utter junk with missing corners in Jeanette's scan above should mostly be in a garbage bin, NOT in a stamp swap chain. And not one, but MANY in the same chain. Not from HERE anyway. I do not like seeing this, and I am happy to start a "No Fly List" thread here, where certain offending members will be totally banned from being in exchange chains and the like. AND named for the info of others.

In a few keystrokes, I can block the access to ANYONE to this specific "Swap Your Stamps" Forum. They then cannot read it, and cannot post here. They are "masked" entirely. AND named for the info of others.

I am sure 99.9% of those taking part do the right thing. The .1% that does not, we do not want taking part, and they will wish they played by the rules.

If any REGULAR and long established members here wish to volunteer to be a Moderator of this "Swaps" Forum, to keep things running smoothly in this area, please contact me. 8)

Glen - owner

[brian31stamps]

Hi Norm
Glad to see that you have overcome that dreaded Canberra alcohol affliction. Great to meet with you Norm and be able to put a face to the name.

I think that your 'Chain Letter' is a great idea. I would be interested in taking part in this circuit book alternative which appears to be much easier to handle.

I don't know what others think but I believe that the number of stamps to be circulated could be increased to say 250 (If you have sufficient to start the ball rolling). This would give more opportunity of finding something you need/want.

I also believe that there should be absolutely no duplication.

Best of luck with the idea.

Brian

[sherro]

Hmmm, very interesting 8) . All we need now is some input from other countries. Looks like it could work here in Oz!

[fromdownunder]

I am happy to run with whatever other members decide. 250 is fine by me, and all different is a given as far as I am concerned. The first 5 to post regardless of location is also okay if that is the way it runs - I just thought that different countries would increase the range offered.

To me for this particular bit of fun, "no small stamps" and as large a variety of countries as possible is also necessary. I would also prefer commemoratives/short term definitives only, but I will leave that one open for others to consider.

As No. 5 said in Short Circuit "need input".

Norm

[mrboggler]

before you decide on a number count out 250 stamps and weigh them I think you may be surprised at how much they could weigh,
thus resulting in addition postage costs, 8)

But appart from that I think its a great idea,

[waroff49]

I'm interested but I think 100 is sufficient to start with. We can all up the ante if it works.

Have a couple of trials with 100, if it works, ask for responses from participants then may stay with 100 or up it to 200, 250 etc.

Remember we have a lot of newbies who may not have lots of stamps to swap.

[OttawaMike]

Looks like you might make this work. A suggestion - Perhaps you shoud move this thread to the "Swap Stamps" forum. Maybe you'll get a better response.

[pirano]

To move this beyond the territorial boundaries of Australia, I'd be interested.

100 or 200 or even 250 works fine for me.

I'd suggest to limit it to commemoratives only. I've participated in similar circuits in the past until a couple traders more or less ruined it by exchanging very common definitives for everything.

[Nuno_Silva]

I´m interested!

This looks like an approvals circuit....

Count with me!

[mikestein]

Fantastic idea, I'd love to participate. But would rather to keep it small until we see how it goes.

On the commemoratives vs. definitives thing, some of us might not be able to tell which is which for some foreign issues (with 'foreign' meaning something different to each of us)

[CHzug1291]

Yes, I like the idea, I think that works!

I would like to participate too

Just start off with 100

Peter

[crosscrescent]

Norm,

Brilliant idea.
I like the idea of 100 stamps first.
If the response is good, we could push it up to 150
and then perhaps 200.
Also keeping it at 100 will probably
keep the cost of postage at a more reasonable level
and in case the package gets lost,
at least the loss would be so great.
Furthermore, counting up to 100
is probably less messy
than counting up to 200
(especially if you get easily distracted like me).

Cheers
Andrew

[jellybean]

Hi

I am interested too. 100 sounds like a good start to me, but some of the stamps I have from other countries I am not sure if they are definatives or not. How would us poorly educated get on?

Jill

[crosscrescent]

Jill,

just to add to your post,
some definites are also attractive
but perhaps we can just specify those we want to avoid,
such as for example, perhaps (please don't get offended):

Machin heads
USA small stamps
Malaysian definitives
(having the same design
but different state crests and sultans)
etc.

Or start one thread just for trading definitives.


Cheers
Andrew

[fromdownunder]

The definitive issue (pun intended) could be a slight problem. To add to Andrew's list I would add:

Italian Castles
German Women and Technology
Irish Birds
Australian flowers and wildlife....
Argentina flowers
South African wildlife
Mexico Exports....

....probably lots more. These are just listed "off the top of my head". But some people may actually want some of these, and many of these are large, attractive larger stamps, not boring small machins (insult intended ), and certainly the higher values of some of these series do have slightly more than notional value and are a little more difficult to obtain.

Do we just make it "no small stamps".

But definately no Sand Dunes, or other Gibbons "appendix" type issues (e.g., Equatorial Guinea junk). I just spent an hour chucking many hundreds of these into my junk box. The stamps traded must be catalogued.

Any other thoughts on this point? BTW, do not bring up catalogue value exchanges - I do not wish to go there, or even consider it as an issue. This is to be a bit of fun and a "hey a surprise pack of stamps turned up in the mail today" thing, with nobody knowing what they are getting.

And is 100 to start with becoming the agreed figure?

Norm

[Nuno_Silva]

So when this will start?!

I think that first we must create a list of all the members that are interested, and start with the rule that only commemoratives stamps are accepted.

After that list is available, and because is possible that many members of the same country will participate, is necessary to creat a circuit list where members of the same country are not followed.

By this way all members receive stamps from other countries.

[ozstamps]

and start with the rule that only commemoratives stamps are accepted.

That really does sound like a GREAT addition to the rules!

[fromdownunder]

As I said in my OP, I am very busy at the moment, and I am a couple of weeks away from having the time to personally do something with this. This is not an official Stampboards "project" it is just an idea I floated, as a member, not a Mod., which any member may run with.

So, anybody who wants to start it now can do so. Set up your rules, preferably on this thread, seek a group of "chain letter" participants via this thread and send the stamps to participants as I outlined earlier.

The idea is that a member says "I will start a chain". Other members ask to join the chain by nominating on this thread, and sending their postal address BY E-MAIL! to the person starting the chain.

The chain starter will list the 5 chain members and send the list off, with the 100 commemorative stamps, to the first person on the list. I used 5 persons per chain to keep it easy to manage, but it is up to the starter how many participants he/she wants.

So the list will be the 5(+/-) members, then the chain starter as the sixth(+/-) person.

The first person receiving the stamps may take as few or as many of the 100 stamps sent to them as they wish, but must replace them with other all different commemorative stamps, to keep the the total number at 100 for the next person in the chain.

This continues throughout the chain, until the "new" 100 stamps are returned to the starting member. Anybody may start or participate in as many chains at any time that they feel comfortable with.

I will certainly be starting one of these in about a fortnight. As I already suggested, this idea is best suited for whole world collectors, and when I start one, I will be sending stamps from a wide variety of countries, and probably no Australia at all. But, it is up to the people participating as to what they wish to send.

Norm

[annwiggy]

OK I will be the one to start, so as soon as I get a list of participants I will have 100 commemoratives on their way.

Will arrange a form that picks up the instructions and lists the names and addresses.

So it is over to 5 people to send me names and addresses

[Nuno_Silva]

I WILL START!!!


1st Chain Letter:

1- Nuno_Silva - Portugal
2-
3-
4-
5-

[Nuno_Silva]

Ups!!!!!

Sorry Ann....

So who starts?

[annwiggy]

I'll start Nuno, so if you send me your details separately you will be number two on my list, if there are lots of replies maybe you can start one as well and I'll add my name to yours.

Regards

[Nuno_Silva]

Ok Ann.

So for the 1st Chain Letter we have:

1- annwiggy

2- Nuno_Silva


My details were sent to you Ann

Thanks
Nuno

[annwiggy]

I haven't got those details yet but do have another name already, so once Nuno's details arrive i will have the first 3.

I dont know that I need to post the list of names here do I? I think it could get a bit messy

[Nuno_Silva]

I think that was good to put here the list with the name of the participants!

My opinion.....

[pirano]

Ann: I just sent you an email

[pirano]

A few other suggestions:

- The commemorative/definitive issue: True, not everyone will know the difference. My reference above was about how a similar circuit was ruined by a few that replaced with VERY common defins. I like the suggestion above, 'no small stamps'.

- Each Chain should have its own thread on the board somewhere, i.e. "Chains that Bind #1", "Chains that Bind #2" etc. with each member adding a quick post to say that it was received and again to say that it was sent on.

- Anyone who DOESN'T send the stamps posted with interesting commemoratives will immediately have their entire collection confiscated by the board's globe-trotting mods.

[jahayward]

I'd like to participate!

Jeff

[annwiggy]

Hi Jeff

Send me an email with your address and I am nearly there with the first Chain headed

Chains That Bind -group 1

[ozstamps]

Looks like you might make this work. A suggestion - Perhaps you shoud move this thread to the "Swap Stamps" forum. Maybe you'll get a better response.

Our members ask .... and our members get.

Glen

[jahayward]

Hi Jeff

Send me an email with your address and I am nearly there with the first Chain headed

Chains That Bind -group 1

Hi Ann,
I sent one off to you. Thanks.

Jeff

[annwiggy]

Hi Jeff, your details have now arrived which means I have my first group of 5,

2 from Australia
1 from Portugal
1 from Slovenia
1 from USA

so that should be a good start.

Once I workout my form I will add it here, and we can see how it works out.

If more names come in I am happy to start a second batch but as has been suggested others might care to do the same.

[annwiggy]

Just realised that I need one more address, so once I have that I can start.

A few have indicated their interest so maybe an address can be sent

[annwiggy]

Now have the first group and the chain will start today.

[annwiggy]

Here is what I am including with the first batch of 100 stamps:

Stampboards - Stamp Exchange Chain

Simple Instructions:

Person starting the chain
a) Put together a packet of 100 commemorative stamps, your choice of countries
but make them the sort of stamps you would like to receive yourself

b) post them to the person listed at # 1 below

c) Use nice stamps on the envelope

d) mention on StampBoards under the section "Swap stamps worldwide by a CHAINLETTER
that the circuit has started and the list of names in that circuit


Recipients need to take the following action

e) perhaps note on the abovementioned site that the letter has been received

f) take a look at the stamps for any you would like and exchange them for some of yours, eg take 20, replace with 20.
g) Remember the comment in a) above and 'make them the sort of stamps you would like to receive yourself'

h) Send the new batch to the next person on the list

l) perhaps note on the abovementioned site that the letter has been sent on


NOTE: There are probably all kinds of ways to improve these instructions but at least it is a start, and it is SIMPLE

The members on this first experimental list are as follows:


Nuno da Silva
Bill Willis
Bob Ramsak
Jeffrey Hayward
Peter Zimmermann
Ann Wiggins

I have used 'real' names as per emails received, mainly because I didn't make a note of the user name.

I do also have a name to start another chain going which I am happy to do if others want to send an email with name and address details.

[admin]

I have used 'real' names as per emails received, mainly because I didn't make a note of the user name.

I really think real names AND user name together is the only way to go here Ann?

[annwiggy]

Fair comment but as I knew the real names and not the user names I couldn't do that this time, perhaps someone who knows could list the user names for us this time.

IF I get to do this again I will make sure that both are listed.

[admin]

Nuno da Silva
Bill Willis (Waroff)
Bob Ramsak (No Idea!)
Jeffrey Hayward
Peter Zimmermann (Chzug)
Ann Wiggins

[crosscrescent]

Annwiggy

Good start.
May join you all later.

Cheers
Andrew

[crosscrescent]

Annwiggy

Good start.
May join you all later.

Cheers
Andre

[pirano]

Bob = pirano

[annwiggy]

Nuno da Silva Nuno_Silva
Bill Willis (Waroff)
Bob Ramsak (Pirano)
Jeffrey Hayward jahayward
Peter Zimmermann (Chzug)
Ann Wiggins

[admin]

The others are easy.

[Nuno_Silva]

Nice, this project is now a reality!!!

Just one thing. I think that was good to number all the chains so when someone start a new one all the member that are interested knows that the chain nº ..... is available!

So now we have:

ChainLetter #1

Nuno da Silva
Bill Willis (Waroff)
Bob Ramsak (No Idea!)
Jeffrey Hayward
Peter Zimmermann (Chzug)
Ann Wiggins


And ChainLetter #2 could start when anyone is interested!!

[annwiggy]

I already have one name for a second chain, so am happy to organise a second one if any others are interested, or I could forward the new name I have to anybody else starting a chain

[Nuno_Silva]

I´m in for the chain #2 too!!!

So Ann count on me for the chain #2.

[fromdownunder]

Ann, I will join a second chain at this point - it will be less time consuming than starting one myself - but put me lower down on the list if/when you get more starters, or donate me to somebody else who decides to start one. I have emailed you my snail mail address.

I like your "KISS" instructions. Makes life a lot easier to "Keep It Simple Stupid"

Norm

[sherro]

I'll be in on this as well thanks Ann. 8) Email sent

[annwiggy]

Nearly there for Chain # 2, one more person needed to join and this will also be on its way.

[punter]

Sounds a great idea and I feel that a chain could be within Australia since many of us have various spares from other countries.
How about a specialist chain. Eg. George V used and/or mint, Ireland, Wine on stamps etc etc.