Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

A MISHEGAS

by Bert Stratton

 
I have this mishegas, where I detach uncanceled postage stamps from envelopes and reuse the stamps. I get a ton of mail, and some of it has uncanceled stamps.

Deeper: some of the uncanceled stamps are actually my own  — stamps I put on envelopes and, for whatever reason, I don’t use the envelope. Maybe I put a check in an envelope and then notice I’ve put the wrong check in. I rip open the envelope. The stamp is still good. (The envelope isn’t.)

I’ve been around stamps a while. I collected UN stamps and first-day covers. Some plate blocks. When I was in junior high, I took the bus downtown to the Manger Hotel for stamp shows. I was probably the youngest guy in there by about 50 years.

I collected stamps until college. My mother sent first-day covers to my dorm, and I had to tell her to stop. It was too embarrassing.

My stamps

I made $28.47 today, in a half hour, by rescuing uncanceled stamps from envelopes in my office. [39 “forever” stamps X 73 cents =$28.47]

I once had a tenant who used uncanceled stamps from the 1960s to send in her rent. I got 4-centers up until 1992, when she died.

I had the first stamps from Malaysia.

There was a stamp dealer, Mr. Stern, on Superior Road in Cleveland Heights. Alfred Stern: not a Jew. That shocked me. He was a German with a Christmas tree. My mom occasionally drove me to his apartment. He got me the Malaysian stamps.

I subscribed to Linn’s Stamp News from Sidney, Ohio. I had a friend — named Stamps, of all things — who collected coins. He subscribed to Coin World — also from Sidney, Ohio. Stamps collected brilliant uncirculated rolls of coins. I think his dad was into it, too. The Stamps were more like speculators. I was a collector. Still am.

4 comments

1 Mark Schilling { 08.06.25 at 9:28 am }

Still have the coin collection that earned me a Boy Scout merit badge, as well as silver dollars my dad collected as a kid and a gold piece my grandfather owned. My mom collected stamps and got my brother into it. Not sure if he qualified for the merit badge. He unloaded his collection long ago, but why would you throw away coins?

2 marc { 08.06.25 at 2:40 pm }

I still have my childhood coin collection.
I have about 20 silver dollars which I will give to my grandchildren like they were given to me by my grandmother of blessed memory.

3 Steve Kohn { 08.06.25 at 4:53 pm }

I’ve never collected stamps or coins. My addiction: music CDs. I still stop at estate and yard sales hoping to add a new treasure to my collection. At one time I rationalized it by saying my grandchildren would one day enjoy them. Ha, they won’t even have CD players, much less my taste in music.

4 Arnie Berger { 08.11.25 at 8:25 pm }

For years I’ve collected US Mint Plate Blocks, from 1938 and later.
Started when 12 cents would buy a plate block: the four corner three cent stamps with a long number. I quit when you had to buy ten 30 cent stamps to get the block. I think I have them all, through about — four books full. Ten years ago I think my collection was worth about $5,000. I think it’s worth about half that now. I don’t know what young people are collecting, but it sure isn’t mint plate blocks.

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