About Me

I'm Scott Walker, the collector and software developer behind this web site.

A little about me: devoted husband, father of three amazing children, grandfather of three, professional software engineer with more than a quarter century of experience and numerous industry certifications (MCSD, MCT, MCP), retired from the U.S. Air Force with more than 20 years of service and 50 military awards and decorations, brown belt (1st Gup) in Tae Kwon Do, cancer survivor, 5 college degrees (two associate's, one bachelor's, and two master's degrees) and nearing completion of a doctorate in management and organizational leadership in information systems and technology (all coursework completed, currently ABD - All But Dissertation).

I started collecting stamps more than 50 years ago, when I was 10 years old. My paternal grandmother came home from the store on the first day of my recovery from an adominal surgery with 2 H.E. Harris Explorer World-Wide stamp albums and two grab bags of worldwide stamps on paper. We spent an entire week soaking the stamps off of the paper, drying them, then placing them in our albums using glue sticks. By the end of the week, I was hooked on stamp collecting. During the next 4 years, I continued to collect stamps using my allowance and money I earned mowing lawns and delivering newspapers. As a side note, I quickly learned our rookie mistake of using glue sticks and graduated to Crystal Mounts for a few years before finally discovering Showgard.

During my teenage years I was not a very active collector. If I found a stamp I didn't have I added it to my album, but I did not go out of my way to regularly purchase stamps. I moved from southern California to south central Nebraska before starting high school and started to collect stamps again. I regularly bought new issues from the post office and received a few approvals through the mail. My collection didn't grow much during those years, but I was still in love with the hobby.

After graduating high school, I joined the military (Air Force) and embarked on a new adventure. My stamp collecting became an afterthought. I went to basic training in San Antonio, Texas; technical training school to become an air traffic controller in Biloxi, Mississippi; and then to Ramstein Air Base, Germany as my first duty station. I spent two and a half amazing years in Germany, then I was off to sunny Las Vegas, Nevada for my next assignment.

I started collecting stamps again in 1988 when I read an article in Linn's Stamp News about Plate Number Coil (PNC) stamps and began collecting them using a small Scott green binder and Scott pages purchased from M & M Southwest, a plate number coil dealer in Arizona. I also began collecting U.S. stamps again using a Scott National binder and Scott pages. I slowly built up a collection of stamps with current stamps and working my backwards. Over time an unexpected life event occurred and I was forced to sell the entire collection. I decided to wait until I retired from the military before collecting again.

After Las Vegas, I served in Guam, Hawaii, Virginia, and finally ended up back to San Antonio, Texas to finish my military career. I retired from the U.S. Air Force in August, 2002, and collected off and on during the next decade. I wasn't able to add many stamps to my collection as I had two daughters in high school then college.

I started this collection in 2009 with plate number coils stamps and slowly expanded the collection to include commemorative stamps, starting with the Columbian Exposition issue of 1893. I added definitive stamps after finding a small group of Washington Franklin stamps at a stamp auction. I also began the Back Of Book (BOB) collection as I've always had a fascination with airmail stamps. My current collecting interests are PNC First Day Covers (FDCs) and imperforate pairs as well as postage due stamps. In December, 2023, I began collecting stamps from Mexico as I found the country to have a rich philatelic history. In January, 2024, I began collecting stamps from Canada and have been focusing on those stamps this year.

I'm glad you have found your way here and are interested to know something about my journey in collecting stamps. Thanks! My philosophy about stamp collecting is that I collect stamps because I enjoy looking at them, studying the people, places, and things that they show me. They provide a window to a bigger world and through the knowledge I've gained from them have made me a better, more well-rounded person. I've collected stamps since I was a child and have always been fascinated by them.

About This Site

It's said that everyone needs a hobby, something that you thoroughly enjoy and is relaxing to you. If you already enjoy stamp collecting as a hobby, then you know that there is much to be learned from stamps and how great collecting them can be. There's a whole other world depicted on tiny pieces of ink, paper and gum that represent animals, architecture, history, people, places and things from nearly every country in the world and many countries that are no longer around.

Although collecting stamps can be enjoyed in groups of people through stamp clubs, stamp shows, and networking with others, stamp collecting can be also a very solitary personal hobby.

This project started out as a way to display my collection on the Web, but I hope to grow it to include other facets of stamp collecting to include information on making your own album pages, deciding on what to collect, different aspects of collecting, and more. Please a look around and see what the site has to offer.

First, not every page in my collection is displayed simply because if there are no stamps on a page it doesn't get displayed here. Second, some of the items displayed here may be incorrectly identified especially the color varieties. While I appreciate that there are many other collectors that have experience with the incorrect items, and will gratefully accept any and all advice, I will eventually seek out experization on the items that I believe need it. Third, I do not use any catalog numbers to identify the stamps in my collection. For the benefit of those who visit my site, I may add the Scott number using small letters and numbers adjacent to each stamp to identify each issue. Finally, I will update the pages and enlarged images of each stamp as I acquire them. I hope to keep the site as up-to-date as possible at all times.