Other Stamp Societies

I belong to the ISWSC.

I only belong to the APS.

I see a couple of members belong to ISWSC. What are the benefits belonging to that group?

First off & foremost, there is the bimonthly publication The Circuit. You can grab a .pdf of a fairly recent issue here; the link to the sample is in the third paragraph.

You'll notice that the last 25-30% of the sample is a mail bid sale. The size of the sale doesn't vary a lot from one issue to another; there are always 300 or so new listings. The quality and variety are also relatively consistent. Big lots and collections come and go. There's usually (but not always) at least one; occasionally there are more.

Some lots that don't get scarfed up the first time around appear four months later in the "Bargain Bin", with lower reserves (starting bids).

There are also circuit books and swap circuits. You can read about them through various links on this page.

Mostly, I like the writing. I first saw The Circuit about eight years ago and was impressed with the generally jovial, non-judgmental tone - a relative rarity in the world of philatelic literature, which can be somber and oblique. There are items that will appeal to specialists: the sample issue linked above has an article about overprints (real and spurious) which appeared on Soviet stamps after the demise of the USSR, and a thorough guide to the varieties within a long Saudi Arabian definitive series. But less specialized articles predominate. The general idea is that stamp collecting is supposed to be fun.