ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 228

I have been looking everywhere but can’t find it. I have a large envelope with photos of my Nonno, from when he was a child all the way up to when he was a young man. I can’t find it but I know it’s somewhere and I will find it before this year has ended.

He was born in 1913 and was the youngest of nine siblings and lost both his parents by the time he was fifteen. When looking at those photos of him as a child I had this odd tender feeling of wanting to hug him the same way as I hug my children but remembering that he was my grandfather.

I will find those photos and write something about him, maybe on October 13th which was his birthday.

When I was eight he started me collecting stamps which became a part time hobby of mine for a few years.

He had is own collection which had grown when he inherited zio Bruno’s collection (he was 15 years older). When Nonno died, I inherited it. I remember Nonna saying that I should get it valued, they might be worth something.

The collection is 35 volumes of stamps from all over the world dating from the 1860s to the 1970s, if I had to guess how many stamps they are in total I would say 12000. I thought of getting them valued at Stanley Gibbons, but it seemed complicated. Instead I showed them to a friend who although wasn’t an expert had a good idea of how much they were worth and he told me that it was a beautiful collection but most probably not worth much, maybe a couple of hundred pounds so I was happy to not be tempted to sell them.

Some of the stamps have a see-through plastic protection delicately folded around the stamps. I remember my grandfather searching the stamps he had on catalogues and I’m sure the ones that are protected are the ones he thought had more value.

I am not sure if Bruno started the collection, my mother says that her grandfather used to send his children postcards pretending to be sent from distant places (with stamps from other countries) although they were sent from Rome and maybe that started the collection.

This collection is quite impressive though and I occasionally leaf through them travelling through countries from the past, some don’t exist any more and I’m thinking that I will die (hopefully not this year although it would be pretty cool for my I AM STILL ALIVE project) and will pass it on.

It’s a pity. It would be great to share it. so here’s what I have decided:

I will scan every stamp and post them on instagram. I will number each one and work my way volume by volume. Today it took me about an hour to scan 100 stamps, maybe if I make sure I do at least half an hour every evening I will eventually complete the task.

Instagram blocked me after posting stamps, I am not sure why so I have decided to make a Facebook page.

It would be a way of remembering my grandfather who I loved so much and who died relatively young.

I AM STILL ALIVE

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