Gadsden purchase and other stamps

I am still wading through my parents things. My mother died over 6 years ago. She was quite a hoarder and we took about 30 carloads of things to the Oxfam shop when she moved from East Grinstead to Lymington to be near me, and another similar number to the tip. Oh, if only Freecycle had been around then, so much could have been reused, how fast things change, and there were loads of clothes which might now have been snapped up as retro. That was just 8 years ago. Then there was another major sort out when she died. I have saved some things for nostalgic reasons, well, lots really. I have saved some to go through and possibly sell. Now, I am going through things once more, and am sending things off to charity shops and Freecycle. One pile I keep coming across and putting aside to sort 'another time' is her stamp collection.

I have always cut out the stamps from letters received and sent them to Oxfam, (any guesses where I got this habit from?), who sort and make up packs and sell them, presumably sending some abroad where our boring ones become of interest! I feel quite wicked if I just put the whole envelope in the recycling with a stamp on! I also keep some envelopes from junk mail with pretty innards, to make into card, but that is another story! Who did I say was a hoarder?

card made using insides of old envelopes

I recently sent some to the Plymouth Oxfam, and received an unexpected and very grateful letter in return. They are struggling to get enough stamps for the packs they sell, and have had to use some from their store. So, please do send your old stamps to them, they will be very pleased.

My parents worked in the Oxfam shop in East Grinstead for many years.

I have now found the perfect solution to all the stamps that my mum had sorted into countries of origin but never mounted, as well as the vast collection of old stamps from this country. I have boxed them all, ready to go off to Oxfam. I shall feel virtuous, Oxfam will have a source of stamps for a while, we shall all be pleased. I have just got to go and do it...

One stamp I shall not be sending, among others I shall keep for now, is this Gadsden Purchase one. My maiden name was Gadsden.


'The Gadsden Purchase (known as Venta de La Mesilla, or "Sale of La Mesilla", in Mexico[2]) is a 29,670-square-mile (76,800 km2) region of what is today southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by President Franklin Pierce on June 24, 1853, and then ratified by the U.S. Senate on April 25, 1854. It is named for James Gadsden, the American ambassador sent to Mexico at the time. The purchase included lands south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande. The Gadsden Purchase was intended to allow for the construction of a transcontinental railroad along a very southern route, and it was part of negotiations needed to finalize border issues that remained unresolved from the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War of 1846–48.
As the railroad age grew, business-oriented Southerners saw that a railroad linking the South with the Pacific Coast would expand trade opportunities. However, the topography of the southern portion of the Mexican Cession was believed to be too mountainous to allow a direct route, and projected southern routes tended to run to the north at their eastern ends, which would favor connections with northern railroads. That would ultimately favor Northern seaports. A route with a southeastern terminus, in order to avoid the mountains, might need to swing south into what was then Mexican territory. '

courtesy of Wickipedia.