THE OLD STAMP SHOP (NYC, 1967)

107. THE OLD STAMP SHOP (NYC, 1967):

First you have to get acclimated and get used to the things around you being copied and mimic'd and you need to undergo the Platonic realization in a way that EVERYTHING is a pale copy of its prime ideal an we live amid shadows and secondaries - things dolefully inadequate and cheesey and that the utmost among all of that is usually the language of people : glib cursory irresponsible without real reference based in nothing but comfort and ease and essentially underscored by LIES and misrepresentations : but so unsettled THAT is the way everything is - I went into the stamp store along Nassau Street one day looking for stamps from old Africa but there wasn't anything there less than twenty dollars and I had but five and the little man behind the glass said to me "you are seeking to find something that probably is not in your range and these types of stamps are now of the old variety and of course no longer being made so the market on them is open-ended and only going up" and I replied "yes I knew that already but hoped to get in early and after all it's only a small scrap of paper really" and he was drinking tea from a clear glass - which made it all look so odd - and he hunched over again as if perhaps I was bothering him and said "look even I have a daughter and she was once little and young but now grown and less passive then ever before - I value her youth and innocence far more now than I do her activism and spirit - and would pay dearly myself to have that back" and although I wasn't sure what point he was making and whether or not it was being directed at me (perhaps 'representing' something to him which endangered his daughter) I replied "nothing doing on that count - and let's forget it" and he nodded and fell back into a leather chair behind the counter and seemed to close his eyes and then I heard "investors in these sorts of things are born not made - it's a given usually that one's father and perhaps his father before that have family wealth and have already collected a large portion of earlier stamps - for that's where the money is - in the accumulation - and if you DO have such collections one or more I'd gladly appraise and purchase from you what's valuable at the valued price and I must tell you I thought from the moment you walked in that you were spec'ing me out for future dealings - coming back and all that with your large family collection" and I laughed "my 'family' as you speak of it actually had trouble buying a seven cent stamp with which to pay bills - all that and nothing more" - the place itself seemed from the nineteenth century - curtained dark and dank with dust and old fabrics everywhere and old tinted glass too on all the counter tops and one side was stamps while it seemed the other side with more inspection and display space tended towards coins and I wondered what the difference was and if one man did both or if it was a shared shop in some way but 'collecting is collecting' I thought to myself and he said "I'm sorry not to be of more help but right now to be truthful I'm deadly tired and was hoping to close up for the day and sleep right here" (motioning to the huge chair he was in) "I get very fatiqued of late and just need my rest moreso than usual - I hope you understand" and I said yes and nodded and backed out saying I'd be back when better opportunities arose.
-
And I wondered too about the magnifying glasses on long goose-neck swivels - large glasses which I surmised he moved around at will in order to inspect engraving marks and cancellations and things which authenticated authenticity (and even then it had me the odd redundancy of that phrasing 'authenticate authenticity' and I laughed it off and made a mental note so as to move on) for if there WAS fraud in this line of collecting (as probably in all other lines of collecting too) then this fraud would be detectable to a trained eye like his and I knew somewhere in the city there was an artist who made fraudulent money as artwork - and it was actually pretty good and passable too (if one could pass etched painted and such drawings as these as money) but of course it was done as art and somehow he'd gotten away with it but by this my mind was racing to ideas of what criminal use someone could make of this and the ostensible view of art (Giotto and all his perspective and all that) which at one point was used to 'take people's breath away' in the ancient days before our own form of illustration and image and projection and cinema and all of that reproduction stuff PEOPLE back then were still STARTLED by dioramas and murals and paintings which showed things as they were REAL and vivid enough to arouse and impassion viewers who'd felt as if they'd entered and strange new world just by viewing - but our day has diminished all of that and people are bored and jaded as can be and seek only more and newer and the rest be damned YET that is the onrush I figured that pushes along so much fraud and deceit - because people no longer care nor stop and slow down enough to check validity and such regarding what they view and so it's an 'easier' world to fool but a harsher one at the same time to defraud because THEY NOW KNOW EVERYTHING : (the paradox of the modern day to be sure) : we have gotten rid of mysteries.