dickandjane

    I pulled into the driveway of Dick Callahan's unremarkable suburban duplex at ten o'clock on a bright, spring Saturday morning. I was right on time for an appointment to view what he had described as a 40-volume worldwide collection. Attaché case in hand, I rang the doorbell and waited. A moment later, the door cracked open and a serious face peered out from the six-inch opening.
    "Mr. Callahan?" I inquired cordially. "I'm here about the stamps." But the door opened no farther. Instead, the face in the opening squinted suspiciously at me.
   "Do you have a business card?" he asked sternly.
   I pulled out my wallet to get one, but I'd run out.
   "Sorry, I've run out," I said.
   "How do I know you're the man from Scott?" he asked, skeptically. His eyes were dark and narrow, like the slit of doorway from which he peered out. Who did he imagine I was? I wondered. Who was he expecting? His behavior struck me as odd and more than a little annoying.
   "Okay," I said, trying to be logical, "you called me at my number in the phone book. You gave me your name and address -- you are Mr. Callahan, aren't you? -- and we made an appoint-ment for this date and this time. If I'm not who I say I am, how would I know about the appointment?"
    He did not respond right away. He seemed to be testing my logic.
   "You should have a business card," he said at last, sliding the security chain off the front door, opening it, "so people will know who you are." Then he unlocked the aluminum screen door, pushed it open, and said, "Okay, come on in."
   I stepped inside, out of the sunshine and into the dimness of Dick Callahan's living room, a room made dark by heavy drapes drawn tightly shut. The home struck me as Spartan and utilitarian, neat and clean, not a single thing out of place. Dick Callahan appeared to be in his late twenties. He was trim and muscular and dressed in army camouflage fatigues. Both he and his wife, it turned out, were in the army on active duty. Scanning the room, I noticed marksmanship and martial arts trophies lined up on the mantelpiece like a formation of soldiers at attention. Some were his; others belonged to his wife.
   "Let's go in the kitchen," he said. It sounded more like an order than an invitation. He motioned me to a chair at the kitchen table and seated himself across from me. On the table to his right rested a .45-caliber automatic pistol, barrel pointed toward my side of the table but not directly at me. I felt as if I had just sat down to a poker game at the Deadwood Saloon. This guy could be a wacko, I thought. What if he doesn't like my offer? What will he do -- shoot me?
   "A lot of people get robbed," he said matter-of-factly, perhaps trying to explain the pistol, perhaps trying to warn me. "It doesn't pay to be careless." I couldn't help thinking that he had been somewhat careless already -- he hadn't frisked me. Nor had he checked my attaché case. It could be loaded with weapons. I might jump up -- gun in hand -- and shout, "Gotcha!" Of course, the attaché contained no weapons, just tongs, watermark fluid and a legal pad. Nor was I there to hold him up; I just wanted to buy his stamp collection.
   My eyes returned to the .45 automatic. I wanted to get started, finish, and be gone as quickly as possible. "You said you have a forty-volume collection?" I said.
   "Yes. I've been transferred to Hawaii, and I don't want to lug the collection around anymore. Every time I get transferred, we have to pack it up and move it to new quarters. Besides, I've heard that Hawaii is rough on stamps, the humidity and all. So I guess it's time to see about selling-providing I get a decent offer," he emphasized, looking me squarely in the eye. The collection was nowhere in sight. I wondered where it lay hidden.
   "What percent of catalogue do you pay?" he asked. It was a common question, but one without a simple answer. There is no standard percentage of catalogue that applies to all purchases.
   Given his suspicious nature, I hesitated to answer because I thought it likely that he would misinterpret my explanation. Still, there was no way around it, so I said, "There is no standard percentage." And sure enough, his eyes narrowed as he tried to fathom my evasiveness. "It depends on the country, whether the stamp is mint or used, classic or recent, its condition, and so on. Each item is figured on its individual merits. Canceled-to-order stamps from Iron Curtain countries are figured much lower than, say, mint France." He listened but still appeared skeptical. "Each item is valued according to the market. The catalogue is a guide, sort of a benchmark, from which individual values are calculated. Ultimately, the market sets the price."
   "I have a pretty good idea of what the collection's worth," he cautioned.
   My eyes returned to the pistol and I said, "I'll make you the best offer I can."
   Just then his wife looked in. She too was in her late twenties, trim, muscular, and attractive in an athletic sort of way. She wore her short black hair pulled back and bobbed in a nub of a ponytail. She could have been a model for a fitness center, except for the combat fatigues.
   "Honey, this is the Stamp Man," he said, gesturing toward me without bothering to introduce me by name. Then, "This here is my wife Jane." I smiled and said hello. Normally, I would have risen to greet her, but with the pistol on the table, I decided it wise not to make any unnecessary moves. Judging by the introduction, my lack of etiquette would pass unnoticed. Jane nodded, said hello, and then disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.
   "I have a pretty good idea of what the collection's worth," he repeated.
   "That's good," I replied, which seemed to surprise him. Then, thinking it wise to establish an understanding right up front, I said, "I'll look at your collection. I'll tell you what I'm willing to pay. My offer will be based on the market. I have no idea what you paid for it, and it will have no bearing on what I offer. My price will be based on what I can reasonably expect to pay for similar stamps elsewhere. You know how much you want for the collection, and when I'm finished, you'll know how much I'm willing to pay. If our figures are close, we'll do business. If not, you keep the stamps and I'll be on my way." I was anxious to get on with it, to either make a deal or exit gracefully.
   "Okay, that sounds fair," he said. He removed the pistol from the table and slid it into a kitchen drawer. I was relieved, but at the same time wondered why anyone would keep a pistol in a kitchen drawer. "The stamps are in the back bedroom," he said, motioning me to follow him.
   The collection consisted of 40 volumes, just as he had said. They were blue Minkus albums, neatly housed in travel-worn trunks, ready to be picked up and moved on short notice. As I worked, Dick warmed up a bit and the human being that lurked beneath his Ramboesque exterior began to emerge.
   "I don't know how they expect anyone to ever fill these albums," he complained. Actually he had made pretty good progress. The albums bulged with stamps; pages crackled when turned. I gathered that Dick Callahan approached collecting the way he might approach a military mission. Empty album spaces existed for one purpose and one purpose only: to be dutifully filled. And filled they would be.
   "You know," he said, "I've spent a lot of money on approvals and new issues just trying to keep up. But they keep putting out new albums faster than I can possibly fill them. You buy more and more stamps, you try to keep up, but after a while, it's not as much fun as it used to be." I could sympathize with him. I had recently read that it cost something like $7,500 at face value just to obtain one of each new stamp issued worldwide during the previous year.
   As I worked, he looked over my shoulder, commenting about one set or another. The colorful dog set from Hungary. The bright Olympics set from Monaco. The artful array of postwar CTOs from Czechoslovakia. The collection contained many of the same inexpensive approval sets I had obtained as a youngster years earlier.
   "I really like that set," he'd say. Or, "That's one of my favorites. Just look at the colors."
   His enthusiasm evoked a sudden wave of nostalgia in me. For a moment, it was almost as if no time had passed, as if I were seeing the colorful approvals through my own innocent youthful eyes, enthralled by them as I had been as a youngster all those years earlier.
   I turned the pages and we talked about stamps. As the ice melted, I found that Dick Callahan had a real appreciation for them. He enjoyed the hobby. As we chatted, I learned that he had never belonged to a stamp club, had never visited a stamp dealer, and had never been to a stamp show. He had done all his business by mail. What he knew of the hobby he had learned from stamp newspapers. He had collected enthusiastically, in splendid isolation. He had pursued his hobby unaware of the conventions of organized philately, unaware of the fine points of condition. He simply enjoyed stamps. That was all there was to it. The thought struck me that here was a pure collector, an innocent uncorrupted by convention, a man free to pursue the hobby in blissful ignorance. Others might scoff at his lack of sophistication, but I could respect it, even admire it.
   Although the collection was massive, it contained nothing expensive. He had built it from attractive approvals, the kind with big markups and modest resale value. It was the kind of collection you buy on the basis of bulk and sell by the album or country, investing as little labor as possible. I'd flipped through the albums, checking for keys, the kind of stamps that catalogue $50, $100 or more, but found none. As I finished each album, I jotted its value on a legal pad in my own numerical shorthand. When I'd finished, I added the totals.
   An approval dealer somewhere was going to lose a very good customer now that Dick Callahan had decided to leave the hobby. Despite the fact that he had become cordial after the initial period of confrontation, I found myself somewhat reluctant to give him an offer. I had a feeling he wasn't going to like it. I knew it would be substantially less than he had paid, this because low-priced approval-type stamps carry large markups-several hundred percent is typical and even 1,000 percent is not unheard of. As I double-checked my figures, it occurred to me that he might feel I was trying to take advantage of him. I could only guess at how he might react to the bad news.
   "You're aware that you're not going to get anywhere near what you paid for these stamps," I said at last. I didn't even want to think about the value of the albums, in which he easily had $1,000 invested. Dealers never count used albums and supplies because they have so little resale value.
   "I know you gotta make profit," he allowed. The cordial look on his face vanished.
   "You've put a lot of time and care into your collection," I continued. He nodded. "I'd like to buy every collection I look at, but that isn't always possible. Sometimes you just can't get together on a price. I have to value stamps based on what I can sell them for, how much labor will be involved in preparing them for resale, how long I have to hold them, how much money I have to tie up, and so on." He nodded as I spoke.
   "I'm telling you this is because my offer is likely to be significantly less than you expected, so if you'd rather keep the collection, I understand. I won't twist your arm." He nodded again. The moment lengthened.
   "So, what's your offer?" he finally asked.
    "Twenty-five hundred dollars," I said. The moment of truth had arrived.
   "Whew!" he replied, expelling a lungful of air. "Thatis a lot less than I expected. I don't know down to the penny how much I've spent over the years, but it's a lot more than that. A lot more."
   I couldn't argue with him. Still, dealers buy based on resale value, not original cost. He didn't say anything, just shook his head slowly as if trying to come to terms with the news. "Man!" he muttered loudly, rubbing his chin. "Man, oh man . . . ."
    "Look, if you'd rather to keep the collection, it's no problem," I offered. I still had visions of him going for his pistol. I began to wish I were someplace else.
   "Boy, I don't know," he said, sighing and frowning. Then, "What do you think, honey?" he asked, calling loudly to his wife in the other room. "The Stamp Man says the collection's worth twenty-five hundred dollars."
   Jane appeared at the bedroom door. "Do whatever you want," she said, her tone flat and businesslike, "but I really don't want to drag those trunks to Hawaii." In every transaction, the truth finally emerges. Jane was neither as enthusiastic about stamps as her husband nor as enthusiastic as he thought her to be. Jane was the one who didn't want to drag the collection from post to post.
   "Are you sure?" he asked, looking at up her standing there in the doorway. He looked up at her and I realized the answer he was hoping for was: "Sure, go ahead and keep the collection."
   Instead, she shrugged and said, "Either way is okay with me."   Then added, "But I thought we decided we could use the money."   The decision had already been made.
   Dick Callahan glanced back at me; his expression, that of soldier who'd received his marching orders.
   "Well, Mr. Scott, I guess it's good-bye stamps," he said, and even though Mr. Scott was not my name, it was one notch up from being referred to as the Stamp Man. I wrote out a check. Then he helped me load the collection into my car, a hatchback with a fold-down rear seat. It filled the cargo space and the front seat. When we had finished, he turned and walked toward the door.
   "One question before I leave," I said. He turned toward me and raised his eyebrows. "Why the pistol?"
   "You coulda been anybody," he said, the phrase and the logic having the ring of a Yogi Berra-ism.