My start in Mycophilately

Many years ago....
Thirty Years to be precise, I ws sitting in a conference room at the Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot when Professor Kennet came in very excited as he had just found a paper entitled "Fungi on Stamps"*.
At that time he was working on a problem for the Israeli post office as their blank stamp stock was exhibiting "foxing" which is he thought may be caused by a fungal growth. As you can imagine finding a research paper was very exciting to him. You can therefore imagine his dismay when he realized that the paper was for stamp collectors describing the very few issues showing mushrooms. I, on the other hand, was enthralled. Shortly after this Yehudit and I left for London on our pre-wedding honeymoon. I dragged her up and down the Strand, as at this time there were still a number of stamp dealers in that area. I found 17 of the 18 sets mentioned the missing item was:

Which was no surprise as this has turned out to be a very difficult to find item, I now have a mint copy and postally used pair. The 2007 Scott price for the polypore stamp was $125!

Since that time I have kept the collection up to date. I have also added postmarks and ephemera . In 2006 I decide to stop collecting stamps that were exclusively issued for collectors...S.Tome and Principe, I am talking about you and have concentrated on "real" issues.


*B. Ing, Fungi on Stamps, Bull. Br. Mycol. Soc. 1976, 10:32-37