Did You Collect Stamps?
Wed., June 24, 10:24 AM
I don’t know when stamp collecting stopped being at least a little bit cool. When I was a kid, there were usually enough other people interested in stamps to form philately clubs. (Note the plural.) Did you collect stamps?
My brother and I each had an album, in which we found pictures of some of the stamps we acquired. In general, you “hinged” the stamp right over the picture, and you could still look underneath to compare it. If there was no picture — in one case no such country! — you put it on a blank space. Occasionally international politics went too fast for the book, and I inserted extra pages.
The great thing about doing this was that we learned a lot without even trying. “Helvetia,” for example, was Switzerland. Korea in those albums was still spelled with a C (hi, Silla!). Ecuador, which many people had never heard of, had beautiful multi-colors when most stamps were still just one color. We learned about the currencies of different countries. Maybe we would have learned from collecting coins, but stamps — especially canceled ones — were a lot cheaper. Before first day covers became popular, we always looked for canceled stamps. The postmark proved it was a real stamp.
As a matter of fact, we did have the occasional foreign coin, as well as a piece of paper money that was thoroughly confusing. It was marked in pesos, but it was also marked “The Japanese Government.” We knew Japan didn’t use pesos, and it took some time and research before we realized it was invasion money from the Philippines.
As we got older, we stopped the formal collecting, although I have never outgrown my curiosity for pretty stamps. Since the albums were not in current use, my mother gave them away. (She was good at that!) I certainly hope my cousins enjoyed them.
When my own kids got old enough to appreciate stamps, I asked my mother if I could get my stamp album back. They gave her an album with my name in it, but every stamp I had hinged in had been removed. My kids would have to start from scratch.
Some adult who meant well but didn’t know anything about teaching children began lecturing them about how they were supposed to look up information on every country and every stamp. He turned them off completely! Heck, I think I would have lost interest myself if it had been like schoolwork. All of the kids are very good at looking stuff up, even more since the internet became available; but none of them know much about stamps.
Stamps are used less and less, with the invention of postage machines, not to mention the ability to print them from your own computer. When I worked in offices that used stamps, they wasted so many — because they couldn’t follow directions — that it would have been cost effective to rent a postage meter!
Given the choice, I would rather use a stamp. I receive news about U.S. stamps, including new issues, several times a year, and I used to order my stamps from the ads. More recently I just go to the Postal Service web site. The service charge is just a dollar, no matter how many stamps I order.
As I explained recently, I will always be sending some kind of mail. Sometimes I don’t care what is on the stamps, but I know I will usually want pretty stamps for holiday cards. Occasionally I want to make a Statement.
This stamp, incidentally, which costs at least a dime more than current first class, is still a bargain, because it is a “forever stamp.” It is at least as good as a bumper sticker.
It is a little blurry here, but that’s the Breast Cancer stamp.
