When I was in elementary school I started collecting stamps. It was a hobby which I continued (judging by the dates on the stamps) until my college years. I would often walk down to Woolworths and buy packets of stamps from far away countries. I created my own stamp albums. I mounted my stamps on typing paper, used a hole punch, and put the pages in Duo Tang folders. I eventually had stamps from most of the world's nations, from Afghanistan to Zanzibar (a country which no longer exists).
Stamps from an era long before there was a Taliban, and before the country was on the front pages of our newspapers.
One lonely stamp from Zanzibar, which was an island nation off the east coast of Africa.
In 1964 it merged with Tanganyika to form the country of Tanzania.
My stamp albums have been sitting in a closet for decades. Alejandro's nephew Ezra is about the same age as I was when I began to collect stamps. So I decided to give him my collection when I go down there in April. The old Duo Tang folders were rather shabby looking, so I bought a loose-leaf notebook and put all the pages in that.
Looking through the collection there were a number of other nations which no longer exist, such as Czechoslovakia and East Germany.
Other countries have changed their names... Ceylon is now Sri Lanka and Burma is Myanmar.
And then there are some oddities from colonial empires like North Borneo, a British colony which is now part of Malaysia.
Bet you have never heard of Ifni, a former Spanish enclave on the coast of Morocco!
If you have ever collected stamps, you know that you do not glue your stamps into the album. You use a stamp hinge, a small, folded, transparent piece of paper that has a mild adhesive. A few of my stamps had come loose after all these years, so I went on-line to a stamp company to buy a package of hinges. 1000 hinges only cost $3.00, so I bought a couple packets of stamps so that Ezra could add to his collection... 300 stamps from Mexico, and a set of stamps from Spain from the year 1975.
Ezra seems to have an interest in other countries, so I hope that he enjoys his gift.
In light of our current communication method, he may wonder what stamps
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Very true. Although I send him, on a regular basis, cards and postcards because he enjoys getting mail. Of course it often takes a month or two for the mail to arrive at the house.
DeleteI also used to collect stamps. I haven't looked at my books in years, though. This makes me want to dig them out and have a look....
ReplyDeleteI hope that Ezra gets into stamp collecting. I was looking at the website and there was so much that I wanted to buy. I think I want to continue collecting stamps vicariously through Ezra.
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