Buying Stamps

As you may recall, last year I gave Alejandro's nephew Ezra my stamp collection, and from time to time I have been buying stamps to add to it.  Earlier on this trip, when I went downtown, I stopped at the ornate "Palacio Postal", the main post office, and asked if there were any new stamps out.  The clerk only had the set of butterfly stamps which I had already purchased for Ezra.  She said, however, that there was a philatelic store upstairs where I could purchase older issues.  Unfortunately, at that moment it was closed for lunch.

This week when I returned downtown, my first stop was the post office so I could get to the store before the lunch break.  When I entered, I asked a police officer at the door where the store was located.  She asked me to have a seat, and she called the gentleman who is in charge of the shop.  After a few minutes he came downstairs, and took me up in the elevator to a small store.  

The beautiful "Palacio Postal" as viewed from the second floor

Stamps issued in the last several were available for purchase.  I picked out a number of stamps that looked interesting, and he went to a file cabinet and brought them out.

I really should have purchased more, since they are sold at face value.  My cost was only about eight U.S. dollars.

These are the stamps, all of them issued in 2021, that I bought...

Starting at the upper left hand corner and moving clockwise:

A set of four stamps commemorating the 325th anniversary of the death of the great poetess, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

A stamp commemorating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven

A set of two Christmas stamps, one featuring a piñata and the other the Three Kings

A set of three stamps commemorating the 700th anniversary of the foundation of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the 500th anniversary of the Spanish conquest (or as the stamp calls it, the 500th anniversary of indigenous resistance), and the 200th anniversary of the end of the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.  All of these anniversaries fell in 2021.

I hope that I didn't already buy any of these stamps for Ezra.

At the entrance to the post office there was a sign advertising the "Postal Museum".  I asked the gentleman in the shop about it, and he said the museum will open next month.  So I guess on my next trip to Mexico City, I will return to the "Palacio Postal", not only to buy more stamps, but to visit the new museum.