A Budding Philatelist

 

Some time ago I wrote that I was going to give my old stamp collection to Alejandro's nephew Ezra, and that I had bought more stamps for him to add to it.   I didn't know if he would take an interest in it, or if it would seem too boring and old fashioned in this modern era in which he spends too much time on his tablet playing video games.  Well, I think that perhaps Ezra has a new hobby.

Yesterday Ezra and I met at the dining room table at noon to begin work on his collection.  First there were a few stamps that had fallen off of the pages of the album.  I had set them aside in an envelope so that we could put them back in place.  (It's quite amazing that after all these decades more of the stamps had not come loose.)  I showed him how to affix stamp hinges to the stamps and then affix the other half of the hinge onto the page.  That was the only annoying part of the experience.  The stamp hinges, the little pieces of folded adhesive plastic, are made so cheaply nowadays, that they are quite difficult to work with.  

We then began to tackle the packet of 200 Mexican stamps which I had bought for him.  I was quite impressed with Ezra's skill in organizing the stamps.  He separated them by theme.  There were Christmas stamps, stamps with flora and fauna, stamps commemorating the Olympic Games, stamps which pictured famous people (he knew who quite a few of the people were from his studies at school), etc.  A seasoned philatelist might not have entirely approved of his organization techniques, but it is now HIS collection.   We also had a few laughs along the way.  There were several stamps honoring the first man on the moon that had the word "LUNA" (moon) in bold letters at the top.  One of the family's dogs is named Luna, so we joked that she had issued her own postage stamps.  After sorting through about 100 of the stamps, we then put them onto the pages for Mexican stamps.  (I had previously added a bunch of blank sheets to accommodate all his new stamps from Mexico.)

We surely spent more that an hour on the stamps. Ezra never seemed to grow the least bit bored.  I don't know if he will work on his collection on his own when I am not around.  However, I have a feeling that, when I am at the house, he will not object to spending more time with me working on the stamps. 

I also had separated a few duplicate stamps and put those in an envelope.  I told him that when things return to normal, he could give those to his best friend from school so that he could start his own collection.  Ezra liked that idea.