Stamps Stamps Stamps - Eva Varga

A few weeks ago, I caught a post on Free-Cycle whereby a man was offering a small collection of stamps to a young person interested in getting started in the hobby.  All he asked was that the young person write him a letter.  I thought I might have to plead and prod Sweetie to write a letter, but that wasn’t the case.  She jumped at the opportunity and had her letter drafted within a few minutes.

She assumed that there would be many other kids also interested so she wanted to email her letter right away.  Here is what she wrote:

Dear Bob,

 

My name is Sweetie.  I am nine years old.  My brother is six years old.  We have a small stamp collection.  We started it two years ago.  Most of them are from the USA.  We hope to someday have a collection from all over the world.  We would love to have your collection.  

 

Stamp collecting is fun.  Right now, we are especially looking for stamps from Norway and Canada.  We want to earn the Cultural Skills badge from our Sons of Norway lodge.  

 

Thank you, 

Sweetie

We received a response the following day and I called the gentleman by phone.  He invited us out to his place so that he could also give the kids a lesson on how to properly soak their stamps and to answer any questions they may have.

We were ecstatic to discover that the small collection he was giving us had well over 2,000 cancelled stamps from all over the world.  The kids poured over the pages as we listened to Bob explain the hobby he was so passionate about.  He also invited us to participate in a local philatelic exhibit coming up in March.

We were excited upon returning home to sift through our collections and decide upon themes – essentially a focus for each of our collections.  Previously, we had simply collected any and all stamps and the process was overwhelming.  Now we each have a clear idea of what we would like to collect and why.