Do You Remember The Item That Hooked You ???

Hello everyone........

I remember clearly which stamp hooked me for life to the hobby and when......Christmas 1959.....I had been collecting just about a full year when my older brother gave me a big envelope of world wide stamps and in it I found a copy of this 1/2 d from New Guinea. Well, this little bi-plane overprint instantly attached itself to my seven year old brain and never let go. I distinctly remember having dreams about flying in this bi-plane to all the countries in my album that had stamps. Every time I see this I am immediately transported back in time to that Christmas and I usually end up having those dreams again at night. It is without a doubt my favorite philatelic memory.

Do you have a favorite philatelic memory ?

Great story Tom. Unfortunately, since I have "old timers" disease, I can't even remember if there was a single stamp or not. I was collecting baseball cards and military patches an just kinda drifted into stamp collecting.

I do remember getting my first stamps from an ad in a comic book, though. It was right next to the ad for "Miracle Fairy Shrimp" that I could have grown in my own kitchen.

I think I remember spending a valuable nickle of my allowence in a hobby store for a glassine with 3 Liberia triangles with airplanes on them..beautiful colors..they are probably worth as much now as they were in 1949 !!

my first stamp was the US red 'For Defence' with the cannon. I was in the 4th grade and a kid was going through some stamps at lunch. I asked him about it and then ended up trading my brownie for it.

i collected stamps for a year or so then gave it up until recently. that stamp is still one of my favorites.

I was in the Army in 1968 when a buddy of mine showed me his stamp collection. I was hooked within 5 minutes. He gave me a glassine envelope of stamps and I bought my first album. I've been collecting stamps ever since.

When I was about 8, my father pulled out his big Scott International album and he, my brother and I went through it page by page. He was wondering if we'd be interested in collecting stamps. What most impressed me were the old French colonials with their exotic locations, native people, and variety of color.

BTW, we both said yes, but my brother didn't continue with it as long as I did. He didn't much care for the foreign but did specialize in U.S. with a Scott U.S. album for a while. Our younger sister also picked up on it a few years later, but dropped it about the time she hit high school.

When I first began a collection I was about 12 and had seen an addin a magazine that offered a bag full of WW stamps for $1.00.

I was so exited when I received that bag of stamps and spent the next week or so slowly going through them to see if I could figure out what country they were from. the next week I went out and bought an album(don't remember which one) and some hinges and started placing them in.

The first stamp that struck me as being special was a 2Cent canadian from 1898 I just couldn't beleive that I had something that old.





Anyway when I joined the Military in 1978 I found I that I wasn't spending any time on the collection and I met a young boy that was ill and confined to his home so I brough it over to him and he imediately fell in love with it so I passed it on to him. I'll never forget the look on his face.

Dianne

Hee Hee the dollar bag was only a dime when I started collecting..the 500 stamps on paper were not attractive...but included were Very Colorful French colonies on approval..what a contrast between the drab Belgian stamps on paper and those technicolor African colonies..i would buy 15 cents worth of approvals and I would get a stamped notice back "please make your purchases at least 25 cents" ! Those were the days !!

Gee and I thought I was old Phil

15 cents huh

You must be almost old enough to be my dad

Dianne

I wasn't that old but this is the stamp that caught my eye and still remains among my favorites. Though I will admit at the time I thought it was the NY Jets and big Joe on the face of the stamp.

Hey, it was Namath, wasn't it?

Go Jets..on TV..i dont think my son Steve would be crazy enough to pay the stadium prices anymore..he used to have a teacher in high school whose family had season tickets..every once in a while the teacher could not attend and would sell Steve a couple of tickets !

Well guess I'll get in on this topic, as I started collecting in 1944.
Had a uncle who was serving in Europe, from time his letters home would have stamps fronm the country he was in at the time. I would save them in a scrap book, but at Christams time of '44 my mon gave a very small HE Harris WW album and a "Bag Of Stamps" if memory serves me right, it was an Orange bag and it cost a dime for a thousand stamps all off paper. Many, Many duplicates, but it was fun to pick through. In '45 my Grandfahter gave me a mint RW1 from his collection, needless to say, still have that stamp.

The first full set I collected in earnest was the Prexies of 1938, used to use part of my allowance every week to get a least one stamp a week till the set was completed.

My Granfather had given his stamp collection to my aunt, can't remember how many albums she had, but it was quite few, when I would go to her hose to visit after the war, would sit by the hours going through her albums, hoping some day I would have a collection like hers. Have never gotten there and probably never will.
Think I remember my aunt saying her dad had started collecting in the late 1800s and kept collecting right on up to the late thirties when he gave her the collection. Think you can imagine what was in it for stamps.

Forgot to include a scan of the RW1, so here it is.

Dianne Earl

Your not anywhere near being old in you went in the Military in 1978, cause our number two son went in '78 right after high school. He retired from the Navy in 2005, after having served for twenty seven years.
So please don't say your old, cause you'll make me feel ancient.

I first started off, by collecting FDC's, so I guess the thing that got me hooked was my first FDC...



Steve