Stamp Packets Of Yesteryear.

Ahhh...yes. These are the kind of packets I started on when I was probably around 6-8 years old or so. Saw them in a Ben Franklin craft store and the first packet I bought was probably a quarter or 50 cents. I was hooked immediately. To this day, even though today I consider myself to be a quote-unquote "serious" collector, my favorite thing to do is go through a packet of cheap stamps. I feel like a kid at Christmas every time a new packet arrives in the mail.

Placing packets like this in more stores would be a good way to promote the hobby, I think. When I bought that first packet, I wasn't even aware that people collected stamps; these packets were my first introduction to collecting. Eventually I bought more packets and sent off for offers and approvals advertised therein (and in comic books, etc) and the rest is history.

Family,

Great stuff. I love reminicing. Being from the Boston area, we had both HE Harris and Woolworths 5&10 with lunch counters! The 5&10 here in Ipswich, Mass (with the lunch counter) lasted until the early nineties. Miss it.

Jack Kelley

I don't remember stamps in Woolworth's, but there were plenty of companies that would send stamps on approval to kids. I found one a few months ago still attached to its approval sheet. Price: 17 cents. Rather expensive when you're on a twenty-five cent allowance. I looked it up in a current catalogue. Present price: $17.00.

Things have gone up.

Don

Thanks for the memories .......I remember going to downtown Providence R.I. to buy my first few H.E.Harris Honor-Bilt packets for ten cent each at Woolworths . That made me a serious collector and I could now hang with the older collectors. While the others kids were still buying the 100 stamps for 10 cents from the back of the BOY'S LIFE magazine.

Thread Bumped : Dormant 6 Years

Thematic Antarctica
Amongst South Africa Sc#220 1959 SANAE 3d

Being 53 and growing up in a very rural area (population 24), I didn't have the advantage of a Woolworth's.

However, I purchased such a packet from Boy's Life magazine when I was 8 or 9. With approvals of course, from H.E. Harris.

Those approvals built my early collection. I'd give mom the money and she'd write a check for them. What I found interesting was as a young kid, my allowance in the 70s/early 80s was very low so often mom was writing checks of $4/$5. Harris started sending less valuable selections. Clearly someone was paying attention to this kid's buying habits.

What a great Mom !

$4-$5 for Boys Life approvals was big spending back in the day. Of course we got checks from our moms, how else would a kid be able to send money?

In the early 70's an oz of gold was $30 au.

Vintage LAURELBILT packets, made-up for the 1964 New York World's Fair. The sealed packet consists of commemoratives and definitives. I've got a whole bunch of them (still sealed) to go through...

I assume that the $3 sticker was added later.

John

Denmark front:


Scandinavia front:


Common back:

I just got one of the orange bags from a friend and will put up some images. I had mentioned that I was still getting stamps to her and she goes to auctions, She procured the "collection" and sent it off to me. A whole lot of material and very much appreciated. If only I had unlimited time.

Nice!
I have an 1950's advert for those somewhere.

I wonder if the bag ink is fugitive, or the stamp perfs are sometimes damaged.

The contents did have some damage as it appears to have been put in the bag by shovel. There were stamps, stamps on paper and just paper. Nothing remarkable that I have seen, but still worth going through on a rainy afternoon.

My father used to send away for those orange "missionary bags", and surprise me with them. Thanks for showing it.

They were advertised in Stamps Magazine as "Mission Mixtures".