Why Did You Start To Collect Stamps?

I have a good topic: Why did you start collecting stamps? I started back when I found my mother's old Modern Stamp Album in the attic and I fiddled for a couple years until we moved and the album got lost. Back in the late 90's I started my collection again and somehow when I went to my local stamp store My mothers old album was there and I bought it again. I have since gotten deeper in to collecting. I am a WW collector and I know I will never have a complete WW collection but I am having fun with what I have.

I forgot to put why I collect and that is because through stamps I can go and see the world. I can learn history, politics and other peoples culture. It also shows me how the world has changed through the years. That is why I started to collect

I first got fascinated in stamps when a friend of mine showed me his old Shaubek album that had to weigh close to 15 pounds and went up to only 1942.This was in 1955. The stamps in it were fantastic. From that point on, I was addicted <G>

Chimo

Bujutsu

Bujutsu, I dont think it would take much for me to have started collecting if I had been shown a nice album like a Schaubek.

I started when I was 6 years old, so I guess my parents are to blame :-)

I started to collect when I was 7 years old. I was fascinated from the pictures on the stamps and where they wseare coming. My grand-father has a big worldwide collection and her learnd me a lot about geography, history of all of these countries.

i had a school chum who was a bit more priviliged than I was..he had the metal British soldiers with the moving arms and a Scotts Junior International Album with the light blue cardboard cover and the red fabric binder..i had to open his album and I saw the colorful African stamps like the leopards from the Congo and I never looked back !!

I don't think I ever had a fighting chance. Other than the obvious part of it all with the fascination of the stamps, the countries, the engraving, the endlessness of it all...

... both of my grandfather's were postmasters in small WA cities so I'm fairly sure I got the interest genetically from the day I was born!

Kurt

I started collecting seven years ago (at the ripe old age of 5) when I got a bunch of stamps from old letters in the basement. My grandma gave me her old collection she had when my mom was a kid. From then on, I was addicted.

In 1952 I tried to begin a pupil's correspondence with a fellow in Pakistan of my age (15).
When his first letter arrived, my father who was a philatelist, right away tried to confiscate the cover. We had a dispute and my father wisely consoled me saying that from "now" on his collection would be "ours". He dies very few years afterwards, so I inherited "our" collection and continued it.

I started to collect stamps around 1958 after I had visited The Smithsonian in Washington,D.C. and saw their stamps.That year for Christmas I got my first album,which I still have to this day. It has always given me great enjoyment.My late father-in-law was a major collector and when he passed away some years ago I got his huge collection that I have to wheel in on a hand cart.His is the Scot International,I believe in 12 vols.

My Grandfather used to collect coins and I was always fascinated by it but he done it rather privately adding to the intrigue so one day I asked him to show me his collection. He obliged and I was hooked on collecting coins. My Grandmother on the other hand was an artist and it was her father that collected stamps. He actually designed a few of the road signs you see everyday. I'm clear on which ones, but anyhow when he passed his humungous high end stamp collection ended up in my grams hands. She sold off a bunch to pay for some of the funeral or his bills or whatnot and the rest sat in a box in the corner for about ten minutes before my dear old Grandfather shuffled it off into his den. When I would go over there on the weekends he and I would sort them. It was amazing to both of us! We got to learn a little bit about everything together! Remember he was a coin collector so his eye for detail was superb but his knowledge of stamps was something all together different...haha! I would sign out books from the school library on the subject and we poured over them. We was always holed up in that room under that drafting table light. My dear old Grandmother either thought we was completely crazy or just enjoyed the peace and quiet in the house but she would leave us be and there would be offerings of cookies and such- Fast-forward 30 years later. My pop-pop died and his collections was split up between family members and I received a portion of it. I dug it back out a few years ago and finally hit it hard the last 3 years or so. That's how I started stamp collecting.

When I was 10 or 11 somebody my mom worked with started buying me the U.S. year sets. Still have them. Never really actively collected though till I took my son to a stamp show. Just was looking for something to do that weekend. Now he is 26 and we collect together. My wife joined us a few years later, and my oldest son just started collecting this year.

Don't all kid collect stamps. Or at least all boys? I was also encouraged by a wonderful uncle, with whom I still occasionally email about stamps.

Before I was born, my father found an old Scott's International that only went up to 1940 in an old abandoned house while hunting on some property his boss owned. His boss said he could keep it and gave the labum to my older sister. She collected for awhile until I cam along. Being the little nosty brat of a brother I got into her stuff including the stamps. She then gave me my own junior U.S. album for Christmas when I was seven. I've been collected off and on until I hit college which happened to be Penn State. With the local resources and even a local stamp store nearby I really started collecting much more intensively. About that time I had access to the Internet and the usenet groups. I discovered the Stamps Trader's List and started trading my duplicates with other collectors from around the world. I was collecting several countries and through trade I was able to obtain most of what I wanted aside from the really expensive items. I lived in the MD/DC area and after I was able to buy a car shortly after college I was able to visit the shows, stamp stores and attend club meetings. I found after time with all the trading that I really liked the international connections to the point I was trading for stamps I didn't even collect, but I was fulfilling someone else's list and I enjoyed that fact that I was helping someone else out. I started buying bulk material from the shows and stores to keep on trading, but quickly gained more than I could trade. A stamp club member from Bowie Stamp Club turned me on to ebay. It was a great way to sell the duplicates and still connect with people worldwide. Since then, I've moved more and more into covers / postal history (I still have stamps..one day), but I do keep every cover I've ever received from every buyer and trader that's been sent to me (4 bankers boxes so far). Paypal has seriously lowered the number of the incoming covers, but part of the modern process. I know I went beyond why I started collecting, but as many here can say, it's more of just a start, but collecting can be a series of changes, or an ever going evolution.

I started when I was in the Air Force and spotted a empty match book cover which asked if you wanted to send away for approval stamps. So I mailed in and started my collection..