Sometimes, The Answer Is Right In Front Of You

I have struggled for quite some time helping my girls (6-year-old twins and their 4 1/2-year-old sister) enjoy stamp collecting.

I have struggled to pry glue sticks from their hands when "doing their stamps" and spent quite a lot of time putting hinges on their stamps to put in their "A First Stamp Album for Beginners." Not much fun for me and probably not so much for them.

Finally, after many struggles, Vera Felts of the ATA made a suggestion: Let the kids use Vario pages. So obvious and I have so many of them!!

So yesterday, they started work on their "new" stamp books - three ring binders, of which they decorated the covers, filled with Vario pages.

We spent a tremendous amount of time at the table yesterday. They were digging through the box looking for stamps (they collect "pretty" stamps), and I worked on hinging some stamps in a long-neglected used US collection.

I'd stop occasionally to answer questions, tell them what country a stamp was from, or to look at how they were filling their pages.

It was fun. And we'll just worry about tongs later.

Fun. That is what will save the hobby.

That is the ONLY thing that will save the hobby.

A great story!

Your beautiful daughters are looking at the stamps with the same sense of wonderment many of us have when sorting through stamp mixtures. Thankfully age isn't a factor when having fun. My father started me with a love for stamps, your girls are lucky to have the same type of mom/dad

I had the "A First Stamp Album for Beginners". I never used it either. I wonder where I put it.

Well done. My kids never wanted to use albums either. They use stockbooks for their primarily topical collections; all three have done 6-page exhibits at a club show and my oldest has done 9 pages (we're looking to get her to go to 16 pages so she can do a one-frame WSP exhibit).

My oldest liked to soak stamps when she was little (we started doing that when she was 3) - of course, it's easier now if you put aside the mail that comes in with discount postage that is actually soakable without major effort...

Your daughters are adorable. It's great that you spend that kind of time with them.


-IBFS

Takes me back to 1959-60 and my Dad buying an album and some stamps for me in Woolworths. We spent evenings sticking them in - the ones with gum being licked and firmly placed on the page! He'd tell me the names of the people on the stamps. And so, as a six-year-old, I knew who Sun Yat-Sen, Mao Tse-Tung and King Farouk were!

Very impressive. Great job Dad.

Thank you for sharing that 'Kodak moment' with us. They are, indeed, adorable.

Our son has expressed an interest in continuing the collection his great-great grandfather started. I recently presented him with a topical album, based on his favorite subject, to get him started. I printed the free album pages, 'Space On Stamps', from the American Philatelic Society website. There is just the right balance of stamps we have vs. missing ones, to pique his curiosity, without him being discouraged by the number of gaps. He's looking forward to going to our first stamp show.

I absolutely love that photo - that's awesome! I've got 3 daughters of my own, the youngest is 6, and it's fun when I can get her involved in some stamp project.

Matt

I stumbled across this thread in my search to find out more about using glue sticks on stamp mounts. LOVE IT!

My 4 year old couldn't do hinges, but she loved these old mounts I had stashed away. Now she's almost 6 and finally got the hang of hinges. She also goes for pretty and pink stamps.

Edit: and "princesses" and Santa, of course.