Beginner To Stamps

I want to start my 9-year old into stamp collecting just because it is fun and relates to history. From what I can tell, the most logical and economical place to start is with the 1927 commemorative issues and forward. Any ideas on how to get this rolling. I already have printed stamp album pages. Where can I get a decent sized lot of mint stamps to start? I know there is really no upside to this but it is really an affordable hobby.

If I were you, I'd get a large ack of all world issues - forget the US stuff except as part of that. The fun is learning about the world. And I wouldn't use printed pages - just use an old album. Let your 9-year old make a mess!

Are you sure that you want to start with mint (or with US) or with preprinted albums? There are many different routes and your child will likely pursue their own path (none of my three ever had any interest in preprinted albums and they have mostly pursued the topical route rather than country collecting). I would look on ebay for mint postage lots that have good variety - that will be as cheap as it gets for US and there will be some extra to use on mail or to trade for other stamps...or look for a small US collection that might start filling in those spaces without much duplication.

Thanks for the comments. Maybe US is not the place to start. It's just that worldwide is so huge. I wouldn't know where to begin with a worldwide collection.

US is not a bad place to start if you have the album pages and if exposure to history is the reason for collecting. You might consider starting with used (you can get a packet of 1000 US stamps on ebay for under $10), which are cheaper and easier to deal with.

For a 9 year old, you might want to just do a topical collection. Whatever they are into (dinosaurs, horses, cars, trains, flags, military history)the field allows for flexibility and the ability to collect whatever you want. Keep an open mind and let your child decide which way the collection steers to.

For all those suggesting topicals, well, yes, but history is also a topic. If the OP knows his child and thinks the child might be interested in history on US stamps, I say, go for it. Use the pages at hand. The perfect is the enemy of the good. US commems from 1927 onward are widely available, very cheap (used or mint). Jump in, correlate a given event being commemorated with pictures, stories, documentaries, whatever, available on the web or in books you already have or whatever. Perhaps there's a commemorative or two that relates to some historic site you already have visited or can turn into a stamp field trip. Whatever.

Yes, let the child follow his interests but don't slight history on US stamps as an interest.

One other thing. Yes, get a packet of 1000 US commems for $10.00. But also go through the catalogue (online at Stampworld if nothing else) and make note of some US commems that relate to local historic sites or events with some connection your child can readily relate to
and then
order a dozen or two specific US commems as singles from Stamps2Go or bidStart (or ebay). You can get them for a few pennies each plus $1 shipping on Stamps2Go and then you can "salt" the packet with a few outstanding examples of historical items that you have a pretty good idea your child might be interested in.

The point is that US commems are so inexpensive that you can make targeted choices to help launch things as well as scattershot choices--both are good.

I was about that age when I began and my own experience would suggest you begin with used US. That way there is no concern about handling the stamps or subsequent damage. There is an abundance of history to be learned if there is an interest. As several others have suggested, if a specific subject is of greater interest, then Topicals would work better. Good luck! Helping to promote our hobby helps to keep it going.

I do feel quite strongly that children shouldn't be pushed in the direction of collecting stamps from their home country. I suppose there's an interesting, alternative history lesson there - "look, here's old Woodrow Wilson, probably the first Klansman in the White House!" or "by golly, JFK, I still recall his opposition to the Civil Rights Act" etc. However, most people wouldn't deliver it. Collecting world stamps is much more fun, and knowing about the world is much more important than knowing about the woman who proposed the poppy as a commemoration of WWi.

I'm very much with GeoffHa on this subject. Have an open mind - and let the kids see beyond the horizon of your own borders and history. There is litterally a world out there. This is an excellent way to let your kids explore the world without prejudice. My best memories as a novice are when I found stamps from places I had not even heard about, and my father pulled out the atlas to show me. Eventually the kid will focus on whatever is most attractive for him/her.
My own kids use stock albums, which is much easier for them as they do not need to care about hinges. Then the stamps can easily be shifted if the Japanese stamp was misplaced with the Chinese

Do they currently use the internet? If they use social media you might want to suggest they assemble stamps from the countries of their online friends. I feel that tying philately to their other interests is key to capturing their long term participation.
Don

In the end, the child will gravitate toward whatever his interests are, but I agree with others that exposing them to worldwide stamps is a good place to start. I was a 9-year old interested in history and geography once, and seeing stamps written in foreign languages and picturing exotic subjects is what reeled me in. I didn't chime in here to try to sell you something, but I sell cheap worldwide packets on ebay that might be a good option. I have a "100 stamps from 100 countries" packet that might be good, as well as a different mixture (more stamps but from fewer countries) in that same 2-3 cent per stamp price range. There are many other sellers on ebay selling similar material, and it can be one of the easiest and cheapest hobbies to get started in.

There's nothing wrong with beginning with one's own country. Love of patria, fatherland, motherland, is a virtue. Jingoism is not, but it is possible to distinguish between the two without lapsing into self-loathing "alternative history." I'm just a tad tired of the incessant undermining of patria-love. Honest love of country includes the warts and injustices but harping on them is as dishonest as jingoistic ignoring of them.

Yes, by all means, one of the attractions of stamp collecting is the world, the different languages, histories, cultures, geographies. But the best world citizens are those who know who they are and where they come from, honestly. GEnuine cultural interchange cannot happen if people have been taught to have no culture, no home, no locality, no patria.

Sadly, since I came of age in the '60s, to be patriotic has been frowned on, at least in the "higher" circles I have had to live in (university, white-collar business, etc.). We are, as a world, increasingly homeless. And alienated, homeless people are dangerous in their rootlessness.

I'm not merely talking about collecting one's own nation-state. Patria most fundamentally means local homeland but for the last 500 years localities have been bundled into nation states. Now local culture is nearly destroyed everywhere, at least in the West and increasingly around the world.

Beginning worldwide is fine but equally fine beginning with one's home and tying it to tangible sites and remembered events. Whichever one one starts with, one can always then move to other. Let's not pit them against each other.

I do not believe that being a "citizen of the world" is somehow superior to conceiving of oneself primarily as a citizen of one's home country, region, locality--if that is possible today. Perhaps it's so far gone as to be impossible. But if that's true, I mourn the loss. To be a citizen of the world is to be a citizen of nowhere, utopia. To be a citizen of a real place who is then also a traveler of the world (either virtually or really), is wonderful. But to be a citizen of nowhere is sad.

When I see the stamp about the woman who introduced the poppy as a remembrance of World War I, I choke up. Flanders Field, the poem, the image, the thought, chokes me up. No, I don't whitewash World War I. I weep for the flower of English, and German, and French, and Australian, and . . . .youth who died in and around those trenches. It was a war that should never have happened and the men who started it will have had to answer God for it. But I also admire and honor, yes, honor, the soldiers who fought in it. I don't see the woman on that stamp qua woman. I see a woman who wanted to honor the soldiers and the nurses and the medics and . . ..
And could I perhaps, just perhaps, explain a bit of that to a nine-year-old American boy? That it wasn't just about Americans but about English and Australian and yes, even German, soldiers caught up in a war that should not have been but who did what they were asked to do.

I know all about hating war, denouncing war. I know the bitter anti-war songs about the mutilated veterans of Gallipoli. I grew up among pacifist Mennonites. I came of age during Vietnam. But as I grew up I also learned about patria and family duty and responsibility. And about how complex it all is.

And that's what I see when I see that stamp.

edited: I forgot to mention Canadian soldiers, and Indian -- for the Dominions, WWI was a much more powerful experience than it was for the United States; having spent time in Canada as a student and with ancestors pioneering there in the 1820s, the Canadian WWI stories are particularly poignant for me. I think it was in Canada that the red poppy's significance first came home to me.

I think the idea of the comic heroes, dinosaurs, and state birds would be a great way to start.
Tom