How Did You Begin Stamp Collecting?

I started when I was younger (probably in the 7-8 range) when I got a stamp album as a kid. I was always into flags/maps/geography/history, so it dovetailed nicely with those interests. Went on hiatus for a while, before picking the hobby back up again a few years ago when I kind of settled down in life in my late 20's. I still enjoy all the subjects mentioned earlier (I can flip through an atlas for hours), but I like doing something that is slow and off the computer. It's hard to explain, but as with most people these days I am constantly connected to technology, so for me it is nice to be able to kind of get back to basics and sort of find a zen away from my laptop and internet.

I think there is a collecting "gene". Some people have it. Some people dont have it.
Those of us who collect (say) stamps at least understand that coin collectors, postcard collectors, beer mat collectors are at least kindred spirits.
For me...it began when I was 8/9 and I think it already had roots in bubblegum cards, specifically a set of 80 Flags of the World...with details of capital cities, currency, population and language. My recollection is that my father steered me into Stamps.
In those days, "the general knowledge" we acquired was considered a good thing. But in recent decades "general knowledge" is dismissed as "Trivia".
Basically back in the 1960s collecting stamps was a rite of passage for (usually) boys....and even corner shops had small packets of foreign stamps and comic books had adverts for stamp approvals.
Most juniors in some way out-grew the hobby...either thru boredom or a bad experience. Some of us persisted.

I was in Cub Scouts when I started...i wanted to get a "collectors" badge...and picked stamps over insects. I shortly lost interest once my hormones kicked in....for years my main interest in collecting was focused on record albums and stereo equipment...then in my 40's I visited a work colleague who also was not only a keen collector of records..but collected a lot of paper ephemera including stamps...and it snowballed after that. It's an affordable hobby and it's amazing to have a stamp in an album that tells a story about a place, a time, pesonnages, life, history and in itself an amazing work of art.

My father was a collector, and I think it was during the Blizzard of '77 in upstate NY and I was 5 that he first introduced me to the hobby. He was working on his Federated Malay States collection, and had a bunch of the low value crouching tiger definitives on the desk.

To a five year old, they were the perfect eye candy to start with. And it started many years of my father and I sharing a passion for the hobby. By my teenage years I was not only building my own collection (when I turned 15 my father got me a 2-volume Harris Standard album, which I proceded to work on until I graduated high school and, having my own part time job, I bought my first "Big Blues") and helped him write up his own collections (Malaya-Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, UPU Centennial worldwide issues).

Philatley definitely was the bond that tied my father and I, and up to the very end of his life in 2009 we would talk stamps and look at his collections when I would go home to visit. After his death I inherited the balance of his collections (he had also set himself up as a part-time dealer, and I helped him create an account on zillionsofstamps in the early 2000s to help his sales as he battled cancer) and they form the bedrock of my collection today. I still look at some of the albums, and remember the long cold North Country New York winter nights typing the pages up and helping him with mounting.

Started collecting when I was 10 and was given some stamps by my dad's boss (a great man whom I still miss dearly) ... last entry date on that first album was May 1995. Lost the hobby when I entered high school and never got a time to go back.

2 years ago, when that album started crumbling, wanted to buy new books and move things into it. The affair started again and so far so good.

Back the I was just filling pages with interesting stamps. Now more focused on what countries/areas I wanted. So the hunt is on.

These days, my free hours are for stamps, if I ain't skiing or hiking !

My first interest in stamps started when I was quite young (6 to 8 yrs old) while we lived in Germany. I had a generic worldwide album. I do not do much with it and not sure where it ended up. The pivotal moment was when I was in 8th grade. Now during all of this my Dad was coin collector and had some accumulation. We visited a neighbor while stationed in Ft Hamilton NY (under the Narrows bridge) and he had a collection of US Mint in a National album. At that point, I got a Liberty album and made many trips to stamp stores in Brooklyn and over on Nassau Street. I purchased a lot from a dealer called Raymond Snitow (had full page ads in Linn's). My dad was also collecting stamps but he was more into coin dealing so helped (ha) him some at shows. I never liked coins much but always had an interest in stamps. My activity went down significantly around 2006 (start of the self-adhesive era and the fact that I was in the WF era and costs to fill spaces were going up) and then picked up this year in earnest after getting snowed in. I started inventorying my accumulations since 2006 and got seriously interested.

When I was a kid, we had gotten some letters from overseas missions (Catholic) that caught my eye. After we got home from church on Palm Sunday, 1960, when I was a few months from turning 11, my dad got out a couple albums of his. Turned out he had been a collector going back into the 1920s when he got out of high school. He showed me how to soak off stamps and allowed me to "take over" his Scott 1940 Modern album. Couple of the mission solicitation letters had stamps attached inside as "teasers." I still have the San Marino stamp, which is listed as "Foreign Stamp #1" on its San Marino page in my Scott International Big Blue album.

1974, I was 11 years old. A cousin had a simple collection, and introduced me to it. I was interested, and he gave me some stamps to start with. I started asking relatives and neighbors for stamps from their mail or from old letters in their attics. For my 12th birthday, my parent's gave me a Harris Ambassador album. I went the route of sending in the little ads in magazines for stamps and started getting approvals...worldwide mostly. The following year, I won my choice of a prize in a school magazine sale: I chose a beginner's stamp collecting kit with a U.S. stamp album, stamps, and some supplies. In a few years, I traded up to a Harris Liberty U.S. album. The rest is history. U.S. stamps have remained my main interest, although I never say no to any worldwide stamps that come my way. Ten years ago, as I reached a point where I was only picking up current U.S. issues, I started a Canada collection. I've recently started a UK collection.

Same here. I do, of course, do other things, but when all work is done, my thought first goes to what I can do with my collection today. I spend more leisure time with stamps than with any other activity, and I can and sometimes do work on my collection for hours at a time, non-stop.

I must have been maybe ten or eleven years old when a friend introduced me to stamp collecting around 1990. He brought part of his collection when he visited me, and even gave me a few Ethiopian stamps. That was quite something, having stamps from such a faraway place as Ethiopia. I still have those stamps, and they always make me smile as they represent the start of a hobby that have given me much pleasure over the years. After that I collected whatever I could get my hands on for a while, then I tried to focus on stamps with a sports theme, and I remember buying a rather expensive hingeless album for Norway at some point. I still have that one, and I still use it. Then, at some point in my late teenage years I packed my collection into a big box and stored it at my parents place.

Fast forward to 2009. I had just finished my master thesis in history, and having written about the United Fruit Company I wanted a souvenir. I went to ebay and found lots of interesting things, and ended up buying a postcard with one the boats the company owned, as well as one more thing. What really caught my attention upon receiving the letters was the stamps. Sure, the stamps were discount postage stamps, but maybe that was a good thing. The design had me mesmerized, and I the stamp collector that had been laying dormant for so long was quickly awaken. I remembered my stamp collection being stored back home at my parents place, so I decided not to buy anything until I knew what condition it was in. Thankfully it was in very good condition after being stored for over ten years. I did browse ebay a lot, just looking at the different stamps that were readily available for me to buy. I also read a lot about stamp collecting, and I did buy a few things from a stamp dealer I visited.

After that I've been a collector. I might not touch my collection for periods of time, when other things takes priority, but I have no intentions of stopping.

I started around 1970. I was with my parents visiting a friend and noticed a stamp album in one of the rooms. I opened it up and I was fascinated by what I saw. He showed me several additional albums and sent me home with a number of stamps in an envelope. My parents then purchased a "Harris Traveler" album for me and I started glueing and taping all the stamps to pages. When my parent's friend visited our home at a later date I showed him my new collection. He was very understanding and taught me about hinges and how to mount stamps. Later he gave me a first day cover subscription for my birthday.

I've been collecting since them with several gaps through the years.

I was born with the "collecting" gene.

First it was Dinky Toys, then I kept a vast collection of Newts in an old iron bath,
Somewhere in my youth, stamps appeared I know not where from,
I can recall trying to remove a French West Africa rhinoceros, and ripped the stamp
because it was stuck to the page. I was mortified.

Then, when 19, I had my collection stolen from my car, the boot was jemmied (A Mark V Jaguar)
I gave up collecting, and returned in my 50's or theres about.

Now it maintains my sanity in this pickled world.

My Myers Briggs was ISTJ

ISTJ
Quiet, serious, earn success by thoroughness and dependability. Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic, and responsible. Decide logically what should be done and work toward it steadily, regardless of distractions. Take pleasure in making everything orderly and organized - their work, their home, their life. Value traditions and loyalty.

My parents left home at about 4am and walked 5 to 6 miles to the train station to get to work. Half a mile away they left my brother & sister at the child minding people.

Started school at 4 years so need to take myself to school.

It was a cold place to live in winter so the heater was very special.

Was give an onion bag of KGV's on paper to sort and if I sorted them I could turn on one bar on the heater. Totally fell in love with sorting stamps on paper.

Memories...........treasured times.