About Stamp Memories

Whether you're going through kiloware or discount postage, do you spot a stamp and reminisce about attending the first day ceremony many years ago? Or buying such a stamp at a post office long ago?

I remember when I would ask for a Mary Cassatt stamp just to stump the window clerk. To them, it was a "twenty-three" and it didn't matter who was pictured on it.

I have never attended a first day ceremony but certain stamps bring back memories. For example, I went through a collecting spell in 1970 and the 6 cent Maine stamp (Scott #1391) reminds me of that time.

I especially remember going to the post office to buy the $5.00 Marshall, Scott 1053. I used my paper route money to buy it and I still have it.

Jack Kelley

I have this feeling with the US stamps of the early '70s because that's when I was filling in my HE Harris album with the stamps my Mom brought home from her bank job every few days. Back when you could still build a collection off the daily mail.

You are like me, Jack. Our memories get a little fuzzy as the many years go by...

As a teen my meagre earnings went into stamp purchases. In those days - to quote a hoary saying - a nickel was a nickel. In fact it was made of nickle! For reasons long lost I loved FDCs and plate blocks. Two philatelic items that are more or less worthless today. What was I thinking? Oh. I was thinking I was a collector - not an investor. Good thing.

The tiger defins of the Federated Malay States make me wistful as they were the first stamps I remember my late father showing me. They hooked me in and soon after I was helping my father write up and mount his collection of the Malaya area. This was back in the early 80s.

My late father was both a stamp collector and a bicentennial nut. I remember, as a teenager, going with him to the post office in the mid 70s to purchase the new bicentennial related stamp issues. It always brings a smile to my face even now when I see one of those stamps.

Back in the mid-1970's, when I was a young tween / teen, my younger brother was a stamp collector long before I got into the hobby (I collected coins). I remember helping him soak stamps off of paper every week when a new batch of stamps arrived that relatives and neighbors saved for him. Looking at the Bicentennial issues takes me back to those innocent days as a youth.

I remember trading with my friends at their houses and also going to HH Scott with my friends too.

Jack Kelley

In high school (mid-1970s), when new issues were not as prolific as now, I would regularly visit the small local post office and buy a sheet of each new issue. This was a major investment for me. I kept those sheets for 25 years or so before finally breaking them up and using on my outgoing mail.

This was also a time when I pined for the Zeppelin issue (US C13-C15). As posted elsewhere on this board, the cost of Zeppelins has plunged since that time, yet I have a visceral feeling towards the Zeppelins as the real "kings" of US stamp collecting.

Certain stamps still trigger my most pleasant memories.

Back in the late 1960's early 1970's, my grandfather took my brother and I to the monthly stamp show in Maple Shade(?) New Jersey quite often. I still have almost everything from my childhood and sometimes go through the collection. It has peaked my interest lately and I am looking to getting back to collecting. One stamp in particular that brings back great memories is the 8 cent stamp collecting stamp........Time to go through the collection again..........
Robert

A little inspiration. Great memories.

Hi, I lived in an small town, Santa Fee Springs California back in the 1950's. Got to know the postmaster, he let me buy 1930's stamps he still had in stock (it was a very small town). Even bought plate blocks (if I could afford them)

Stampmaster

I remember my first stamp that caught my eye. Scott # 720 USA. What workmanship that stamp has.
That's just how I feel about it.

The "Stamp Collecting" stamp that redwoodrandy posted was the one that got me into collecting, when I was seven years old in 1973. I trimmed the perfs off my earliest acquisitions, maybe a dozen or so, before my uncle (a Serious Collector) taught me the error of my ways.