Stamp collecting highlights

When my sisters and I were kids, Dad set each of us up with postage stamp collections of our own. He took philately – the $5.00 word for stamp collecting – seriously and hoped we would, too. He was partially right in that I enjoyed my collection, but my sisters less so. Dad would acquire his stamps by buying or trading them, or having friends save envelopes with interesting stamps, mostly foreign ones. He’d soak the stamps off later. At that time, collecting was a long standing national craze and participants abounded. I could go on about how absorbing the hobby was. Given my limited number of words for this article, I’ll spare details and focus on what I included in my attached painting.

I was fascinated by how much information was printed on the pages to which I affixed the stamps. Each country had a paragraph on its history and a picture of its flag. I learned where countries are located geographically, what their currency was and who their rulers were. I also appreciated seeing the colorful images of different sizes, shapes and themes.