When I was little, I wanted to have a collection. I was fairly young at the time. But I can remember (loosely) having this conversation with my dad. He collected coins all throughout his life.
But, at that time, he also had some stamps.
He asked me if I’d like to start a stamp collection, and buddy, I was all in.
He showed me how to soak a stamp from an envelope, and that is where my collection would begin. I could have any discarded envelopes that had been mailed to our house. I could start taking the stamps from them. I don’t know if it was my next birthday or Christmas, but I got a “stamp collection kit.” It was the kind that you could order from the back of a comic book or magazine. It had stamps from all around the world and a little book that I could put them in with these tiny, hard-to-use, adhesive foldy-things.
Anyway, my collecting days didn’t last long. I moved on to other things. Like rocks.
I can remember throwing my stamp collection in the trash when I moved out of my parent’s house after high school.
I was reminded about all of this when I read the news the other day. It was about a philatelist, which is the technical term for a stamp collector.
The story talked about a big whig in the philatelist world. His name is Bill Gross. He’s famous because he has assembled the most complete collection of US stamps in history.
Recently, old Bill sold more than 100 of his rare stamps at auction. One of those became the most expensive stamp ever sold. That one stamp went for $4.4 million. It was an 1868 one-cent “Z Grill” featuring Benjamin Franklin.
For those who are wondering about a “Z Grill.” The Z Grill stamp is a rare 1-cent postage stamp issued by the United States Postal Service in February 1868. It features an image of the aforementioned Benjamin Franklin. It’s named for its zigzag pattern, which is considered the rarest of the grill shapes used on stamps. Alrighty then.
My biggest take on this? Who spends $4.4 million on a stamp? I mean, really. That’s a lot of Ka-Ching. And I’ll just say it right now. If you have $4.4 million to spend on a stamp, you have too much money. The post office is selling them for about 68¢ each right now. Heck. You can buy a book of 20 for $13.60.
I think I didn’t stick with collecting as a kid because I don’t have that “collecting” characteristic in me. Sure, I pick up a lot of rocks, but that is about the only thing that would even come close to a collection of mine.
These days, I seem to be mostly trying to collect my thoughts.
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“The love of collecting passes through its own stages—first, a passion for the chase, for the acquisition; next, a joy in holding, and finally, a joy in giving to another collector.” — Will and Ariel Durant
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“Collect things you love, that are authentic to you, and your house becomes your story.” — Erin Flett
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“The joy of collecting is inversely proportional to the space available.” — Susan Magsamen
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The Stamp Collector. Not.
