My interest on Stamps

When I was a child I had a knack of collecting everything. Everything and anything small or big that interested me, I collected. I even cut out pictures from Newspapers and pasted them neatly in a piece of paper. I remember collecting bus local tickets at one time. Once it got to the point that my room was cluttered with lots of collectible materials but my family considered them junk.

As I wrote in my previous blog, I had special interest in stamps since my father collected them. He was not a professional collector but he always bought mints and first day covers on the first day of issue and kept them neatly. I also remember helping him taking stamps out of envelopes, and drying them in a cloth to dry.

I remember going to a stamp exhibition around 1980 or 1981 in Kathmandu, and getting impressed by the collection and the exhibits there. I even received small packets of used stamps from the Philatelic Society.

Stamps have always fascinated me but nowadays due to technological advancements, their usage has become limited. We used our emails and do internet shopping more than writing a note in a piece of paper. I love writing letters, but I like using a nice fountain pen on crisp plain ivory bonded paper with watermark. Though the writing style may not have changed but the art of writing has definitely changed. And licking stamps to affix them on the envelopes? That kind of charm is there no more. We have premade stamps readily available in our computers and use pre cancelled stamps. No more of stamp licking in the future I assume……

But it is definitely interesting since this hobby is evolving with time and heading towards new direction.