I have always wanted to collect stamps. From my early days, when stamp collecting was much more popular, I’d gathered a few stamps and learned the names of many countries in their native languages. I believe that my first set of foreign stamps came from a 50 cent order in the back of Boys’ Life Magazine. None-the-less, I left the hobby behind sometime in grade school.
Lately, I decided to start gathering a few ham radio related stamps. This urge must have started during the 2010 National Scout Jamboree. There were phenomenal lines waiting to purchase the Scouting stamp with first day cover post marks. I didn’t wait in line but some of my staff members in the Jamboree Media Center went several times and they game me a gift of a superb first day cover complete with not only the current Scouting stamp but one of the very old Boy Scouts of America stamps.
In an idle moment or two, I’d searched on e-Bay for some radio amateur stamps. Found quite a few and began bidding on them. Darned if I didn’t end up with a few stashed into a folder. Then I picked up a couple of first day covers and became a bit more enthusiastic. This weekend I won a few more bids and even purchased a small first day cover album to store them in along with storage envelopes and some stamp tongs. I now have a reasonable collection focused on amateur radio, Scouting, and with a particular focus on first day covers. I’ve managed to do all this with probably less than $100. That’s quite a bit cheaper than my ham shack!
My next step is to better organize and preserve the collection and expand it into more Scouting first day covers. I’ll get a flickr photo gallery going one of these days. Let me know if you collect stamps.
Vertalen Nice. I Oostende to the VOA (in Special English) when I was a SWL. About 45 years ago. Bever knew there werd First dat covers. I collected these covers as welk in those days.
Hi Jan, I’m a big fan of the VOA as well. Here’s my story and some QSL cards at https://k5nd.net/2011/06/voice-of-america/ Thanks for your comments. 73, Jim, K5ND
[…] most part, I collect first-day issue envelopes, stamps, and postmarks. I wrote about my hobby in May 2011 and April 2020. I’ve specialized in amateur radio first-day covers, with a few Voice of […]