Stamping Away ....

I am never a collector, as in I do not go around buying antiques or things which only the rich and famous collect, but I do have my own little collection of stuff. When I was younger, I used to collect more things but now only very few things are left.

I used to have a collection of saga seeds and seashells, but these were thrown away when we shifted house. What a pity, these had rather great sentimental values for me. I used to have lots of stickers too, but after exchanging with my friends when I was young and giving to my students as rewards, my stickers had depleted.

Hence, the only things left are my coin, notes and stamp collection. I have a booklet of coins from almost all over the world. I cannot remember how I got it. I think it was when my dad brought it home one day and I took it. That is rather precious indeed.

The next one is a note collection, not an official one though. I just keep some of the older local currencies which have been discontinued. I do not have that many though, my guy is the one that has a more vast note collection than me, and he gave me a few in every denomination.

The one that is still ongoing is my stamp collection. Strangely, not many people I know collect stamps. I always thought stamp collecting is more common than any other types of collection, but none of my own friends collect stamps. Just as well, then the stamps can be exclusively my own!

I have been collecting stamps since I was ten. I first started when my mum got a letter from China, and I saw the stamps were so beautiful that I tried to remove them from the envelope. Then my mum found out and taught me the right way to remove stamps - to soak the envelopes in water until the stamps dropped out, then leave the stamps out to dry.

I find that method too troublesome, so mostly I just peel off the stamps carefully. If the stamps are glued so tightly that I am not able to remove them, I will then use a scissors to cut them off, with the pieces of envelope still stuck to them.

After that, each time mail came in, I would collect the mails and peel off the stamps. My parents helped out by taking home the envelopes from their office correspondence and helped me remove the stamps and my mum bought me a stamp album to store them.

As a result, within a year, my stamp collection grew from local to Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand (courtesy of my maid at that time), Philippines (my new maid after that), China, Australia, and countries which my parents work places were dealing with.

My most prized possession then was a triangular-shaped stamp from Malaysia. This was the one and only stamp that was triangular in shape, but when my little Australian cousin (little then, he is an adult now) saw it, he asked me for it so I gave it to him.

I even ordered exclusive Disney stamps featuring Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. I initially wanted that as my collection, but since the same cousin wanted it, I gave him the entire Disney collection.

Then I started making pen-pals, partly to write, partly to correspond and find out about other countries, and partly for the stamps of course. So I started having stamps from Britain, USA, Canada, Greece, France, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Hong Kong, Pakistan and some other places which I cannot remember for now.

Even after most of my pen-pals and I have stopped corresponding, I still remove the stamps from the envelopes I see at home. My friends and exs helped me out as well by giving me the stamps from their daily mail.

Now that I work in a company with subsidiaries overseas, I get to see more stamps. Recently, I get to see stamps from Guam and British Virgin Islands. Two countries which I never have correspondence from, thus I have never seen the stamps.

The stamps are nice actually. Guam is an American territory, so the stamps show the Statue of Liberty. However, I just realised that the British Virgin Islands are also an American territory since they also use American currency in their stamps.

Why is it called British Virgin Islands then? According to information I came across, the Americans just call them Virgin Islands. Are they the same place or different? British Virgin Islands are a group of islands somewhere off Puerto Rico. Lately a lot of local companies are being incorporated there to save on taxes and legal restrictions.

My guy collects stamps too, so now I am in the midst of sorting my stamp collection and giving him half of my stamps, especially stamps from those countries he does not have. Hopefully he will like the stamps I give!