My First Stamp Collection: As First Appeared in the Newsletter of the Las Vegas Stamp Club Newsletter in 2001

When I think of my first stamp collection, I look back at that time with a sense of awe and excitement of having my very own stamps.

I got the stamps from old letters that I had found up in an old dresser in the attic. The stamps were in fairly good condition and I put them in a makeshift album that I had created. Well, I wasn't so good at putting them in the way they were supposed to be and I didn't always take the paper from the envelopes off before putting the stamps in the album, but I thought they were the neatest thing I had found up in that old place in years. I had stamps from Germany, England, Japan, France, Canada and some old stamps from the United States.

As time went on I found other hobbies and interests to look into so I put my stamps up and forgot about them for a time. For years even after I had gotten married and moved away, the old stamps were at my mother's place in an old box where I had my mementos stored up. I never once thought that I would have need for them again; I thought that I was done with stamp collecting because I was too old for that kind of thing. Little did I know how wrong I was.

It was after that we had our second child that I had rediscovered stamp collecting. I began enjoying it again because it was fun to do for myself, and I thought it was something that I could get my kids involved in as a family activity when they were older. I also found that stamp collecting was relatively inexpensive and that I could spend as much, or as my case was with two little ones, or as little as I wanted to; I found that this wasn't the case with other hobbies that included a lot of hidden costs.
After I began stamp collecting again, I often wondered about my old stamp collection. Could I still use the stamps that were there in the old pages? Would it be hard to get the stamps off the pages, or would I destroy them in the process?

My question was answered on one of my trips to home. I had come across my old stamp collection while rummaging through my box of mementos, and was surprised to find the pages still intact and the stamps unharmed. I quickly spirited the collection away upon my return home where I started to incorporate it into my current collection.