Clancy Mason caught up with local librarian and philatelist, Pam Hampton, who is recruiting new members for her Junior Stamp Club at Central Library.
CM: What is Junior Stamp Club and who is it for?
PH: Junior Stamp Club is aimed at young people aged 8 years and older.
CM: Typically what takes place in a session?
PH: As a group we look at stamps we may have acquired since the last session, I sometimes show stamps from my own collection or stamps from a collection I may be breaking up or preparing for a sale or auction. We also look to find stamp catalogue numbers and research how much an item may cost.
Looking though the stamps often starts a discussion about certain events or people in history, or about different countries. One of my stamp club members, who is 10 years, summed it up in a nutshell: ‘Stamp collecting is good because you can learn a lot about everything because you will find a stamp with it on’.
CM: Do you need any special tools or equipment to participate?
PH: Basic tools a philatelist will need are flat ended tweezers which look a little like a tiny spade and a magnifying glass.
Each new member of Junior Stamp Club receives a free welcome pack which contains the following:
Tweezers
Magnifying glass
Stock book
Hinges (for fixing stamps)
CM: When is it, where and what time?
PH:We meet every fortnight in the Talbot Room, Central Library at 2pm from 11th January.
There is no need to book, just turn up. Parents are welcome to sit in. The sessions are free.
CM: What is your own stamp ‘history’? Do you have an interesting story to tell? What do you enjoy about it?
PH: My own passion for stamps started when I was 7 years old at my junior school stamp club. We met on a weekly basis, stamp collecting in the 70s was much more common than it is now!
I never envisaged from starting my hobby that it would eventually lead me to running my own company, Spring Action Stamps, which has been running since 2009. As a company we run a large auction in April each year and two additional postal auctions throughout the year. We also attend stamp fairs, we break up collections to make ready for resale, we value collections and will undertake any other related commissions.
I still continue to collect stamps, there is always something new to find, to talk about and to research. In my own collection I have 140 albums of stamps and 5 packing crates. I’m particularly partial to anything with a penguin on it! I love the stamp collection community, I’ve swapped stamps with people all over the world.
If you are aware of any juniors who may be interested in Junior Stamp Club, please do encourage them to pop along.
For more information, contact Pam Hampton on 01253 478080 or at [email protected]
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