...Funny thing about albums.
First, they hold memories – preserve remembrances of your son’s 10th birthday party somewhere in a busy downtown restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, the volleyball tournament on the beach that hot summer day, the forbidden snap shot of a famous painting in the museum that you got reprimanded for, security guards threatening to boot you out of the premises.
That’s probably the first album you pluck out of the dusty shelves to show to friends – so that you can tell them how a police officer in Paris gave you that stern, warning look and all you could say was “oui, monsieur, je m’excuse.”
Second, this whole thing about albums may have given rise to a craze called scrap booking. An offshoot most likely, but who knows how long it will be around. All of a sudden there are web sites promoting the hobby of scrap booking. Stores in your neighborhood are setting up shop selling all things big and small relating to scrap booking...

...Stamp collecting opens our eyes to foreign travel, and while we are not able to travel to every country on earth in our lifetime, our stamp collection will show us lands and sites that we have not yet explored, and introduce us to a country’s flora and fauna, of high powered hydroelectric dams, of cliffs and mountains that no human has dared to venture out to.
Jim Watson says that anyone who starts stamp collecting can proceed at his own pace and at his own whim, but stamp collecting – or the field of philately – is a disciplined field of study...

...Envelopes / First Day Covers
When stamp collectors save the envelopes that have stamps on them, it is called collecting first day covers or simply “covers” for short. This is an interesting branch of stamp collecting because the covers actually provide information about a certain major event.
Three components go into a first day cover: the envelope, stamp and postmark. The last component – postmark – is the key element as it signals the date on which a particular stamp was cancelled. Generally, the United States Postal Service releases a stamp in one city on the day before a new issue is sold. A new stamp that is issued is often a cause of celebration.
Commemoratives
Commemoratives are stamps that highlight or “commemorate” a person or event. For example the first landing on the moon by American astronauts produced a commemorative stamp to call attention to this milestone. While the stamp may be pretty, the first day cover is more meaningful because it contains information about the event.
Another interesting commemorative was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. In Canada, the first day cover was issued in a town called “Coronation” in Alberta!...

...Join a club of collectors. It doesn’t have to be a fancy, high-brow club if you’re just starting. First, learn the basics and when you decide you’re ready to specialize, then join a larger club -one that’s a regional chapter, instead of just a community-based organization.
By joining clubs, you get to enlarge your collection because fellow collectors will give you their duplicates. When you’ve set saved enough money, you can buy stamps like most collectors do.
This involves looking for a dealer; make sure the dealer has a good reputation and is authorized to engage in the trade.
They usually put ads in newspapers and magazines, and will join a trade show in your town or city. You can write dealers to ask if they would send you stamps on approval, meaning they’ll send you a set, you keep what you want and return the rest...

...Very low quality stamps are poor stamps. They could have a tear or may be creased, even have thin spots. Keep them only if they are irreplaceable. It’s now time to open your album and mount your stamps. Make sure you have your magnifier, tongs and catalogs ready. Remember that good quality albums will provide plenty of room for you to manipulate your stamps with ease.
Each place for a stamp is also clearly marked. In some albums, images of the stamps are printed so all you need to do is mount the stamp over where the image is...