Please Mr Postman

Last night, Little Man and I went to a presentation by the Sioux Falls Stamp Club that was held at our local library. I was about my son's age when I started collecting stamps myself, and it continued into my early teens.
I actually was part of a long line of stamp collectors. My great grandparents and grandfather collected European stamps, my mother and aunt also had stamp collections. So, Little Man will be carrying on a family tradition.
It's fairly easy to get started, with very little investment. To begin you need:

Stamps
An album
Tongs or tweezers
Hinges to mount stamps

There are a variety of albums, from using a photo album, to a stock book to more expensive albums. When I was collecting, I used a hard bound sketch book. Hinges are how you mount stamps in your album, and are like photo mounts for a scrapbook.

There are a variety of stamps to collect. Some people collect only US postage, others collect world stamps, or themes like butterflies (as a gentleman last night did. He had a fascinating collection) or, as my son suggested, cars.

It was so exciting to see my son jazzed about something that excited me when I was about the same age. I liked learning about the different countries or people featured on the stamps, and I think it would be a great learning experience for him too!