Stamp Collecting Month

According to the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, October is National Stamp Collecting Month. The museum has a variety of activities and events planned for the month, including A Postal Party on the Hill for those who are in the Washington, D.C., area tomorrow, Oct. 16.

If you can't get to the museum, take a look at some of the online exhibits, including the Alphabetilately exhibit, which is on display for the next year at the museum, but is also viewable online. From "Advertising Covers" to "Zeppelin Post," the exhibit shares stamps from A to Z.

The museum Web site features all sorts of fun and interesting information about stamps. For example, the site has a little boxed  called "This Day in Postal History." For Oct. 15, it says,

"October 15, 1920
Inaugural airmail service begins between Seattle and Victoria, Canada. The service is operated by Hubbard Air Transport and was set up to expedite mail from the far east."

 Looks like they have a couple of items for today's date, so it may be a little different when you log on.

To tell you the truth, I hadn't given much thought to stamps in a long time, before I started this letter writing project. Well, I always liked to get holiday stamps for my Christmas cards, but otherwise, I didn't  pay much attention to the stamps. Then, I started finding pen pals who are interested in the stamps, so I started looking for interesting stamps.

I remember when we lived in Winnsboro, Louisiana, when I was a teenager and had several international pen pals...the post office clerk would ask if I wanted some "purty" (pretty) stamps. I always did.