Like many of the people around me, my family doesn’t quite understand my interest in philately. It’s not always the cheapest of hobbies since, in addition to needing to purchase many solid storage options, you also have to procure the stamps somehow. With fewer people using snail mail, either purchasing philatelic items directly from post offices or heading to online sellers become your best options. The online world of philatelic sales is incredible and I often use sites like eBay for purchasing specific stamps but what about stamps to help you find your interests within the hobby or to simply beef up your collection?

Thanks to Patreon, I get a medium-sized envelope full of stamps and first-day covers once a month. The awesome Philatelovely has several subscription options to suit any budget and I have to say that having that monthly date with history through philately gives me a tickle. Why? Because of stamps like the one above.

My mom was born and raised in Skopjie, Macedonia. At the time though, it was all under the name of Yugoslavia. And yes, it was under communist rule. But my mom has mostly happy memories growing up there despite what Westerners think life was like under communism. One of those memories actually relates to this stamp issue.

Children’s Week was an annual celebration in Yugoslavia. I couldn’t find too much information about it which I suppose is unsurprising since most English-speaking historians have a very tainted knowledge base of the Balkans. But in this particular year of 1957, my mom was 10 years old and thrilled to be a part of the big Children’s Week parade. She told me about the excitement of many of her friends and classmates to get to go to this event. It was typical of the kids to be dressed in brightly coloured clothes but as my mom came from a poorer area of the city, parents used coloured paper to make decorations for the kids to pin onto their clothes. Alas, Mother Nature had some idea of her own because as the parade began, so to did the rain. Not only did their clothes and everything else get wet but the colour on the paper started to run! My mom and her friends were all rainbow-coloured by the end. I didn’t ask but I’m sure my grandparents got a good laugh when they saw her.

Needless to say, it was pretty amazing to see how one small piece of paper in the form of a stamp could bring back some almost forgotten childhood memories and even better, that I was able to spend some time with my mom learning more about her and the history she lived through. I can’t say that I got her “stamp of approval” on my hobby that day but there’s always more stamps and more histories to uncover!