Kids Learn About Stamp Collecting At Post Office Tour

By Andrew Gorosko

Sorting through scores of multicolored postage stamps strewn across a table, 26 eager small hands swiftly checked the colorful shards of government-issued paper while organizing them by size, shape, and color.

The 13 children ranging from age 3 through 8, with their parents in tow, learned about stamp collecting inside the Botsford Post Office last Saturday afternoon.

As surging intermittent downpours occurred outside, Botsford Postmaster Nancy Kuszpa initiated the children into the world of stamp collecting, explaining some distinctions between the various types of stamps issued by governments throughout the world.

The stamp-collecting session occurred in a place that citizens rarely see, the interior spaces of a post office. The brightly lit room is framed by the back ends of post office boxes, whose front ends face a lobby where Botsford’s postal patrons pick up their daily mail.

The various carts, bins, trays, and boxes used to hold the thousands of pieces of mail that pass through the post office daily had been moved out of the way to make room for the youths’ first crack at stamp collecting.

Offering them the use of her personal stock of cancelled stamps that were still affixed to envelope fragments, Ms Kuszpa urged the youths to select stamps with designs that interest them to generate a spark that might ignite a philatelic hobby.

The cancelled stamps, which were cut away from their envelopes, were placed in small bowls of water, where they sat soaking for about 15 minutes, until their adhesive backing dissolved. After being removed from the water bowls, the stamps were left out to dry, after which they could be mounted for display.

Stamp collecting can become an involving hobby, Ms Kuszpa told the attentive children, explaining that she has collected 67 stamps that include flag images.

To prime their stamp collecting hobbies, Ms Kuszpa told the youths that any time they return to the Botsford Post Office they are welcome to look through her personal stock of stamps and select a stamp that interests them to be added to their collections.

The children who took the post office tour last Saturday live in area towns, Ms Kuszpa said. Some of those children’s parents are postal patrons who use the more than 500 postal boxes within the Botsford Hill Road facility.

A postal service employee for the past 24 years, Ms Kuszpa became Botsford’s postmaster in April. She said she plans to conduct more programs for the public. The post office telephone number is 426-4465.