"Let's Work Stamps"...

 ...as my Dad might say on a winter weekend afternoon. Kid(s) would grab their Traveler albums and gather with him around the dining room table. Hence the name of this blog. The term loosely referred to laying out, organizing, soaking, arranging, and ultimately placing stamps in our albums. Everything had to be cleared away by suppertime.

Each of us had a Traveler album, perhaps with cardboard homemade stock sheets. The stamps would have been common, inexpensive ones. Others would be mint Canada issues.

My Dad and I would make Saturday trips to McIntyre's stamp shop on Brock Street just below Wellington (present-day view, above). Stamps were stored in binders on wall-mounted shelves on the left. Coins were in bins on a table in the centre of the store. Albums and supplies were displayed on the right side. There was a back room and probably a big, heavy safe! Smoking was permitted, encouraged, and partaken in by the proprietor.

Junior collectors like me were offered the two-cent, four-cent and six-cent books. Everything inside each binder was available for that flat rate. A pair of tongs, a pencil and a piece of paper were provided and I was expected to keep a running total. At the end of the visit, the stamps were carefully put into a glassine by the owner and payment was made by Dad.

Later, John Meiboom joined the staff and the store's neon sign, then reading "McIntyre & Meiboom'. There is little trace of our favourite Saturday-morning haunt.