Mawkish, Cloying, Treacly

There is a tendency sometimes to make things overly sentimental, schmaltzy, saccharine. Overly sentimental, desperately trying to attach some deep meaning or historic life-lesson connection to everyday pursuits or hobbies.

I got watching this Silk on the Web video. I'm listening to it right now, albeit in another tab, while I'm blogging this. He inherits a small glassine envelope and a pair of stamp tongs from his grandfather. Of course that got me thinking back to any gooey, overly-sweet, nostalgic moments or memories I similarly had from my early years of stamp collecting.

As the title of this blog says, my brother, sister and I would "work stamps" with my Dad. It was his term, of unknown origin, which in no way implied it was work. Not labour, maybe a labour of love. A way to connect with his kids. "You can't go wrong with British Colonials, you know." Something to do on a snowy afternoon before Al Gore invented the internet. (He did, you know.)

His approach must have been semi-serious, but I did not feel that working stamps was overly stressful or scholarly, much less work. I still enjoy seeing each stamp I encounter, even if I don't keep it or need it. I really enjoy sorting through them. Who knows what will turn up next? And, among my (so-far) five Traveler albums, not my original one because I opened the binding and added binder rings to expand it. 

I have 'inherited' three stamp collections. One from my Dad, one from my maternal grandfather including my Mom's, and one from an overseas penpal. I always thought my Dad's was THE stamp collection. The one by which all other collections were measured. It was not. I've realized that I have collected many more, nicer stamps than he had, although he certainly bested mine when it came to age, including one set his father bought to commemorate my Dad's year of birth. My penpal's collection was interesting, based on only a couple of countries. My grandfather's was full of old, small definitives from many years ago. Some unhelpful person had valuated then removed some of the higher catalogue-value ones. My Mom's little cardboard-cover album contained what she once told me were my grandfather's doubles - the ones he didn't want. She stuck them in her album with some sense of duty, it seemed. Something they worked on together as the attenuating ash dangled dangerously from the end of his lit cigarette.

Silk on the Web promotes not the monetary value of our collections in the above linked video, but rather the enjoyment, the pride, the relaxation, the educational, intangible benefits of stamp collecting.

In an upcoming post, I'll include some non-sentimental photos of these collections I've 'inherited'. Like any stamp collections, they are kept or disposed of based on the emotional connection to the person who curated them. And it doesn't have to be for any of those mushy, melodramatic, dreamy reasons.