Those Franklins!

In our basement store room, my childhood stamp collection is stored in a box. I had fun with that hobby for a few ears, around when I was eleven or twelve. At that time, my parents and I shopped in the downtown St. Louis department stores, which now run together in my mind, but either Stix, Baer & Fuller or Famous Barr had a counter with collectible stamps for sale. Dad bought me an album and helped me pick out interesting stamps.

I liked then-recent stamps like the half-cent pictured here. In my album I had stamps of different amounts from a half-cent up to ten or twenty cents, and quite a few commemoratives. Dad was touched when he told me the story of the Four Chaplains, honored on a 1948 3-cent stamp. The half-cent had our founding father's balding, deep-eyed and placid expression familiar on the hundred-dollar bill.

Funny to think of the prices of things. A letter required a 5 cent stamp until 1968 when the price went up to 6 cents. When I was collecting, the first two U.S. stamps from 1847 were for sale for $50 and $125. Dad was generous with me but didn't want to spend that much money, and I don't blame him. At that time, $50 represented three or four major trips to the grocery store for our family of three. Today, if I wanted those 1847 stamps, they're each going for $500 and up on eBay. Now, that's also three or four major trips to the grocery! Get your Franklins ready.