Unusual Gifts - Help start a stamp collection this christmas
Unusual gifts are often the best and those that are remembered lifelong and here's our idea. Have you thought of giving a child a gift of a stamp collection starter kit maybe as an unusual gift for their birthday or maybe for christmas? All you need is a bag of Kiloware and a stamp album (and maybe some stamp hinges!) Interested? Then read on.....
As a parent, I know how easy it is to get sucked in to buying presents that are new, flash, and, let's face it, normally electronic. Kids want xboxes, mobile phones, PS3s, Ipods because that's all they see on TV and most people don't have the brains to think of unusual gifts that enable them to break free from all this over hyped rubbish. Then they want all the games and accessories for those, then they get bored because they have too much choice. You can spend hundreds of pounds on christmas presents which give literally a few hours of enjoyment and depreciated by 60% overnight and that's depressing isn't it?
Stamp collecting appears to be in terminal decline amongst younger people. I guess this is because we don't get stamps on our mail very often any more. Most people buy online via places like Ebay or Amazon and most of the mail we receive is now printed postage which is of far less interest than when it was made up of actual postage stamps. Because kids don't get to see all the wierd and wonderful postage stamps that they would have done if they were born 20 years ago, it's hardly surprising that they fail to develop a curiousity and interest in philately. So is all hope lost for the future of stamp collecting?
Well, maybe not, that's if people like you do their bit to try to encourage tomorrow's stamp collectors. And how can you do that? It's easy. Most children get interested in history when at primary school, and while (unfortunately) you can't buy tudor era stamps (tudors seem to be very popular with kids at the moment), you can, of course, buy Victorian stamps and beyond. Kids love to learn, and they learn best when it's fun.
So, what would be a brilliant christmas present to give to a child if you don't want to give video games and modern plastic junk? You can't probably guess what my answer is going to be.... you can give them a starter stamp collection. But won't it be boring and pointless if you give a child somebody else's old stamp collection, and won't it be too expensive to buy a stamp collection for a child who might not be interested?
Yes and Yes so this is where a bit of ingenuity comes in! Where can you find large bags of stamps for sale which are unsorted and may contain all sorts of wierd and wonderful stamps to fire the imagination? Kiloware on Ebay that's where! What's Kiloware? It's the stamps that charities often sell after collecting unwanted stamps to raise funds and in may cases they end up with tons of stamps and they get split up by weight, bagged and sold as unsorted stamps. In other words, instead of giving a child a boring already sorted stamp collection, you can give them the unsorted beginnings of a brilliant and fascinating stamp collection that doesn't have to cost more than a few pounds! With your encouragement and a little organisation, they can put down the Match Attax, Moshi monsters, Doctor Who or whatever other contrived pointless collectors cards they're currently pestering for (at 50p - £1 a pack!) and get going with stamp collecting instead. A hobby that can potentially absorb and entertain them for the rest of their lives. Aren't kiloware stamps a scam? No, they are a very cheap and excellent way to start a stamp collection. You can buy for example, 400 used stamps either on or off paper on ebay for around £5 or less! Add an album and you're looking at a complete and real life stamp collecting starter kit that's going to cost somewhere around £10!
Give a child the gift of stamp collecting this christmas and nobody can say you didn't come up with the best unusual gifts!
