Ohio stamp collectors featured

The Defiance Crescent News of Defiance,Ohio ran a nice story by Lisa Nicely on several local stamp collectors.

Garold Cook (pictured holding a copy of Linn's which he calls the Bible of stamp collecting) got started collecting while working at the post office.

"We had this one gentleman come in all the time. I asked him why he collected stamps. He told me something I'll never forget. He said 'stamps inflate faster than anything else.' And he was right. He gave me a lot of advice including to always watch for misprints."

Mitchel Whitehouse, who also subscribes to Linn's Stamp News, is quoted as saying, "It's just a hobby I can afford actually. It's affordable to everybody. You can buy a hundred (used) stamps for $1. Most people start collecting them off the mail."

Elias Manz doesn't consider himself a very active collector. He likes to collect the mint sets the U.S. Postal Office issues once a year. Mint sets have all the stamps sold that year in them.
The mint sets started in 1972.

"I have every year as far as I know," Manz said. "That was mostly what I collected. At first they were $7-8, now they run $60 a year."

To read the entire article, click here.