Saturday, April 18, 2009

My friend a Philatelist!

The day started badly for me as my office bus didn't arrive at the bus stop, I was standing for more than an hour when I was about to leave from the place a replacement bus came.After an uneventful day in the office I left for my friends house.
He s my school friend and I had touch with him over yahoo and orkut over the past few years,last weekend when I was returning from Trichy I met him after a long time.
His hobby is philately and he asked me to come and see his collections. After reaching his home he started showing his excel and how he maintained his collections.Then I got to know the basic facts like first day cover,blocks of four,Commemorative,definitive series etc.It sounded Greek Latin to me first but after 2 hours I too started speaking on those terms.
I was amazed by his collections, in fact he has collected all Commemorative stamps released by post independent India from a 10Rs Gandhiji stamp issued in 1948 to latest ones issued in 2009.Apart from that he had entire collection of miniatures.
It took more than 3 hours to see not even half of his collections. Apart from collecting stamps he was telling about the way he preserves and maintains the stamps,so that it doesn't get damaged or gets old.I gathered lots of useful information from this meeting. He told about a website where we can find all stamps released by India named stampsofindia.
For me hobby is just for time pass reading book or watching TV one way to kill time but from him I learned that hobby is something you do useful in your free time!

No comments: