What's the point of collecting stamps?

Stamp collecting has far-reaching significance. Pavlov, a famous physiologist, is a stamp collector and everyone is familiar with him. Engels, a famous socialist revolutionary mentor, Gorky, a great writer, and several American presidents are also stamp collectors. The most famous is Roosevelt, who likes collecting stamps since he was a child. During his presidency, he used his busy state affairs to continue collecting and sorting stamps to adjust his spirit, and he also implemented some measures conducive to development activities. Roosevelt once said at a stamp exhibition: "stamp collectors get so many benefits that it is difficult to explain what the greatest benefit of this hobby is, but in any case, the happiness provided by stamp collecting proves that our hobby is desirable, and the compensation we get is the price we pay."

Jiang Ye, a famous stamp collector in China, once wrote a story in his book Stamp Collecting and My Lifestyle. In order to find a new 9-cent silver ticket for Wanshou reprint, I searched everywhere for 20 years and finally got it. He said: "When I took this new 9-cent silver ticket, I was as happy as Columbus discovered the new continent."

Indeed, stamp collecting is a world full of knowledge and interest. In this world, people can learn all kinds of useful things at any time. It would be more appropriate if "it is beneficial to open books" is used in stamp collection. However, this kind of learning is different from the traditional way of learning in schools. It can make people store useful knowledge in memory, in thoughts and in leisure and entertainment, just like watching movies, traveling scenery and surfing the Internet. Pavlov once said: "My stamp collecting time is the best rest time full of true knowledge and discovery."

Stamps are a country's business card and a small encyclopedia of images. About 200 countries in the world issue stamps. It can be said that all countries and regions try their best to show the most representative and proud things of their countries on stamps, including beautiful scenery, rich products, precious animals, excellent culture and art, advanced scientific and technological inventions, and national major events and outstanding figures in ancient and modern times. Almost all of them can be found on stamps. Different country names and characters on stamps provide people with the history, geography and knowledge of different places. We can say that even a world-class encyclopedia can hardly contain the contents of about 200,000 kinds of stamps that have been issued around the world. Besides, thousands of stamps are born every year. Take the stamps in China as an example. They include the oldest Dalong stamp issued in Qing Dynasty and Fuwa commemorative stamp issued to commemorate the 2008 Olympic Games. It can be said that it includes the modern history of China, including the geography and politics of the motherland and many other aspects.

People living in this information age need to broaden their horizons, know themselves and know the world. We can search through Baidu in WWW and go to the library to browse the book forest, but we can also use our stamps to solve this problem, because stamps are the window to know the world, which provides more favorable conditions than other media. Not only that, stamps can also help us understand the cultural, ideological and emotional exchanges between different countries, nationalities and people.

1955, the United Nations Association of America pointed out in a communique that every stamp passed from one country to another is a friendly messenger, which has narrowed the distance between the two countries, and every stamp circulating in China has shaped the friendly feelings of the people of China.