…in a previous kinda reminiscent post, I mentioned about pen-pals and the dearth of that endangered species since the advent of the Internet… a corollary to that may well be the receding interest in philately (stamp-collecting, Mabel…no, not the Green Shield stickers yeez get for shopping at yer local mart—postage stamps)… at one time, I can recall almost everybody in our school had a stamp collection… the interest grew from sticking a few used peeled-off stamps from letters received from people who happened to have uncles and aunties living overseas… some relatives  were in the Armed Forces and travelled all round  the WURLD and many other places… progressively, the more advanced hoarders traded amongst themselves, with a few entrepreneurial souls acting as ‘agents’ for the biggest Philately-Providers-Paradise—Stanley Gibbons of London… wee packages of assorted bunches of low-priced stamps scattered among more targeted issues of a price…