Fill your own “A Stamp for Every Country” Album

One of the most daunting and imporatnnt things that all collectors should attempt is getting kids to develop and interest in stamps.
This looks like a good idea but in reality,  I rather doubt it will help much.   I was a Boy Scout leader for many years and a few times every year I would break out the stamps at a meeting trying to get them interested.  I'd throw out a big pile on the table and let them go through them and pick out the ones they liked and keep them.  They all seemed interested at the moment but in all the years attempting this I had only one boy that started collecting but I don't know if he continued with it..  It's Pretty sad really as we all know what a great hobby it is with limitless things to learn from it..

I see another couple ways that these pages could be used by seasoned collectors.  They would work great for a collection of number 1's of each country.
It would also be neat to put your best or favorite stamp from each country in the spaces provided.

I don't want to sounds like we shouldn't encourage kids to take up collecting stamps. But, I am often curious that this so often seems to be the main way to encourage growth in the hobby. I'd like to forward the argument that the main focus for growth aught to be more like the middle age groups, say 30-50 years old. One piece of this argument is that stamp collecting costs a bit of money. The perspective audience will need have a bit of disposable income. Even though there are many many stamps out there that have a very minimal catalogue value, there are a number of other costly items even a beginner would need or benefit from. Alblums, stock books, and binders aren't necessarily cheap. Then you factor in tongs, a good magnifier, catalogues, and other research materials and you have to lay out a decent chunk of change without buying a single stamp. Further it could be argued, that even for a beginner, it doesn't take long before the interest and desire for some of the more expensive (more interesting even) issues takes root.

Second, I will put forward that collecting stamps demands a certain focus, and ability to sit still that many of today's youth would struggle to endure. With the constant barrage of stimulation from various media devices it seems a common concern for health experts that the modern youth seems to have a smaller attention span than generations past. Without delving too deeply into this subject, I feel that a certain level of maturity is required to achieve the focus and attention required to really get into the hobby.

Though I would certainly support encouraging youth to get involved in the hobby; sometimes I feel more attention should be spent on trying to encourage an audience with the money and maturity to truly appreciate it.

Mitch, my story would be quite similar to yours, except the dates would be about 15 years later.

There were still a handful of ads for approval companies found in general-interest publications, and the Woolworths and Ben Franklin stores accessible to me still had stamp sections.

It was not wildly popular among others my age, so the fade was fully on by the late '70s and early '80s.