Press Release and Starter Kit Additions

I have sent out (and will probably send out more as more sites are discovered) the formal press release announcing "Kids Need Stamps" into formal existence. Apparently, you are nobody until you send out a release. No doubt this will bring more parents into our family of collectors and would-be collectors hoping to spark a new fire of curiosity into their children.

I received an email today from someone complaining the term "parents" somehow leaves out single parents. I ask folks to understand this is a stamp club seeking to promote stamp collecting between parents and children as a means of education, fun and parental bonding.

We discussed and will put into place starter sheets that assist parents with basic stamp collecting terms, definitions and country identification information. The country id sheets will be a big help because so much has happened to countries just in the past 40 years. Name changes like Burma to Myanmar. And many foreign stamps do not print their name with american pronunications such as the country Norway, it writes "Norge" on its stamps.

Many countries also use Cyrillic, Arabic letters or Asian ideograms. We provide basic lists for these as well as easy to use markers that help you spot them fast without even referring to the sheet. Most modern Japanese stamps will say "Nippon" on them for Japan. Yet older Japanese stamps are written in japanese ideograms and the very best way to spot them is to notice the Chrysanthemum circular flower symbol at the top or middle of the stamp. The Chrysanthemum is the national flower of Japan.