I don’t collect stamps, but I do always have them on my person.
It started back in 2001, when I first received Youth Allowance as a university student. Youth Allowance requires fortnightly income reporting, and this couldn’t be done online until 2004 or so, so for some time I was used to walking to Centrelink with my form and waiting in line for up to 45 minutes with everyone else dropping off their form and/or asking questions about their payments. After a few months, I realised that it would be better to invest in a book of stamps and post it to them instead, even though this put me out 45c or so and resulted in the payment being a day later.
Ever since then I’ve still found myself posting just enough things that I still buy a new book of 20 stamps every time I run out. It’s admittedly a little bit self-perpetrating; I usually prefer email, but already owning stamps and envelopes occasionally means that it’s easier to post something than to scan and track down an email address, and it’s always easier to post than to fax.
So over the years I’ve had and farewelled numerous Australian stamps. There was a tropical fish one around for a long long time that I was quite fond of. However, in the last year or so I’ve wondered if Australian stamps are undergoing a boringness challenge or something. It started a year or 18 months ago with Tourist Precints of Australia, featuring pictures of The Rocks in Sydney and South Bank in Brisbane and such. I think I went through two or three books of that before it finally vanished from sale. That was followed fairly recently by Agricultural Products of Australia, which had the benefit of nice simple colours (oranges for example, or the creamy merino staring out of the stamp) and I used to preferentially send my parents, who farm beef cattle, cattle stamps, but otherwise didn’t do much for me.
But I think it’s reached a new low, frankly. I’m down to my last few oranges and merinos and popped in to get a new book the other day. This year, if you get mail from me, watch out for Government Houses of Australia. You’re welcome.