Well sort of. I took my daughter to the “stamp show” at the Communications Museum near Tokyo Station. It was not what I expected, but the day turned out fairly well.
I had images of many dealers offering a wide variety of stamps and collecting equipment. Instead, there were a very small number of dealers with fairly limited inventory. But my daughter and I both dug deeply in the “10 stamps for 100 yen” basket and emerged with smiles.
These are the unwanted cast-offs from the dealer. Nothing valuable, to be sure, but much of interest to both my daughter and I. She stuck with her interests – large colorful stamps with animals and wildlife. Those, and old Soviet space glory stamps.
As for me, I scooped up a couple dozen oldies from countries which are under-represented in my collection, many countries from South America and Africa.
While at the museum we poked around all three floors but mostly we stuck with stamp stuff. For me, one of the most interesting exhibits was a collection of regional toys, specific to various prefectures in Japan, which have been featured on the annual New Years stamps (see photos).
We’ll probably go again next year, but with a better idea of what to expect, and more small change for the stamp basket.
