AN EXERCISE IN MAIL BONDING.Byline: - Nicole Sunkes When Max Lustig began collecting stamps more than 67 years ago, he kept getting stuck. ``My first stamps were French stamps and they had the liberty design on them,'' says Lustig, 72, of West Hills. ``They were all used and I collected them inside the louvers of my grandmother's Victrola. Every time she cleaned the house, she'd she'd 1. Contraction of she had. 2. Contraction of she would. she'd have ~would clean out my collection.'' He started his collection in about 1936, and has been gathering them from around the world since. A 23-year member of the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. Stamp Club (formerly the West Valley Stamp Club), Lustig says his collection takes in tens of thousands of stamps. Fellow club member Edwin Dobies of Chatsworth began his hobby A hobby is a spare-time recreational pursuit. Origin of term A hobby-horse was a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like the real hobby. From this came the expression "to ride one's hobby-horse", meaning "to follow a favourite pastime", and in turn, by digging in post office trash bins for manila Manila (mənĭl`ə), city (1990 pop. 1,601,234), capital of the Philippines, SW Luzon, on Manila Bay. Manila is the center of the country's largest metropolitan area, its chief port, and the focus of all governmental, commercial, industrial, envelopes with high-value stamps. He was about 8 years old. He compares his lifelong affection for stamps to some people's passion for sports. ``I got interested in it and I never lost the interest,'' says Dobies, 72. ``Sort of the same reason boys follow baseball: You do it when you're young, you do it all your life. You get hooked hooked adverb Addicted on it. It gets in your blood. Same thing with stamps.'' Today, Dobies travels quite a bit and picks up stamps along the way. But he says that as a child, stamp collecting gave him a glimpse into another world. ``With TV and Internet, the Internet, the, international computer network linking together thousands of individual networks at military and government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, industrial and financial corporations of all sizes, and commercial enterprises world has become a very small place,'' Dobies says. ``When I was young, and most of the members were young, the world was a very big place and all foreign countries were exotic, and if you had stamps from there, it was really something special.'' Stamps can be collected by topics, including musicians, countries and airplanes. Generally, stamps are stored in albums and can be a very affordable hobby - they can cost anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars each. The meetings include an auction, raffle, trading and lectures by guest speakers. Meetings are held at 7 p.m. the first Tuesday First Tuesday is a networking forum for technology entrepreneurs, companies seeking venture capital, investors and related service providers. Founded in 1998, First Tuesday now has 38,000 members and the 10 branches across Europe host meetings on the first Tuesday every month. of every month in the conference room of the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce, 10038 Old Depot Plaza Road, near the Chatsworth Metrolink station. For more information, call Dobies at (818) 998-5526 or Lustig at (818) 346-5795. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Edward Dobies of Chatsworth, a member of the San Fernando Valley Stamp Club, shows off a small sample of his collection. Evan Yee/Staff Photographer |
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