AT 75, The Bluff resident Elizabeth Matthews has turned a childhood fondness into a hobby. When she was younger, her grandfather, Perceval Renwick, started stamp collecting from India where he and Matthews’ father, Norman Henry Francis Renwick, was working.

“While I had always been fascinated by the collection as a child, it wasn’t until my father died in 2019 that my interest in the philatelic hobby really piqued,” she said.

Also read: The Bluff set to hold KZN Philatelic Society stamp fair

Matthews, who only collects stamps from Commonwealth countries, said there is something soothing about collecting stamps. “There’s a sense of calm in it. Knowing you have a collection and you’re missing just one stamp makes it exciting to track it down,” she said.

She added that nobody else in her family had taken up the hobby of stamp collecting after her father’s passing. “I just took it upon myself because I was bored living alone, and I wanted to see the real fascination behind it,” she said.

“My favourite collections of stamps are the ones that belong to Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore. They have beautiful designs and a wide variety of stamps,” she said.

Matthews explained how the process of gathering stamps is quite simple. “I use a catalogue of world stamps where each different stamp is assigned a number. I write the stamp numbers down in a book and when I attend auctions, I look specifically for the stamp numbers that I wrote down,” she said.

However, Matthews explained that attending auctions is not always the easiest at her age and for the older members of society. Fortunately, the KZN Philatelic Society has a system in place to lighten the burden a little for its members. “Each member gets a monthly box filled with booklets of stamps and order sheets. We can browse through the booklets, place our orders and pay, and send the box on to the next member in the circuit,” she said.

“This is much easier for me as not only do I not need to travel but I can browse through the booklets in my own time instead of rushing under the auction time.

“The hobby is anything but monotonous with such a variety of stamps from various countries. It’s amazing to me how different they are from country to country in design, colour and printing techniques,” she said.

Matthews said she keeps all her stamps in scrapbooks, some of them more than 20 years old. While Matthews doesn’t have a specific order of organising, she said she tends to organise by country as well as the date of the stamp.

“It is slightly more than just collecting stamps; it is something almost like a tradition that has been in my family that I hope to continue.”

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