A good customer of mine asked me to send a copy of my pricelist to her 9 year old granddaughter, Elizabeth, who is just getting interested in collecting stamps. When I sent Elizabeth the pricelist, I included a short, personal message to her and I included a couple of common used stamps that she might find interesting.

Her grandmother sent me an email to say that her granddaughter received my pricelist and was thrilled. Elizabeth read my note to her over the phone, word for word. It must have really made Elizabeth’s day that a stamp dealer took time to write to her.

I then received an order from Elizabeth’s mother for some stamps for her collection. Along with the order was a small handmade thank you card from Elizabeth.

Cost of sending a pricelist to a 9 year old: $1.50

Cost of common stamps to get her excited about stamp collecting: mere pennies

The handmade Thank you card I received: priceless!

I get nice notes from customers thanking me for various things. I appreciate these notes and it is a reminder that I try to do a good job and help people with their collections. But the handmade card really touched my heart. Let’s hope Elizabeth turns into the next Ethel McCoy (or name your famous female philatelist here). I’d like to think that by taking a moment to be nice to a beginning 9 year old collector helped launch her path into philately. Folks, it doesn’t get much better than this.