Frog Stamp Collection 

WHY FROGS?

A stamp dealer once told me about a client who collected frog stamps–but only those depicting frogs that had their left toes in the water.  I’m a little less discriminating:  if it has a frog on it, I want it in my collection. Why frogs?  I have no idea.  Family legend has it that my father returned from a business trip with a beanbag frog in tow and that I didn’t put it down for several years.  Forty-odd years later the beanbag, one-eyed and hemhorraging plastic pellets, presides over a large collection.   These days, I’m focusing on philatelic material as well as other ephemera (postcards, trade cards, matchbooks).  

But why frogs?  I still have no idea.  I do think the impulse to collect might be hereditary, passed on through the genes like a dimple in the chin or green eyes.  I come from a long line of collectors:  A great uncle (who I discoverd only lately was a stamp dealer from around 1914 to the 1930s) collected barbed wire and paperweights and rocks and butterflies and was an amateur archeologist to boot.  My paternal grandfather:  stamps and coins.  My maternal grandfather:  avon bottles and clocks and, somewhat bizarrely, pictures of TV evangelists, which he’d intersperse with the family in his photo albums.  Dad had his Virginia Woolf and paperweights and Canadian stamps; he was also a bird watcher, which, what with the life lists, is a form of collecting.  Mom collects mustard pots and nativities and has watched her share of birds.   Poor George, at two and a half, is already showing signs of the disease:  seven Buzz Lightyears; seven Woody dolls; and a whole caseful of hotwheels.  

I hope he likes the frogs.  Maybe by the time he’s old enough to wonder “why frogs” I’ll have figured out an answer.

Acknowledgements

I’ve found the “Frogs and Toads” checklist from the American Topical Association to be a valuable resource in acquiring and cataloguing my collection.  I’ve also found myself turning often to The Philatelic Frog for interesting information about these stamps.  It’s nice to know that someone else out there shares my collecting interests!