In Those Days… were stamps cool?

My friends Penny and Christina host a podcast called In Those Days. In each episode, alongside a guest or two, they delve into Trove, a wonderful archive of Australian historical newspapers that’s compiled by the National Library of Australia. It’s informative, occasionally startling, and very funny.

A few weeks back, they kindly invited my wife Celeste and me to join them. You might know us as the duo behind the stamp collecting podcast Stamps Aren’t Cool. Is it too early to start guesting on other people’s shows after only three episodes? I think not.

If you’ve heard our podcast, you’ll know that I’m the collector, and Celeste is the non-collecting, long-suffering partner. In keeping with that theme, Penny had scoured Trove to dig up a bunch of historic articles about stamp collectors and the people who love them. (Or, as it sometimes turns out, the people who don’t love them.)

It’s a great selection which will entertain any collector. There are tips on hobbies for newlywed husbands, some historical takes on women in philately (if you can believe such a thing)… and even some juicy scuttlebutt! And that’s before the insights into the home lives of Mr & Mrs Punk.

We play them for laughs, but the old articles offer genuine insight, not just into stamp collecting, but into the attitudes and preoccupations of those who lived in the olden days. Even the style of language is something to be savoured.

Our episode is called Stamp Love, and it can be found by clicking here. I listen to this podcast even when I’m not on it, so I highly recommend subscribing at https://inthosedays.transistor.fm/.

The next episode of Stamps Aren’t Cool will land soon, and it will be a bit of a milestone: it will be the first episode that we’ve recorded since we started publishing the podcast, so now we actually know what you think of us. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you’ll find it here.

Until then, take a journey back in time, and lose yourself In Those Days!