Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

STAMP FROM MOSCOW By STEVE BENEDICT An old stamp can be quite illuminating as to what aspect of living seemed noteworthy to the people of the time. A stamp can be quite informative, in fact... Y kid, Rueben—he’s a rare lad, ten and a half—goes bugs over things every now and then. A while back it was marbles. They lasted about two months. Then came kites. Just now it’s old postage stamps. He spends all his allowance money, besides part of his lunch money, on them. From morning till bed time all ou hear is stamps, stamps, stamps! All the kids in the neighborhood are going wild over stamps: “Cuban five centavos, issue 1898, blue, for that there old New Zea- lander? You’re nuts! Give you two Columbia Expositions and a_ two- pence Nyassaland.” “Nyassa, like fun! I’m stuffed with *em. Throw in that Trinidad—” “Trinidad! I paid ten cents for it, you ... you grafter!” And so on, day and night. The kids even dream of stamps. At least mine does. I hear him talk in his sleep. He even tries to interest me in them. ““Lookit, Pop, gee-rafts,”’ said he to me only the other day, shoving some large colorful stamps from somewhere in Africa under my nose. “And this here’s the Landing of the Pilgrims Anniversary issue. And here’s a two cents’ red MHudson-Fulton. There, lookit this ten kreutzer—”’ “Aw g’wan to bed,” said I, trying to sound rough, which by nature I ain’t. “‘No ten kreutzers’ worth of anything interests me tonight. I’ve got a kink in my back from welding armor plate eight hours in that ship- ard.” But the kid is persistent. He has some Argentina stamps of all colours with good-looking dames on ’em. “Swapped Mickey Grogan my set of 1902 issue American and some Filipinos for them,” he said. I nodded sleepily. I feared a touch. But the kid went on. “‘And this one, Pop. Lookit! A Jap ten sen. Tommy Hooper sold it to me for three cents. I still owe him two, Pop.” Oh well, you're a kid only once ina lifetime, so I smiled and mumbled something about that being great, but just then I didn’t have two cents on me and sorry. My smile must’ve given the kid en- couragement. He drew closer. He planted his stamp album smack on my lap. Soon he was turning the pages real fast, reeling off the countries like a streetcar conductor reels off his stops. “German,” reeled the kid, “a pre- Hitler issue, Pop. Lichtenstein, drei pfennig. And here’s a Hungarian from during the depression. Lookit, Pop! One million pengos. Wow! It took a million bucks just to send a letter. Money wasn’t worth much there at that time, was it, Pop?” “Sure wasn’t,” I agreed, a bit in- terested now. Who wouldn’t be when 126 conniclooolkks.ec© im