2 minute read
America's Stamp Stop
Of Stamps, Snake Oils & Sealing Wax
By Lisa Howard
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THERE ARE PHILATELISTS, AND THEN THERE ARE BEYOND-PHILATELISTS: THE PASSIONATE, EVER-CURIOUS COLLECTORS WHO FUNCTION MORE AS MUSEUM CURATORS THAN SELLERS OF STAMPS. TODD SCHAEFER IS ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE.
Even though America’s Stamp Shop has “stamp” right there in the name, the shop has so much more: Vintage labels from wine bottles and produce boxes and cigar boxes, uncut Pepsi pop can remainder sheets from a time when the cans were made with galvanized steel, tiny bottles hawking “cure-all” remedies from before the Pure Food & Drug Act of 1906.
Todd even has a mint-condition encased postage coin from the Civil War era. “We’re a working museum, but we’re a retail working museum,” Todd says. “We get to be stewards and curators. If you’ve ever been in a museum and said, ‘I want that’ but you can’t have it because it’s in a museum, here you can actually come and get it.”
THE HISTORY OF THE STORE STRETCHES BACK TO 1978, when Todd’s dad Karl founded the shop. When Karl was on the brink of closing the retail location in 2004 to focus on selling at shows, Todd decided to ditch his realtor career and join forces with his dad. Todd had cut his teeth on dealing baseball cards when he was 11-years-old and then moved to comics, so he was already familiar with the world of collectibles.
Now Todd’s daughter Sam also works at the store part-time, making it a triple-generation family business. (Karl is 92 and still loves the biz.)
“Things have auras, and the older they get, the more of an aura they have,” Todd says. “When you’re in the presence of something genuine with history behind it, it takes on a whole different feel than a newly manufactured item does.”
And he has plenty of such items! When his daughter was a prop master during high school and the drama club put on Radium Girls, Todd supplied period-correct mail for a scene that entailed the actors sifting through letters from the 1920s. Because why not? For him, it’s all about the thrill of discovery and sharing what he finds with others. And keeping the past alive for future generations.
3860 Twelve Mile Rd, Berkley MI 48072 | 248.399.1930 www.ebay.com/str/Americas-Stamp-Stop
