Many stories found in stamps

Ian Johnstone's childhood was worlds apart from those of children today, he says, being largely occupied with collecting stamps instead of spending time on "anything with a screen".

The Dunedin man's collection is proudly displayed this week at the stamp and postcard fair at the Dunedin Community Gallery.

Mr Johnstone, a committee member of the Dunedin Philatelic Society, said his love of stamps was due to the story they told.

"You can learn a lot from stamps, because a large part of our history and culture is printed on [them].

"In my day we didn't have TV or much to keep us distracted, so stamps did that. Almost everyone collected stamps."

His favourite stamps to collect were South African because they came out in pairs, in English and Afrikaans.

The retiree could not put a figure on the number of stamps he owned, but estimated it was upwards of one million.

The fair finishes today.