There was seldom a day that the arrival of the mail didn’t bring magazines to our house. I suppose our parents subscribed to at least twenty or twenty-five — farm magazines, news magazines, church magazines, periodicals like the Reader’s Digest and Saturday Evening Post, and “the world out there” magazines like Arizona Highways, Naval Proceedings, and the National Geographic.
Most of the farm periodicals had pages reserved for the reading skills and interests of the young people on the farm. On those pages there would also be ads for items like this stamp album which was ordered for me when I was about eleven or twelve.
The penciled-in price in the front of the book indicates the 125-page hardcover album cost $1.10. Tucked within its pages is one of the envelopes in which I received a batch of 12-20 stamps every couple of weeks (which cost 10 cents per envelope). This single envelope still has 15 stamps from the Argentine Republic that never got pasted in place.
Inside the front cover is a world map with latitudes and longitudes, and identification of capitals, showing all the nations of the world, including Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Belgian Congo, Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland, Tibet, French West Africa and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
Inside the back cover is a list listing the Monetary Unit used by each nation, and its equivalent Value in American Dollars as of 1954.
Some sample figures:

• 1 franc from Belgium, Belgian Congo and Belgian East Africa was worth 2 cents
• 1 rupee from Burma was valued at 21 cents
• it took three French Francs to equal a penny
• Greece had to pile up 15,000 Drachma to spend 1 American dollar
• A Russian ruble was worth 25 cents
• A Mexican peso was worth 12 cents

With each page holding 40-50 stamps, depending on sizes and shapes, the capacity of the album is close to 5,000 stamps. There are 246 stamps in it, which would represent about 25 mailings and receipts of those little envelopes full of cancelled stamps from around the world.
Even figuring 20 stamps per envelope received, at the rate the mailings were received it would have taken between fifteen and twenty years to fill the album if the perfect assortment was received.  What are the chances?
I see that many of the pages don’t have a single stamp, while others (the United States, Belgium, France, Germany and Great Britain) were well provided for.
The young customers of  the Stamp & Album Co. of America, Inc. were not given the option of selecting or ordering the stamps they needed to fill their books — the little envelopes just arrived every couple of weeks with their random offering.
The instructions for mounting the stamps to their designated block of space were very clear:

Using the illustrations in your album as a guide, mount the corresponding stamp directly over the picture. Stamps of the same issue or similar design should be mounted as close as possible to the guiding illustration. Stamps MUST NEVER be pasted down in your album with paste or glue of any kind. Only peelable hinges should be used…

…and detailed instructions for use of the tiny paper hinges follows. (My 246 stamps are each carefully and firmly pasted or taped in place with a rolled up piece of scotch tape.)
At some point during those early years, my mother set me to work on a project of cutting out colored pictures from magazines and sending them to a missionary work in Japan.  I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time (from her perspective) and probably kept me occupied for many days, industriously paging through old magazines, selecting pictures, cutting, organizing and then mailing them.
After some weeks a beautiful postcard arrived from Japan which was covered with tiny ornate penmanship written with a fountain pen, and it evaluated the mailing we had so carefully prepared.
The postcard is standard size, the same as today’s would be (in fact, it would be the small in a tourist gift shop). Here is the text and the instruction from one J. M. W., addressed to Miss Sharon …

Thank you for very much for almost 3 lbs of pictures, cutouts, bulletin points, most of it very good — pictures of American children may be gladly received in some kindergartens, but where Christianity is ridiculed as a foreign religion, unfit for the East, we avoid pictures of American scenery. Palestine is part of Asia and is therefore very good.  I was sorry you had sent it as a postal parcel as that costs 48 cts for the first lb and 25 cts for each succeeding. Printed matter is only 2 cents for the first 2 oz and then 1 1/2, that is 12 1/2 cts for the first lb, and 12 cents for each succeeding. So even if you had fully 3 lbs, it would have only been 36 1/2 cents and it may weigh up to 6 lbs 9 oz. Even such a package would only be 80 cts, and then it comes direct to us without an extra charge while postal parcels must go through the custom house and handling costs money. Remember this the next time. My best regards. Your old friend, JMW

Although it’s a bit difficult for me to deconstruct his rationale for such a message from this stage in life, I remember clearly that he was acquainted with our parents and that he was a “kind old man.”  I believe he just chose to take the opportunity to give the young lady some practical advice when the opportunity presented itself.

I wonder if one of those stamps is worth thousands of dollars?