Norm’s stamp of approval

By Emma Sun
A $10 Canadian stamp is one of Norman Crook’s favourites in his collection.
The Nar Nar Goon resident said one of the reasons he liked it was because Australian post offices no longer issued high value stamps anymore.
“If you post any mail, you’ll know that you can probably get a stamp worth up to $2, but higher than that you get one of those black slips which they print out, which takes all the interest out of it from my point of view,” he said.
Norm, who studied engineering at Caulfield Tech, worked at Victorian Railways and the Maunsell transport company for many years, which saw him travelling to a number of countries to stay.
“I worked on the friendship bridge between Thailand and Laos, I spent six months in London on the docklands light railway, I worked on Singapore underground, Taipei underground and above ground and I was in Hong Kong for six years,” Norm said.
“In all those places, I collected stamps because I had nothing better to do and I had my father here buying them for me and putting them into boxes.
“Nowadays I just collect Canada, New Zealand, England and Australia.”
Norm joined the Berwick Stamp Club and soon became their publicity officer.
“I find it amazing, at stamp club you can get most of the stamps for a good price,” he said.
“People still go into town and spend a fortune buying them off these dealers but if they hang around stamp club long enough and wait, they’ll eventually get what they want.”
When he’s not spending time on his stamp collection, Norm is looking after his locomotive collection.
Norm bought his very first trainset, a Hornby Dublo at the age of 13 from a store in Officer with his own pocket money and it continued from there.
“Everywhere I went I seemed to buy a locomotive or something and keep it so gradually I built up a small collection,” he said.
He may collect a lot of little ones, but his prized locomotive would be the electric one he built from scratch that goes around his large garden.
His grandchildren love to ride it.
“I’ve always wanted to build one that you could ride on and so I did that,” he said.
“It gives me reason to get out in the garden.”
Norm hopes more people will get involved with the stamp club, as not many young people do.
“If you listen to Eddie’s millionaire game, I reckon half the questions that he asks you can answer from the knowledge you pick up in stamps,” he said.
“Like with the history questions, every country issues a stamp for whenever something of importance happens and stamps feature the different currencies of the world, rulers of the world, and things like that.”
Despite his endless collection of stamps, Norm has yet to stop collecting.
“I’ve got all those gaps to fill in,” he said.