Lost and found

Kelly McCann of the West County Journal in St. Louis, MO reports that six decades after losing sight of his treasured stamp collection, Dr. Ben Birenbaum received a call from a woman in California.

"Are you Ben Birenbaum that lived at 4628 Vernon Ave.?" the woman asked. "Yes," he replied. "Did you attend Soldan High School?" she said. "Yes," Birenbaum answered. "Well, I think I have the right Ben. I have your stamp book."

Birenbaum was stunned and elated to find the collection he had started in grade school. He wondered, however, how it ended up in Huntington Beach, Calif., from St. Louis.

The California woman who found Birenbaum's stamp album (shown above) used an address on the front page of the album to locate him.

Birenbaum, now 90, had written a message on the inside cover of the book:"If this book is lost, kindly return it to Ben Birenbaum, 4628 Vernon Ave., St. Louis, Mo., or Soldan High School Room 103. We have on November 14, 1932, 1,285 different stamps".

"I was overjoyed after 61 years," Birenbaum said. "It took that long to get it back. Not that it had great value, it was just in my memory that I had lost something that I valued as a child."

Birenbaum said his album was his pride and joy, filled with an assortment of stamps of all shapes and sizes from around the world.

The album was among his belongings stored in the basement of his father and stepmother's house while Birenbaum served in the Army during World War II.

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