It was Richard who noticed the boy intently studying the shop window. Further back in the store, his brother and co-proprietor Raymond was assisting their best customer, the Honorable Judge Benedict LeBlanc; the judge was seated at the counter and poring over stamps set aside specifically for him.
The boy was staring at a particular stamp, one issued by the Confederacy in 1862 and depicting Jefferson Davis. Richard had placed it there himself. He guessed the boy to be about 11, perhaps a small 12. He had a blond crew cut, a narrow, intelligent face, and eyes that Richard guessed were blue or green. The boy occasionally shifted his glance from the stamp to inside the store.
West Brothers Philately occupied a strategically important location: Royal Street in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Across Royal was the Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries Building, originally the courthouse before the new one was built elsewhere.
Their customers tended to be like the judge—well-heeled, focused, and usually looking for a rare stamp. The shop—15 feet wide and 50 feet long—extended to a small courtyard in the rear. Their customers invariably made appointments to visit, buy, and sometimes sell.
Richard hoped the boy was merely curious and too intimidated to enter. He didn’t like to see the judge bothered, especially by a child—and one dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. Raymond hadn’t noticed the boy as he assisted Judge LeBlanc. The judge was rather particular and didn’t like to be disturbed; he was an avid collector of 19th century U.S. stamps. He was using a magnifying glass to examine a 90-cent stamp depicting the naval hero Oliver Hazard Perry, printed in 1870 by the National Bank Note Company.
“It was acquired,” Raymond said quietly, “from an estate sale in Albany, New York. We have the provenance, tracing it back to the date of purchase from the Albany post office.”
“It’s an extraordinary mint specimen,” the judge said, “and centered perfectly. It must have been bought directly for a collection.” He glanced at the price tag of $215. [1] “No bargain, I see, but then you shouldn’t need one for a stamp of this quality. Only the best from West, correct?” He chuckled. “When I first visited, back when your father opened the shop, it must be 40 years now, he cited that slogan when I told him I was impressed with the quality.”
Richard and Raymond smile both smiled at the memory. Their father had drilled it into them. They’d kept the slogan when they’d become co-proprietors after his death in 1955. Now, 10 years later, the brothers had built the shop’s reputation as a presence in the international stamp market.
While they both worked with customers and acquired stamps and related material, Richard had the best eye for quality. He had, in fact, been at a New York State stamp show in Albany when he visited an estate sale, spotting the stamp collection overlooked or ignored by others. Raymond’s strength was customer relations—he was sufficiently knowledgeable and outgoing and knew when to press and when to back off. Raymond always allowed the judge to come to his own purchase decisions.
Turning toward the display window, Richard was relieved to see the boy was gone. And then the shop bell tinkled when the door opened.
All three men looked up. The boy looked simultaneously terrified and determined. Richard almost laughed but kept himself in check; no telling how the judge might react. He saw the patches on boy’s jeans, and his tennis shoes had seen better days.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Raymond stood from where he was sitting with the judge. “Can we help you, young man?”
The boy seemed frozen. “That stamp you have in the window, the blue one. Can you tell me how much it is?”
“Do you mean the Confederate stamp, the five-cent with Jefferson Davis?” Raymond said.
The boy nodded.
“Richard, can you show Judge LeBlanc the 30-cent Alexander Hamilton that’s with the Perry stamp? The judge might also be interested in how you found the collection and what else it contains.” He turned to the judge. “Richard has all of the pertinent details.”
Richard joined the judge while Raymond removed the stamp from the window display and motioned to the boy to sit at the counter. As Richard turned to speak to the judge, the man smiled, put his fingers to his lips, and motioned his head to the boy; the judge wanted to listen.
“What’s your name?” Raymond said to the boy.
“Bobby,” the boy said, “Bobby Boudreaux.”
“Do you collect stamps?”
The boy shook his head. “My father has a collection. He started when he was a boy, getting stamps from letters. He doesn’t have a big collection, but he really likes going through it.”
“Has he visited our shop?”
“No,” the boy said. “He’d like to, but he says he can’t afford it. It’s just me and him, and he works a lot. But he said he once met Dominic West at a stamp show when he was boy, and he took my father all over the exhibition, explaining displays and talking about stamps.”
“I remember that,” Richard said. “It was the 1935 New Orleans Philatelic Exhibition, and I was there with Dad. Dad met a boy at our sales table; I watched the table while he walked the boy through the show.”
“That was my dad,” the boy said, grinning. “He still talks about it. He said he couldn’t afford to buy anything, but he had a ball with Mr. West. And he gave my dad a stamped envelope for the show.”
“We call it a stamped exhibition cover,” Raymond said.
“My dad has always wanted a Confederate stamp, but he says they’re too expensive. How much is this one?”
“It’s $5,” Raymond said. “With sales tax, it would be $5.25.”
“Oh, man, it’s expensive. I mean, that’s a lot for a stamp, but I guess it’s a lot because it’s over a hundred years old, right?”
Raymond smiled. “Age can be a factor; more important are the stamp’s condition and how rare it might be. If millions had been printed, like the Post Office does today, it’d be worth far less.”
For several minutes, Raymond recounted the story of the stamp—what the Confederacy used for stamps before it established a postal service, the different stamps that were printed and what they depicted, and how many had survived the war.
The boy had listened intently. “It’s like a bunch of history on a little piece of paper.”
“Exactly,” Raymond said.
The boy spotted the clock on the wall. “I need to get home. Thank you for telling me about the stamp.”
“Did you want to buy it?”
Bobby shook his head. “I have only $3, and the bus fare is a quarter. It’s what I saved from mowing lawns, running errands, and helping Mr. McKay at the corner grocery. But thank you for talking with me.”
“Raymond,” Richard said, “I believe I made a mistake. The price should be $2.50.”
Richard saw the surprise on his brother’s face; Richard knew the price of every stamp in inventory.
“Why so you have, Richard,” Raymond said to Bobby. “With tax, that would be $2.63.”
The boy broke into a huge grin. “I can buy it!” He quickly opened a bag from his pocket and counted out a stack of quarters, dimes and nickels.
Using West Brothers stationery, Raymond wrote the sales receipt, including the official description and that it had been sold to Mr. Robert Boudreaux. He dated it and then signed it, placing the stamp in a protective envelope with the receipt in a West bag. From the till drawer, he handed Bobby two pennies in change.
Bobby thanked him and nodded to Richard and the judge. “You don’t know what this will mean to my dad. Thank you.” And he was gone.
“I was going to buy it for him,” the judge said, “but I suspected it would mean more if he paid for it. I was at that show. I was a young attorney, and Dominic introduced me to this boy he was showing around.”
“After hearing his story about his father and Dad,” Richard said, “I was going to give him the stamp. But he earned that money to give his father something special. I wasn’t going to interfere with that.”
“And you saved the day,” Raymond said. “He’ll remember this the rest of his life, just like his father did with Dad.”
“Now,” the judge said, “I think I’ll buy that 90-cent Perry. It’s going to carry its own story. And a story about Bobby Boudreaux.”
[1] $215 in 1965 would be the equivalent of $2,100 today; $2.50 would be $25.
The featured image, “Door in the Road,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.
Glynn Young wrote his first story when he was 10 – a really bad mystery having something to do with a door behind a grandfather clock and a secret cave. At 14, he discovered Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, but he secretly wanted to write James Bond stories. At 21, he became a Christian, and the verse he was given, Philippians 1:6, became the theme of his life.
He received a B.A. in Journalism from LSU and a Masters in Liberal Arts from Washington University in St. Louis. He spent his professional career in corporate public relations, and mostly executive speechwriting. Since 2011, he’s published five novels in the Dancing Priest Series, the nonfiction book Poetry at Work, and the historical novel Brookhaven. Since 2009, he’s been an editor for Tweetspeak Poetry, writing a weekly column. He and his wife Janet live in suburban St. Louis.
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