Closet Accordion Players of America

Imagine a sheet of postage stamps.

 

Now imagine that the stamps are accordion stamps.

 

Now imagine playing that sheet of stamps on a record player. Yes, a record player.

 

CAPA member Lesa Morgan of St. Charles, Missouri, actually could do it, if she wanted. She has a 1989 souvenir sheet of stamps from Paraguay that is actually a record. (She doesn’t play it, for fear of ruining it.)

 

Who ever heard of accordion stamps, let alone playable accordion stamps? Certainly not me, but Morgan has opened my eyes to a whole new accordion universe. She is a stamp collector who specializes in accordion stamps. According to her research, there are 170 postage stamps worldwide that feature an accordion, the oldest from 1942. She has managed to find 132 of them and is still looking for more.

 

She keeps the stamps in a three-ring binder and is working to create an album for each country represented, including history of the accordion in that country and style of music. “So many people think of German polkas when they think of the accordion, but it’s been popular worldwide,” she points out. “At one time school teachers in North Korea were required to learn the accordion for the music portion of their classes.”

 

She attends stamp shows once or twice a year with her husband, and some vendors who know of her specialty reach out to her if they find something she might be interested in. She also finds things online at sites such as hipstamp and ebay.

 

Of course, she has real accordions, too—two of them. She insists that she’s not very good yet, but she practices a few times a week. “I’m working on lesson level 3, the Beer Barrel Polka (because that’s all anyone asks for!)”

 

If anyone has accordion stamps they might want to part with, I’ll be happy to put you in touch with Lesa.

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