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Updated: Jun 20, 2018


Starting on our first tour Teriza pointed out her favorite store. It was a small store tucked away into the passage way between streets. It sold vintage stamps and postcards. On the door, on top of the hours there is a sign that said the owner was sick and the store was closed. Someone replied to the sign asking for how long?


Today, was the first day 3 weeks later that I passed by the store and it was open. Even though it was tiny, it was filled to the ceiling with unusual items. When you first step inside there is a book shelf with postcards from countries all over the world. Three boxes were just for Prague.


The postcards were all different styles; some were drawings, some film photographs, and some were more recent. The paper was creased from being in the box for a long time and smelled like an old book store. Besides post cards, they had vintage stamps from different time periods. Some from the communist days even. Bottles of alcohol sat along the counter.


Since they have reopened, I have been to the store twice, each time there was a group of men hanging out drinking coffee and browsing the boxes of stamps. While they did not seem to work at the store, they too seemed knowledgeable about stamps.


The collection of items tells the history of Prague. What a country chooses to put on their money, stamps and post cards shows how those in charge want to present themselves to the rest of the world. As you sift through the piles of history, you are able to see how Prague was represented at the time.


The man working there spoke almost no English. To explain how much something was he would write it on a piece of paper and slide it across the counter. When I asked him if I could take his photo he smiled and sat behind the counter, then moved to the other side so that the rows of files could be in the background.



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