Larry Corpus, of Dallas, will showcase his insect stamp collection at the Back Mountain Memorial Library throughout the month of August.
Corpus starting collecting stamps in 1972 and grew his collection until 2004. He has a PhD in Entomology and teaches Anatomy and Physiology at Misericordia University.
He states he became interested in the subject of insects when he was working on his Master’s degree in California; he took a general Entomology course and took a liking to it. From there, he was asked to become a teaching assistant based on his ability to identify insects just by looking at them.
Corpus’ favorite piece in his collection is a first-day issue postcard from the International Congress of Entomology. It is from a professor of his at Kansas State University who had gone off to Hamburg, Germany. Another favorite would be his World Health Organization stamps that were released to raise money for malaria research.
Corpus stated his wife gifted him a framed flat of insects and spiders (shown in photo) which a post office in Kansas had matched a beautiful wooden frame to, along with information about the stamps that were part of the collection. He added he owns a few different shaped stamps, such as triangles that are not very common anymore.
“Different shaped stamps have different values, squares and rectangles are the most common” he said.
