Tommy Tricker And The Stamp Traveler 1988 Written and directed by Michael Rubbo. A Canadian kids movie featuring stamp collecting. It's got music by the McGarrigle sisters and a really young Rufus Wainwright.
The kid with the red hoodie is Ralph, he's a stamp collector, that's his sister Nancy, the other kid is Tommy Tricker, he used to be in the stamp club but they threw him out for being a cheat. When the movie opens he's scamming his classmates by telling them that the stamp with an error he's selling is going to be worth a fortune in no time. It's not.
Tommy is always on the scam, he convinces Ralph to trade a used Bluenose from his father's collection for a set of 1946 Peace stamps. Currently a mint hinged set of Peace stamps goes for $35 and a mid grade used Bluenose is about the same.
The Bluenose is Canada's 158th stamp and it came out in 1929. The Bluenose is regarded highly as Canada's most beautiful stamp. Depending on condition a used Bluenose can run up to and over $100, a mint stamp starts at that price and just goes up and up. Ralph's father has a block of 6 Bluenose stamps, there's a couple of mint blocks of 4 on eBay that at $600 and $800. A stamp shop in Montreal is offering a very fine never hinged plate block of 6 for $4495.
As Tommy's passing the Peace stamps to Ralph he switches them and leaves poor Ralph with some cheap stamps. Tommy is really a creep, even the stamp shop guys have heard of his shenanigans, but they still buy the Bluenose off of him. They find out it's a "man in the mast" variant and worth $600. Ralph's dad finds out that the Bluenose is gone and Ralph's in big trouble. Ralph and Nancy try to get the Bluenose back but it's already been sold.
The stamp shop gives Nancy an old album to try to appease her, it turns out to have a magical spell that allows the kids to travel by postage stamp. Ralph, Nancy and Tommy have a bit of an adventure, first in China and then Australia before there's a pretty happy ending.
It's not a bad kids movie, for me it fails a bit on the script and more so on the casting. In the making of short Michael Rubbo says he wanted an all amateur child cast. Some of them are better than others, they give it a try. Not sorry to have seen it but I doubt I'd need to watch it again.
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