THE SAYING GOES that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”—that’s how it began for Ng Wee Theng, the president of the Penang Philatelic Society. In his own words: “I started out as a rubbish collector, but now I’m an advanced collector.”
As an 11-year-old, Ng helped a friend of his father cut stamps out from envelopes, soak them in water and meticulously arrange them in an album. Today, five decades on, the schoolteacher has a collection worth over six figures comprising rare stamps, postcards and postal stationery.
