For those who missed my column on the annual Youth Stamp Fair sponsored by the Ventura County Philatelic Society and the Anacapa Middle School Stamp Club, I'm reporting the details again here.

For the past 15 years, members of the Ventura County Philatelic Society have attempted to attract new collectors with the annual Youth Stamp Fair in October, National Stamp Collecting Month.

This year’s fair, sponsored by the Ventura County Philatelic Society and the Anacapa Middle School Stamp Club, will be at a new location and later in the month than usual: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 28 at the Dudley House, a Ventura museum, at 197 N. Ashwood (Ashwood and Loma Vista). Admission is free.

The most popular part of the event is the pick-and-choose area, where visitors can search through thousands of U.S. and foreign stamps for material to add to their collections. The stamps are free to youths and 5 cents each for adults.

But that’s not the only activity. Experienced collectors will show how to safely remove stamps from paper; how to store them; how to find watermarks and measure perforations (the holes around the edges of stamps); and some of the popular topics and kinds of covers (envelopes) to collect.

Other tables will have a cachet (pictorial envelope) contest, a spot for visitors to make stamp bookmarks, and a spot to play stamp-related GeoSafari games.

Visitors will have a chance to win a jar full of stamps by guessing the number of stamps in the jar and a variety of door prizes. Prizes will also be given for the best cachets and for the winners of the design a stamp contest published on the Young Star page on Sept. 28. Every visitor will get a goodie bag with a stamp album and other stamp-related materials, including guides to basic activities and lists of stamp collecting Web sites.

The event is open to people of all ages, even though it’s called the Youth Stamp Fair.