Stamp Collecting: What - Why - How!
Stamp collecting is, of course, the saving and organizing of stamps, generally postage stamps, into a collection.
Stamps have been issued to carry the mail by various governments
throughout the world ever since Great Britain issued the very first
postage stamp in 1840. This stamp was known as the "penny black" because
it carried a portrait of Queen Victoria, then reigning monarch, printed
in black ink, and had a face value or denomination of one penny.
The United States issued its first regular postage stamp in 1847. It
was red brown in color and carried a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Its
face value was five cents.
While most stamps collected are postage stamps, governments have also
issued revenue and tax stamps, known as fiscals. But in order for a
postage stamp to be recognized as such and not be considered as a mere
label, the stamp had to be valid for postal use within its country of
origin. That meant that if someone purchased the stamp and placed it on
a letter mailed within that country, the letter would be delivered.
As
governments started to see the profit potential in stamps purchased by
collectors that never bore the cost of carrying any mail, they began,
more and more, to issue stamps that pleased collectors, and did this on
an ever increasing scale. The sheer volume of stamps being issued was
discouraging to some collectors. It was also hard for companies like
Scott, Minkus, and Harris to keep publishing world albums that could
keep up with all the new issues being thrown at them.
Stamps are collected for a variety of reasons. In general terms, these
range from pleasure, to acquisition, to completion, to investment. A
few collect rare and very rare stamps merely as investments, and stamp
speculators have been known to drive some stamp prices up beyond the
means of most collectors. But most stamp collectors are satisfied with
the more common stamps, of which their are hundreds-of-thousands of
varieties, because they bring them peace and pleasure, fun and
knowledge, the thrill of acquisition, and sometimes the satisfaction of
completion, if and when the final item within a collecting specialty is
obtained.
The best way to organize a collection of saved stamps is to mount them
in a stamp album. And the best way to start a stamp collection is to
purchase a general, world-wide album.
Until relatively recently there were a number of such albums with which
one could begin. In the United States, most of them were published by
Scott, Minkus, Harris, and Grossman.
Today, about the only such albums still available are part of the
former H.E. Harris line. They are the Traveler Album with spaces for
10,000 stamps, and the Statesman DeLuxe Album with spaces for some
25,000 stamps. Older, larger albums can be found, most often containing
partial collections, but depending on whether you want to spend up to
$25 on a new album or up to $50 (both are often discounted due to
competition among dealers), these are by far the best albums for any
collector entering the hobby, today.
It's also a good idea to start an album collection clean rather than
begin by working around somebody's mess. Used albums of this type come
through our store pages
almost weekly, and sometimes a very clean or even unused copy comes
through. But I think your first experience with a stamp album should be
with a virgin!
While you don't want
too large an album, not that large, unused albums are readily
available, you also don't really want one of the smaller paper bound
albums published for young children. Either the Traveler Album or the
Statesman Album, mentioned above, would be a reasonable choice.
With your album you will also need is a packet of 1000 to 2000
different world wide stamps, a pair of stamp tongs, and some stamp
hinges.
Stamp tongs are a special tweezer-like tool used for handling stamps.
With practice, stamp tongs make it easier to handle the small pieces
paper that stamps are. They make handling stamps safer, too, since
fingers can easily transfer dirt and oil to the tiny, absorbent
collectibles.
Stamp hinges are small pieces of glassine paper specially made for
safely mounting stamps into an album. Using tape or other adhesives is
not to be done since these will ruin your stamps and your album. Stamp
hinges, when used properly can be safely peeled away from both the
stamp and the album.
The packet of 1000-2000 world wide stamps is, of course, what you will mount in your album.
It's recommended that you begin with a world-wide album to get a good
grounding in the hobby. It's also recommended that the album and the
starting packet of stamps not be too large so that you don't feel
overwhelmed and get discouraged. It's also recommended that you not
start "big" because you just might find that you don't want to pursue
collecting stamps, or that you would rather not place your emphasis on
a general, world wide collection but branch off into a a more
specialized area of the hobby.
© 2008 Lawrence Stepanowicz
Shop The Largest Selection Of Stamps Online... Or Anywhere!
This site is your direct link to the largest selection of stamps for
collectors, you will find. You can use it to find postage stamps for
your collection from all areas of the world by using the menu at the
left. Many will of these these links will break down further into
specialized areas of stamp collecting that will satisfy almost every
philatelist's or hobbiest's collecting interests.
If you happen are buying stamps and are looking for a specific stamp
for your collection, use the search feature, above, to find exactly
what you want. For instance, if you want a copy of a Canadian stamp
with a Scott catalog number of 85, enter Canada Scott 85 or Canada 85
in the search block and do your search on 'stamps.' If you are in the
Canada section, try Scott 85, or use just 85 for a wider selection of
this particular postage stamp.
Since the items available are constantly changing, you never know what
you will find so bookmark this site and come back often. And be sure to
check out our stamp collecting blog, Stamp Talk.
Whatever Happened To World-Wide Stamp Albums?
If you've ever wondered about or are looking for one of the big, big
stamp albums of yesteryear, there is an interesting and informative
article posted under the "About Stamp Albums" link on the menu at the
left. Scott, Minkus, Harris, and Grossman all published some good-sized
albums in their day, but there isn't much left of any of their lines
anymore and what's left of their once thriving philatelic publishing
empires seems to be in name only. Any collector who wants to start
"clean" with a new copy of a world wide album is pretty much limited
the the Harris Statesman Deluxe Album unless he gets lucky and finds
and wins an unused copy of one of the older, larger albums at auction.