Posts Tagged ‘stamp collection’

If you’re a beginner to the world of stamp collecting, it’s important to understand the right way to care for your stamps. By caring for your stamps the wrong way, you can damage or even destroy them, and no collector wants that to happen! Here are some tips to help you take care of your collectible stamps and keep them in perfect condition for years to come.

Keep your stamps in an album that’s specially made for them. The stamp album you choose should feature acid-free pages and a thick, durable cover. You can even find specially made pages that are already designed to hold particular stamps.

Don’t ever touch or handle your stamps. The warmth and natural oils from your fingers can damage collectible stamps. To pick up and move stamps, you’ll need a pair of stamp tongs. These implements look like tweezers and are made from plastic or stainless steel. Use caution when using tongs to make sure you don’t scratch or tear your stamp. To help prevent this from happening, choose tongs that aren’t very sharp on the ends.

Stamp mounts are small rectangular gummed papers that are designed to safely secure your stamps to your album pages. Always use mounts especially made for stamps and don’t try to affix them with anything like tape or glue. This is the surest way to ruin a stamp! Luckily, stamp mounts are very inexpensive and easy to find.

If you’re going to be sorting stamps before placing them into an album, place them inside of glassine envelopes. That way you can easily view them and they’ll be protected from damage. These envelopes are also an ideal way to mail stamps. You can buy glassine envelopes anywhere you find collectible stamps, cards, or coins.

To protect yourself against purchasing fraudulent stamps, get a watermark detector. Many authentic stamps contain watermarks that are impossible to see with the naked eye. A magnifying glass is also a good idea so that you can view even the smallest details.

Properly caring for your stamp collection is an important way to ensure your stamps retain their beauty and value for years to come! To find out more about how to care for your collectible stamps, read up on stamp collecting or talk to a stamp dealer in your local area.

Stamp Collection does not necessarily need a lot of financial resources. If you are really keen on starting stamp collection as a hobby, but you don’t want to spend a lot of money then simply begins with collecting used stamps. You will really need to do a lot of hard work to collect stamps inexpensively but the efforts would be worth it.

The most basic place you can start stamp collection is your own mailbox. Chances are high that you might end up fetching similar stamps at the beginning but this surely is a head start. Some of the letters don’t have a stamp at all instead they have an imprint on them indicating that the postage has been paid for. The best way to ensure getting better stamps through your mailbox is to convey to your friends or relatives to select stamps other than the common ones when they send you a mail. Once your acquaintances know that you are a keen stamp collector they would be more than happy to help you own a good stamp collection. Also when you are sending mails regarding offers that need to be processed through mail use stamps that you want to add to your collection, as these mails will be coming back to you at the end of the process.

Since you have conveyed the news of your stamp collection hobby to your friends its time even your neighbors know about it. Neighbors could help you too to make the world’s best stamp collection. Just ask your neighbors to keep their empty envelopes for you to make use of the stamps over them. Letters coming from other countries would be a bonus!

Since you have conveyed the news of your stamp collection hobby to your friends its time even your neighbors know about it. Neighbors could help you too to make the world’s best stamp collection. Just ask your neighbors to keep their empty envelopes for you to make use of the stamps over them. Letters coming from other countries would be a bonus!

Similarly you know someone who is working in an office. Start with your own parents. Office mail can also be scanned to get some of the best stamps since mails throng in from different possible locations in a work place. Ask your parents, relatives, friends, and neighbors too if they could remove some time to check the mail envelopes in their offices and pass on the ones with stamps to you. You could also ask them to check if they have any old mails that have stamps on them. The older the better, as they are more unique. Instead of tearing stamps from old envelopes you could soak the stamp along with the envelope in water. This will make it easy to remove the stamp as the adhesive will be lost and the stamp will separate from the envelope. We can now dry these stamps. This will help to minimize the possible damage caused by tearing.

Take help from other stamp collectors. They might also swap some of their duplicate stamps with you and you might end up having a chunk of good stamps at a much cheaper cost. The best place for stamp collection is a stamp club. Join your local stamp club. Here you can meet up with other stamp collectors, seek advice from them and even exchange stamps with them. At times these clubs present stamps as prizes or make stamps available at a lower price for their club members. For those of you who are not finding any stamp club in your vicinity, the advice would be to create one yourself. Form a group of 3-4 people who are stamp enthusiasts to start your very own stamp club. Come together every weekend to exchange ideas, information on the latest stamps available and also swap stamps if you want.

Another source for stamp collection would be a pen pal. Letters coming from your pen pal would have their country stamps. Even if they are common stamps of that country, for you they are as unique as any other stamp. You would have both – a great pal and another means to getting different stamps!

Stamps may also be purchased through the mail. Many newspapers and magazines carry advertisements offering free or inexpensive stamps. Care must be taken to read and follow the company’s sales approval conditions, paying for those you keep and returning the others promptly.

These tips should surely be of great help for a budding stamp collector. The aim is not more towards having each and every stamp that exists in your collection, but to learn about different countries and their cultures while at the same time you manage to have a pretty good time doing it. Care should be taken to store the stamps you collect diligently as you want to keepsake them with you for a good number of years ahead. You must take care of the stamps unless you can’t enjoy your stamp collection hobby more fruitfully. Enjoy your stamp collection, however small it may be, with a lot of care. You never know if it turns out to be most valuable in a couple of years.

With the birth of stamps came the birth of stamp collectors or philatelists as they have become known. Shortly after adhesive postage stamps were introduced by Great Britain in 1840, people began collecting them. In 1841, a women even placed an advertisement in the London Times in which she requested help in collecting stamps so that she could paper a bedroom wall.

The two terms philately and philatelist, which refer to the collection and study of postage stamps, were derived from the Greek word phileo, meaning “I love” and ateleia, meaning “free of charges”, in the sense that postage stamps replaced a cash postal charge. As people began to collect these interesting pieces of paper, no one realized how valuable stamps could become.

Your stamp collection can be whatever you want it to be — there is no right way or wrong way to collect!

Let’s discuss a few ways other people collect stamps which may help you determine what is most interesting to you.

Collecting By Type — Some individuals do collect stamps based on the types of stamps, such as only airmail stamps or only coil stamps. This category may appeal to you if you are interested in stamps used to pay special services such as special delivery or postage due. However, the majority of philatelists collect stamps of all types.

Worldwide Collecting — Many people begin collecting everything — worldwide. However, with the countries of the world currently issuing a total of about 10,000 postage stamps each year, unless you have lots of money, lots of space, and lots of time, at some point trying to collect every stamp issued by every country is probably unrealistic.

Country Collecting — Traditionally, collectors would specialize by choosing a single country to collect, most often their home country, the country where they once spent a memorable vacation, or a country whose stamps just look interesting. For a few countries obtaining every stamp issued is possible without having to spend a fortune. However, for most countries there will probably be at least a few stamps that most of us cannot afford. Thus some collectors will narrow their specialty even further, perhaps limiting themselves to used stamps issued since they were born.

Topical Collecting — Another increasingly popular method of collecting is by topic. Topicals give you an opportunity to explore all types of stamps from all over the world. Most are relatively inexpensive and allow you to customize and organize your collection however you want. Think of any topic and someone probably collects it. Animals, birds, flowers, ships, space, scouts, Disney, and sports are some of the most popular topics. However, exhibits have been put together on much less common topics such as rainbows and even outhouses on stamps.

Topicals are also great in that you can choose what types of stamps to include. Most topical collectors look for special postmarks that relate to their topic. First day covers and postal stationery also offer great opportunities for topical collections.

Mint or Used — Most people come to prefer either mint stamps — stamps that have never been used and look the way they did when they were sold at the post office — or used stamps — stamps that have served their intended purpose of carrying the mail. An advantage of used stamps is that you do not have to worry about preserving the gum and can use inexpensive stamp hinges to mount your stamps on album pages. Most stamps cost more mint than used, but there are exceptions. Sometimes the cancellations on used stamps are of interest. The choice to collect mint or used or even a mixture of the two is your decision alone.

Other Traits — Some collectors prefer to collect stamps of a certain shape or color. Remember there is nothing wrong with creativity. If you see colorful stamps coming in the mail that interest you, collect them. One individual may choose to collect only yellow stamps, another only stamps issued on their birthday, and a third may be working on building a collection with cancels showing numbers with 1 to as high as they can find. The important thing about stamp collecting is not the value of your collection or how many other people collect the same thing; it is that it is fun for you!

At this point you may have decided what type of collection you want to start. You don’t have to make the decision right away. Perhaps its best if you wait until you gather some stamps, see what interests you most, and then make the decision. Personally, I have a box of interesting stamps I have collected over the years, but I wouldn’t say they form any type of collection. That changed when the U.S. Postal Service released the Bugs Bunny Issues! I began collecting stamps, first day covers, cachets, and postcards all picturing Bugs Bunny — so after many years I now can say I have a nice topical collection