With an estimate of 20 million stamp collectors, stamp collection is one of the most popular hobbies in the world. Apart from being an enjoyable hobby, it teaches about history, geography, leaders, flora, fauna and cultures of the world around us.
The start of the hobby is widely attributed to Dr. John Edward Gray and a young girl who advertised in a newspaper requesting for used stamps in order to cover her dressing room with them.
Dr. Gray used to collect stamps on their date of issue and saved them as a memento, rather than using them for sending letters. It was not until 1860’s, when people started systematically collecting stamps, stamp collection became popular to the point that philatelic societies were established in several countries.
Getting Started with Stamp Collection
You may have already started saving stamps from letters, postcards or packages. If you are tearing them out, don’t do it. Cut them out from the letter by leaving margins (sometimes preserving cancellation marks too) or soak them in water until they separate easily or automatically.
As a next step, start with kiloware on sites like eBay. These are large lots of used stamps that can be purchased for small amount of money. From here you can start sorting and discovering what you like to collect. There are starter packs too that limit to specific themes or countries. You can find them on the online stores.
Organise the hoard by topics (flowers, birds, people, art, trains, architecture, butterflies etc.), shapes (square, rectangular, triangular, circular, octagonal, amoebic etc.), or countries.
With a starter collection in place, you may want to expand the collection - fill in the gaps, or simply add more topics, shapes, countries or unused stamps which kiloware may not fulfill. You can look for buying stamps at post offices, philatelic bureaux, philatelic counters, stamp dealers, facebook groups or online stores such as zillionsofstamps, hipstamp, mysticstamp, amazon etc. Some post offices also offer memberships to their philatelic bureau, which offer you to collect all the stamps printed by the post office in that year.
But before you start adding more to your collection of choice, learn as much as you can about the collection. Check out Exploring Stamps videos on YouTube. Subscribe to Linns Stamp News. Spend some quality time with Scott stamp catalogs. These catalogs have information on stamps from across the world. Stanley Gibbons and Michel are similar catalogs. These are very expensive; you can find the catalogs in a library. Join philatelic forums, clubs or groups to exchange ideas and stamps.
Some other options to collect stamps include writing to Ambassadors of various countries. Tell them about your hobby and why you are fascinated by specific stamps issued by their country. You may receive a few stamps from them. You must be genuinely interested in their culture, and stamp collection does help with it.
Postcrossing is another great way to exchange post cards with people from across the world while you collect stamps. It comes with a personal touch too. Try it!
Stock Books or Stamp Albums?
Start with stockbooks or stock pages to store your collection. You may opt for glassines as well. Many collectors prefer stockbooks and stockpages for flexibility. They allow you to store stamps in whatever order you want without the need for stamp hinges or stamp mounts. They let you add stamps, replace the defective ones, add varieties, colors etc.
Once the collection grows to a sizeable number, you can move on to albums. There are free or low cost options where you can print your own pages. Steiner albums are one example. This gives you a flexibility to skip pages or time periods or countries you are not interested in or you don’t foresee collecting much.
You may choose to go after a used Scott or Minkus album. A used album can be purchased in a local philatelic store. The albums impose a goal for the aimless as well as restrictions on what you collect.
Handling and Protecting Stamps
Stamps may be damaged with the way they are handled, stored or displayed. It is advisable to handle the stamps with flat-headed tweezers and with clean hands. Keep stamps away from liquids, dust and prolonged lighting. Certain plastics, used for storage, damage the colours. Stamps need to be stored within an acid-free environment, which is what stamp stockbooks pages and plastic/glassine slips are made of. Keep the stockbooks and albums in upright position.
Happy collecting!
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