Introduction

Challenge. . .information. . .friendships. . .and just plain fun are part of "the World's Most Popular Hobby," stamp collecting! For more than 150 years, stamp collecting has been the hobby of choice of royalty, movie stars, sports celebrities, kings, presidents, and hundreds of thousands of other people. Why do so many different types of people like stamps? One reason is the hobby of stamp collecting suits almost anybody - it's very personal. You fit the hobby to yourself, instead of forcing yourself to fit rules, as with many hobbies. There's not much free choice about how to play golf or softball or square dance - there are many rules.

But stamp collecting can be done in a very simple way using stamps you find on your everyday mail and place on plain paper in a three-ring binder. Or you can give a "want list" to a stamp dealer. He will pull the stamps you want from his stock, and you mount them in the correct spaces in a custom-made album that you bought.

Or you can go to stamp shows or stamp shops and spend hours looking through boxes of stamps and envelopes in search of a particular stamp with a certain postal marking or a special first-day cover that has a meaning to suit your own interests.

Stamp collecting is a special mix of the structured and the unstructured, and you can make it a personal hobby that will not be like anyone else's. It's a world all its own, and anyone can find a comfortable place in it.

How to Learn About Your New Hobby

Organizations, publications, and other collectors can help you grow in the hobby. The hobbies/recreation section of your local library may have basic books about stamp collecting, and the reference department may have a set of the Scoff Catalogue. Scoff lists every stamp in the world and gives each one a unique number. At least in the United States, Scoff is the standard way of identifying stamps, and most dealers have their stock arranged according to those numbers.

If your local library has no books on stamp collecting, you can borrow some from the huge collection of the American Philatelic Research Library through inter library loan or by becoming a member of the American Philatelic Society. � The APS/APRL are the largest stamp club and library in the United States and offer many services to collectors, including a 100- page monthly magazine, insurance for stamp collections, and a Sales Division through which members can buy and sell stamps by mail among themselves. The APS/APRL are at P.O. Box 8000, State College, PA 16803, or call (814) 237 3803.

There also are many newspapers and magazines in the stamp hobby, including Linn's's Stamp News, Stamp Collector, Scott Monthly Journal, Global Stamp News. Some can be found on large newsstands.

How to Learn About Your New Hobby

You can easily find everything for your stamp hobby by mail. Stamps, other philatelic material, catalogues, albums, and so on are easy to get by mail order. The philatelic press carries advertising for all of these hobby needs, and stamp shows in your area also will have dealers there. If you are lucky, you also may have a retail stamp store nearby. Stamp shows may be small one- or two- day events in your local area, or very large events in big-city convention halls lasting several days and featuring hundreds of dealers and thousands of pages of stamp exhibits to see. Stamp shows also provide chances to meet other collectors, some of whom you may have "met" only by mail before.

Taking Care of Your Collection

Paper is very fragile and must be handled with care. Stamp collectors use special tools and materials to protect their collectibles. Stamp tongs may look like cosmetic tweezers, but they have special tips that will not damage stamps, so be sure to buy your tongs from a stamp dealer and not in the beauty section at the drug store!

Stamp albums and other storage methods (temporary file folders and boxes, envelopes, etc.) should be of archival-quality acid-free paper, and any plastic used on or near stamps and covers (postally-used envelopes of philatelic interest) also should be archival - as used for safe storage by museums. Plastic that is not arctically safe has oil-based softeners that can leach out and do much damage to stamps. In recent years philatelic manufacturers have become more careful about their products, and it is easy now to find safe paper and plastic for hobby use.

Never use cellophane or other tapes around your stamps. Even so-called "magic" tape will cause damage that cannot be undone. Stamps should be put on pages either with hinges (small rectangles of special gummed paper) or with mounts (little self- adhesive plastic envelopes in many sizes to fit stamps and covers). Mounts keep stamps in the condition in which you bought them. Also available are pages with strips of plastic attached to them; these are "self-mounting" pages, meaning all you have to do is slip your stamp into the plastic strip.

Other hobby tools include gauges, for measuring the perforations on stamps, and watermark fluid, which makes the special marks in some stamp papers visible momentarily. "Perfs" and watermarks are important if you decide to do some types of specialized collecting.

Again, welcome to Stamp Collecting!

The more you know about it, the more you will like it -- Happy Collecting!