Does anyone collect stamps?

Question

Hi everyone, I have been collecting stamps for the past 5 years and I put them all in a plastic folder. Recently, I bought a Folder that is specially for collecting stamps. Can anyone give me some ideas how to organize them? I have some repetitions of stamps, what should I do? How should I start??

Please help~~~

Many thanks

Answer 1

Yes, lots of people of all ages collect stamps.

You should store stamps in good quality stock books and albums. Otherwise you may risk damaging them. You should always handle stamps with stamp tongs, not your fingers or tweezers designed for other purposes. You can buy the accessories you need from stamp dealers (try, e.g. www.asdaonline.com to find one). Some do mail order or you may be lucky to have one in your area.

Arranging your stamps is one area where the stamp hobby is flexible. The most common arrangement is by country (USA, Australia, etc.) and within each country by date of issue. If you don't know the dates of issue, there are stamp catalogs that can help. Another common arrangement is by topic. My son has a page of aeroplane topicals (stamps portraying a given topic) from countries all over the world and it looks stunning. If you want to organize any part of your collection along any lines then it's entirely up to you!

What to do with unwanted duplicates? The most common thing to do is swap them with other collectors. You can join a stamp club and swap with other members. Or you can trade with others via the internet. You have to look around to find some sites, but send me a note if you're having trouble.

For further information, your local library might have books on stamp collecting, as well as catalogs and magazines. It's worth having a look.

Answer 2

I'm more into coins than stamps, but I do own a few sets of UPU stamps from British Commonwealth countries. I group them into sets, then place them on Hagner stock sheets, and use ring file to hold the sheets. For identification, I'll insert a small piece of paper with the stamp date, catalog numbers, number of stamps in the set, and the estimated value. For duplicate stamps, I normally store them using stock sheets too, but the used sheets that I acquire from the shop for a small price. Actually depends on what type of stamps; if the commons, you can keep them inside clear plastic packs. I also collect philatelic numismatic FDCs. You'll be surprised how much these covers can be worth. I once purchased several Australian phila-numis covers with the 50 cent 1994 coin on them at a little over issue price, only to discover that they are actually worth over A$70 each now due to the 50 cent coins being a sought after wide-date variety.

Answer 3

I also collect stamps. But my collection is patriotic stamps. Anything with the flag or past presidents, revolutions anything like that. I also have mine in a folder where they are all on separate sheets. OH, I buy mine in sheets. Not just one. For them to be of higher value you need the whole sheet as I understand it. This being as the sheet has all the series numbers put there by the Post master. As far as how to arrange them I would go with putting them in specific groups. Like all flags, in one section and then ANYthing as in animals in another. The first thing you're going to need to do is put them in classes or section or groups so you can look in the section and find certain ones. Good Luck. Hope I helped here even if only a little.

Answer 4

I have pages and pages of the same stamp or duplicates and sometimes it looks very cool , I have Great Britain all together the same 5p blue queen elizabeth then the pink 10p etc it really looks nice a whole page of blue. Sometimes with doubles I just stack them one behind each other, depending on thier value to me. Also doing it by scott catalog number will help you prepare for future additions to your collection and by the way cruise over to Ebay, I'm selling my china collection cheap.