The Stamp People


This fine stamp website has always sold wholesale stamp mixtures - both on and off paper - from the US and around the world. Their prices are great and their selection is wonderful.

Now it's also offering individual stamps and stamp sets, small stamp collections, souvenir sheets, postal stationery and postal history and other philatelic items. New material is added daily so check this great stamp website often for your needs.

They also sell gift certificates that can be used to purchase stamps on their website. And they offer a discount coupon to new customers who register for an account there.

The Stamp People has our hearty recommendation as a resource for stamps of any type - vintage classic stamps, recent stamps, mint, used, kiloware, off-paper stamp assortments and more.

There are hardly any commemorative stamps in the stamp mixture I just bought - what's going on?

A recent independent sample (not done by us) of stamps received in the mail reported that only around 5% of the stamps used were commemoratives. The overwhelming majority of stamps seen in this sample were coil stamps of various types (almost all self-adhesive).

It's hard to get any large number of US commemorative stamps in bulk stamp mixtures nowadays, and that's why - hardly anyone is using them for their mail.

Stamp Hinges vs. Stamp Mounts Revisited

A few months ago we did a four-part post that discussed the relative merits - and disadvantages - of using stamp hinges and stamp mounts in stamp collections.

Well, we recently came across a great idea (although a bit more expensive than using mounts or hinges) so we thought we'd pass it along.

One of the disadvantages of stamp mounts that we discussed was that it is sometimes difficult to remove a mount from a stamp album page without damaging the page itself.

In short, the idea is this: place your stamps inside stamp mounts. Then, instead of licking the back of the mount and adhering it to the album page directly, use one or more stamp hinges to do that. In other words, hinge the mount to the album page.

Using the stamp mount protects the gum of the stamp, and using the stamp hinge to attach the mount to the page protects your album pages - the best of both worlds!

The only downside that we see for those who use stamp mounts already is a slightly increased cost - but it's negligible because stamp hinges are so inexpensive.

This great idea was published in the December 3, 2007 edition of Linn's Stamp News, contributed by a reader in the "Reader's Opinions" section. Thanks, reader!