History of Stamp Collecting

When and how did the stamp collecting hobby begin?

The very first stamp - called the Penny Black - was issued by Great Britain in 1840.  Sir Rowland Hill first thought of the idea of using postage stamps to prepay for the delivery of mailm and he implemented it with the cooperation of the British government.  The Penny Black features a picture of Queen Victoria.  An imperforate stamp (it has no perforations), like other imperforate stamps, it required the use of scissors to cut each individual stamp from the sheet it was printed on. The next country to use stamps to pay for postage was Brazil.

The United States began issuing stamps at certain local post offices (such as St. Louis) in 1845 but the first official US stamp wasn't issued until 1847.  Stamp collecting beganquickly, and at first it probably was a children's hobby.  But when these children grew older they continued their passion for collecting stamps into their adult years.  In the late 1800’s people began really studying postage stamps, publishing the results of their studies after researching everything from printing methods to printing flaws caused by certain plates.  Stamp dealers began to open establishments that were specifically geared towards stamp collectors, whose numbers were increasing every year.  This is when stamp collecting truly took off, and despite rumors to the contrary, it is still going strong today.

Collectors soon discovered that if they were able to locate unused copies of older stamps they would be worth much more than their face values - finding unused stamps in mint condition was somewhat uncommon.  As a result, stamp collectors in the 1930s began purchasing and preserving stamps in hopes of having a valuable mint stamp years later.  Unfortunately the idea backfired - at least to a certain degree - because the practice was so common.  Too many people had the same idea and even today, unused, many mint condition stamps from thar era are common (although there are exceptions of course, and some mint stamps from that era are very expensive). 

During stamp collecting's infancy, many stamp collectors would collect stamps from every country - or at least many countries - because not so many stamps were issued.  Now there are literally millions of stamps that have been issued over time, and because it would be so difficult to "keep up" there are not as many worldwide stamp collectors.  The current trends in stamp collecting are:  1. to concentrate on collecting the stamps issued by just one country, or perhaps a few countries;  or 2.  to focus on collecting stamps issued by many countries but having a single theme.  This practice is called topical stamp or thematic stamp collecting.