A Stamp Collecting Primer

Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and objects relating to postage stamps. In addition to stamps themselves, one popular type of item to collect is covers: envelopes or packages with stamps on them. Stamp collecting is one of the world's most popular hobbies, with estimates of the number of stamps collectors ranging up to 20 million people just in the United States.

Collecting is not the same as philately, which is the study of stamps. You can be a philatelist without being a stamp collector, although most philatelists probably do collect stamps. Likewise, you can be a stamp collector without being a philatelist and closely studying what you collect. Many collectors simply enjoy accumulating stamps thout worrying about their tiny details, but creating a large or comprehensive collection generally does require some philatelic knowledge.

Stamp collectors provide an important revenue source for some countries. More than a few countries print beautiful stamps that are designed mainly to be bought by stamp collectors and put into their collections, rather than be used on the mail. The stamps produced by these countries generally far exceed the postal needs of the countries.

Some collectors, seeing how the prices of rare stamps generally increase over time, engage in philatelic investing. Rare stamps are among the most portable of tangible investments, and are easy to store.

The first postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued by Britain in 1840 and pictured a young Queen Victoria. It was produced without perforations (imperforate), so it had to be cut from the sheet with scissors in order to be used. While unused examples of the Penny Black are quite scarce, used copies may be purchased for $20 to $200, depending upon their condition.

Most stamp collectors in the 1860s and 1870s were children and teenagers - many adults dismissed it as a childish hobby that wouldn't interest them. But during the late 1800s those childhood collectors were adults, and many began to study stamps and publish research on various stamp topics. Some stamps, such as the triangular issues of the Cape of Good Hope, became legendary. But it wasn't until the 1920s that publicity about valuable stamps created a large increase in the number of stamp collectors and a large increase in the value of many old stamps. This rapid increase in postage stamp values was largely because very few of the older stamps had been saved in good condition. Especially difficult to find were pairs, triples, and large blocks of older stamps.

Most U.S. postage stamps issued since the 1930s are fairly inexpensive and easy to obtain, but some high face value stamps, such as the $2.60 United States Graf Zeppelin issued in 1930, are worth substantial amounts of money. Other recent stamps that can be expensive are souvenir sheets from popular countries, hard to find plate number coils (PNCs), and errors.