How To Start Collecting Stamps: A Beginners Guide to Stamp Collecting

In a career-driven world, it’s good to have hobbies.

Photography, art, music, and more add interest to our lives.

It’s interesting how so many of our favorite hobbies involve accumulating things. But it can be rewarding to find a particular item that you deeply enjoy seeking out and compiling. That’s why many people invest their free time in stamp collecting. It might not seem like a common hobby, but stamp collecting is surprisingly popular. So, what is stamp collecting and how can you get started with it?

If you’re interested in giving this fascinating pastime a try, read on to learn more about this art.

What is Stamp Collecting?

Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps. Stamps are the small pieces of paper (or sometimes, other materials) that we put on letters and parcels when we send them to other people through the post in order to pay for the delivery. Stamps have been around since the 1840s when the British began using them to mail envelopes and parcels by weight. Shortly afterward, stamp collecting began, making it one of the modern world’s oldest hobbies.

Things to know before you start collecting stamps

Stamps are perishable: In other words, they’re fragile and can deteriorate if you don’t store them properly. This is especially important to remember if you’re collecting rare stamps. Stamps may be small, but they can cost a lot of money. If you want to collect rare stamps, you should be prepared to pay a lot for them. Stamps are often sold in “sheets” of stamps. A sheet of stamps can have anywhere from four to hundreds of stamps on it.

Where to Start?

If you’ve decided that you want to collect stamps, you might feel a bit overwhelmed. After all, there are stamps from almost every country in the world. Where do you even start? Well, luckily, there are several ways to choose a focus for your collection. You can collect stamps from one particular place – like your country, another country or a region from around the world. You can collect stamps from a particular time period – like the year you were born or a historical event. You can collect stamps pertaining to a specific topic – like animals, sports, nature or transportation. It helps to narrow the scope of what you’re looking for.

There are a few ways you can find the stamps you want to collect. One option is to buy stamps that are already in collections. You can also buy loose stamps, which are the stamps not in a collection (or sometimes, stamps that have been removed from a collection). You may also be able to find stamps at local auctions and swap meets. There are websites that help you find “Local Stamp Shows Near Me”.

What Should You Look for When Starting a Stamp Collection?

A lot of people who collect stamps get interested in them as children and continue collecting them as adults. So, if you’re a beginner, you can start by collecting the stamps you used to play with as a kid. You should also think about what you want your collection to be. Are you interested in having a collection with a particular focus, or do you just want to collect all kinds of stamps? What is your budget like? These are all things to keep in mind as you select stamps for your collection.

Tips for New Stamp Collectors

Research the stamps you have. You may not know a lot about the stamps in your collection, and that’s okay. But, learning more about the stamps you have can help you decide what you want to add to your collection. Talk to other collectors. If you want to increase your knowledge about stamps, talk to other collectors about their hobby. You can also join stamp collecting clubs, where you can meet other collectors in your area. Conserve your stamps.

You don’t want your stamps to fall apart, so make sure you store them in a safe place. You can get stamp albums or stamp mounts to help you keep your collection safe, organized, and looking good. Stay healthy. You may not realize it, but stamp collecting can be quite a rigorous hobby. You might notice that your fingers get sore from shuffling through collections, or that you’re tired after spending a lot of time researching different stamps.

The Bottom Line

Stamp collecting is a fun and rewarding hobby, and you can collect stamps almost anywhere in the world. There are many ways to choose a focus for your collection and online resources can help you learn more about the stamps that interest you.