Stamp Collecting for Beginners

Most of the hobbies are usually interesting only to those who are interested in them; but not stamp collecting, for this hobby will entice you even when you have never thought of it before and some day get to see the stamp collection album of a friend. The bright colors and fine printing in stamps are often too hard to resist appreciating. But to take up a new hobby needs some guts, for at the beginning you might know nothing about stamp collecting. You may need a guide to tell you how to start with and how to proceed, at least to start with, when you know nothing about the hobby. This article may be of some help to you for beginning stamp collecting as a hobby.

Stamp collecting is a simple hobby, if you have a little patience in the times when you look for new unique stamps to adorn your collection. To begin with, take the following steps to establish an initial stamps’ collection:

• When you start collecting stamps, purchase the largest packet of worldwide stamps that you can afford to purchase. This gives you the initial inspiration for going ahead. When you are new, if you start buying small packets of stamps, there is often a chance that you tend to get more that one copies of several stamps. A large packet would prevent this.

• Along with the stamps, purchase an album where you can collect the stamps. Try that this album is of good quality, as you will keep the stamps in it for long to come. If it is a good one, you will not have to be concerned about the quality of the album when you grow more professional in stamp collecting.

• Buy many hinges. This will help you to fix the stamps to the album. Pasting the stamps with the help of gum is not advisable as this makes it a permanent arrangement and you can not reclassify the stamps and change their positions when your understanding about them matures.

• Keep the album in which you keep the stamps in a polythene packet so that they are not wetted by water.

Once you have a starter stamp collection, you can always add new stamps to it and if you have used hinges, you can even change the position of the existing stamps in your album according to your convenience.

You can get new stamps from three major sources:

1. From the Shops – This is the most common way to purchase packets of stamps for addition into your stamp collection. When you go for this, prefer buying the collections that, you find are the most different from the stamps in your collection.

2. From Friends – Stamp exchanging is another good way of stamp collecting. You always some stamps in more than one copy. Your friends may have some stamps in multiple copies. If you need a stamp, which is double with your friend, and he needs the ones in doubles with you, you can exchange stamps with each other.

3. From Postal Envelops – You can browse through the old mail envelops in your home and can find some unique stamps that you don’t have in your collection. You can remove it from the envelope and add it to your stamp collection.