Stamp Collecting

Stamp collecting started in 1840 with the issue ofspecific area i.e. Australasia, South Africa, GB, or if
the first proper stamp, the Penny Black, followedyour more ambitious try the Commonwealth or
closely by the Twopenny Blue. Previous to thisEurope. The best advice I can give here is to
you had to rely on Hand stamps from each localstart your collection in a simple manner, don't go
area. What happened after was the biggestlooking for the special editions or errors, just
hobby in the world up until the 1990's, for all ageconcentrate on getting one of of each stamp, this
groups, only to be surpassed by the computerwill enable your finances to stretch further and
age. Most unfortunately these days, the backbonehelp your collection grow faster. Then when you
of the collectors - the Children of the world -have got a reasonable amount for the area you
have in general lost interest in this very timeare specializing in you can then decide on how
consuming hobby. The main stay of stampcomplicated to make it. i.e. mint or used, singles or
collecting is now a much older generation and theblock, water marks, issue variations etc.
numbers are getting less.The other major consideration when starting to
There are of course advantages andcollect is where are you going to keep them and
disadvantages of this, to the good side, in general,in what. The reason I say this is because a
the prices of stamps have come down a lot, upserious collection can take up a lot of space and
to 2/3rds. In some cases on the down side it isbe very heavy, in my case my collection consists
becoming harder and harder to acquire the rarestof 3 large albums just for GB and another five
of the stamps, and of course they are going up infor specialist countries, and a further seven for
price, so there is a lot of difference between athe rest of the commonwealth. I must say that
normal collection, a good collection and a superbthere is a space for every stamp of the
collection.commonwealth weather or not I have them.
To put it in prospective you can now go to anUnless you are quite well off I would suggest that
online auction and get a mixed selection ofyou start your collection off with stock books,
stamps from Victorian times for a few pennies,using the 32 or 64 leave varieties, then as your
and somebody's collection for a few hundredcollection grows you can move them from leave
pounds, but finding the odd one that is rare is ato leave without having to use hinges or adding
completely different story.pages, making gaps, or other bits that will make it
I am very lucky as I have been collecting forlook untidy.
over 50 years and my collection is quiteMy last piece of advice is to get yourself a
reasonable especially the British, and from 1960 onStanley Gibbons stamp catalog of not more than
I have all British issues.3 years old. You can not do it without one, luckily
The important things to remember when stampthere is a individual catalog for most areas of the
collecting is to decide on what area you areworld and they are reasonable inexpensive to
interested in and then how complicated you wantacquire.
to make it. I would suggest that you start with a