Start Stamp Collecting

Hobbies are the most wonderful pastime to have, harboring personal interest and enjoyment. Every person has a passion for something that he or she engages in leisure time. This activity of passion gets termed as hobbies. Hobbies help us to relax through the pursuit of some commitment that brings about personal accomplishment. Unwinding in contentment is the ultimate aim. Stamp collecting allows for this to happen on a daily basis if the person wanted it.

Stamp collecting is collection of postage stamps. It is world’s most popular and oldest hobby. You can usually find people who are so engrossed with their collection that it sometimes will take them to all corners of the world in order to find “that stamp”, a stamp of such uniqueness, to find one would be the happiest moment of that person’s life. The first postage stamp was issued in Britain in 1840 featuring the photo of the Queen.

This stamp was without perforations and required scissors in order to be removed from the sheet. Stamp collecting started in 1860′s with teenagers who started to collect stamps. Towards the onset of 20th century, many of those young teen collectors were adults and they began systematic study of the stamps. This passion has been around for a very long time!
It was not until the 1920s that publicity about valuable stamps encouraged a large increase in the number of stamp collectors. Franklin Delano Roosevelt –or more popularly known as “F.D.R.”— was a leader, in many respects. Being the thirty-second president of the United States of America, It’s no surprise that a man who ran the country with such passion and dedication would pursue his personal hobbies with the same spirit. Ever since he was eight years old, F.D.R. had a passion for stamp collecting that traveled with him his entire life, giving him renowned status in the world of philately. Roosevelt’s parents were involved in the business of shipping and trading with countries all over the world. Naturally, this exposed him as a young boy, to countless varieties of stamps. This is, essentially, what sparked his interest in collecting, which included any and every type of stamp he came across. He was known for constantly bothering his relatives to send him all sorts of stamps, from all over the world.

In 1921, Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio, after visiting a Boy Scout camp. One of the major things that got him through his trying time of hardship, pain, and suffering was his intent focus on his stamp collection.

Having a passion, any passion, for something you enjoy can help one out in even the toughest of times. Some say it gives them the ability to think through problems and discover answers, while others say that their passion for Stamp Collecting has brought many other joys into their lives. How passionate you are about your stamp collection will determine how far your collection will go, or how far it will even take you. It can be quite fun having a secret passion for something, and knowing that the people you know will never fully understand or feel that same kind of passion that you do.

Stamp Collecting has been going on for many, many years, since 1840. Today there are among 20 Million stamp collectors across the world, ranging from Beginner to Extreme collectors. Stamp collecting is known as Philately, which means to study revenue and postage stamps. The basic rule of stamp collecting is to enjoy what you are collecting and to take good care of your stamps. It is best when you are first starting out to read up on stamp collecting, getting information and familiarizing yourself on this hobby will help you to better enjoy it and find ways of doing it. You can find that information at your local library or through people you may know that are into stamp collecting themselves.

The materials you will need to start your collection is:

~ a pair of Stamp Tongs, they are like tweezers but they do not have a sharp edge to them.

~ a good magnifying glass so you can see your stamps better and possibly see hidden markings on your stamps.

~ a bunch of envelopes that you can use to sort your stamps.

~ a sturdy container to store your tongs, envelopes, stamps and other information you may have, safely.

~ an album to display your stamps in.

You can find special little envelopes for your stamps at a lot of different hobby stores, or if you can find one, a store specifically for Stamp Collecting.

You can use any type of album to display your stamps, and you can add all sorts of things to it like little pieces of information among the pages such as where you found a particular stamp, how special a stamp may be to you, other pictures to go along with your stamp or even information about the country the stamps may be from. The possibilities are endless!

It is quite easy to find stamps to start your collection. Let your family, friends and neighbors know that you are interested in starting a collection and that any stamps that they can give you will give you a great head start in your new hobby. You can collect them off the mail that comes in, or ask people to bring you back a stamp or two if they are going on vacation somewhere out of town. Another good idea is to join a community stamp collector group. There you will be able to get stamps and trade them for more unique ones, or even buy them at very inexpensive prices. You can also look for them online at sites that sell stamps for really great prices, even EBay will have people selling single stamps to entire collections, it just depends on what you want to put into, or invest in it.

With this hobby you can learn as you go along, and each person will develop their own ways of collecting, displaying, and finding amazing stamps. This is also a hobby or collection that you can pass down to others as you get older or see fit to.