Some General "Newbie" Questions

i was wondering if y'all could help a newbie with some questions on how to get started collecting?

i have a small collection of Fist Day Covers and I plan to start a topical collection of stamps (farming being the subject) and see how that goes.

my questions :

1.are there any mail order sources for buying stamps/covers?
2.what supplies does someone new need to start with? sources for supplies?
3.required reading for a newbie?other than here.i have been reading alot on here

any help or advice would be appreciated.also advice on something a newbie should know that I may be overlooking would be appreciated.

thanks,
T.J.

Answers.

1. Plenty, there are Stamp houses such as Mystic Stamp, Herricks, and others. Auction Houses are also plentiful such as ebay. Google is your friend on this one.

2. Stamp Tongs, Magnifying apparatus,A place to store them such as a stock book Hagnar / Vario sheets. Do not use hinges unless they are on used Stamps.
Google lighthouse Stamp supplies, they have a good inventory and also allows you to see the different styles.

3. I would recommend Stanley Gibbons Stamps of the World to start with, once you get specialized in an area then you can obtain a catalog for that particular
area. Also your local Library should have a few reference catalogs you can take out for a few weeks such as Scott's catalogs (The choice of US stamp
collectors.

It's amazing how much information is available on the WWW, I'm sure some members will post some links to some very helpful sites.

G'day TJ
with "y'all" I presume you are Nth American :)

Farming! now there's a new thematic I haven't come
across before.

For your First day covers (FDC) try
"buck a cover"
http://www.buckacover.com/

Supplies?
a healthy interest :)
stamp tongs (tweezers)
A catalogue
A scanner
an understanding girlfriend/wife/partner.
SCF

Reading,
perhaps google "farming on stamps" for inspiration.

Hang onto your pants, and enjoy the ride.

Welcome.



Oh! forgot......No1 Join a stamp club!
(you are not alone :)
Great people, cheap stamps, and with the right club,
free coffee and bikkies.

Welcome aboard T.J.

My answers to your questions:

1. It depends, I suppose on where you live. The website www.linns.com, aside from being a good source of philatelic news has links to many stamp sellers around the world.

2. I prefer to have and use stamp tongs, but for beginning collectors they are not compulsory. You can use plain old paper envelopes for short to medium-term (up to 10 years) storage. Glassine envelopes are see-through and come in smaller sizes that make them easier to handle, but they cost money. It's up to you. Some people like using stock cards or stockbooks, but I haven't been able to justify the expense as yet. I pick up used stockpages at my local dealer for a song, and otherwise keep stamps in glassines. I do use an album or two as well for country-specific collections. For a topical collector, a stockbook may make more sense as you can arrange your stamps however you like.

3. If I were a topical collector (which I am not, to be fair), I would spend alot of time visiting the website of the topical societies, especially the one in my country of residence. In the United States of America it would be [url http://www.americantopicalassn.org/

T.J.

With all due respect to Stallzer, I would recommend that you not buy stamps from Mystic -- they tend to be very expensive.

For supplies, also consider iHobb, and Subway. Also remember, you'll save money on shipping if you do a little research, make a list of the supplies you want to buy, do your comparison shopping, then order everything in one order. I know it's sometimes difficult to spend a larger sum at once, but I hate to order a small thing or two and pay more for shipping than the supplies themselves.

After you reach 50 posts and two weeks of membership here, you'll be able to participate in the Buy/Sell forums and that may be the easiest way for you to acquire stamps. Lately, I've been purchasing material on Wensy (www.wensy.com) and also check BidStart.

If you're going to be a TOPICAL collector of any sort, I would suggest your consider a membership in the American Topical Association http://www.americantopicalassn.org Membership is $25 per year, but you'll get a nice newsletter and access to their topical checklists. As a member, you can get the lists for the price of xeroxing. Unfortunately, they don't appear to have a checklist for Farming. Click the CHECKLIST link on their website for a full list.

Finally, USE this forum. Read the older threads. Ask as many questions as you can.

Kirk

[edit: smauggie scooped me while I was typing ]

Perhaps Agriculture.

Here's a quick start for some U.S. farming-related issues (using Scott Catalog Numbers):

286
1024
3209i
3448-3450
3469-3470
4291
4292

Hi TJ

Welcome!!

Lots of good advice above.

1 I'd suggest you also find out where your local stamp dealers are, and visit them to get a feeling of the kind of stock they have and to let them know of your interests. They need to earn a living and so should be keen to support a new collector!

2 In the stamp dealers, look out for collections in albums or stock books - look through the collections and make a mental note of how many stamps there are (a) that fit your theme or (b) you like the look of. If they are enough to justify the cost to you, get the collection (it's not a matter of how much the stamps are worth - not many people make money from reselling - it's a matter of how much it's worthy to YOU.)

3 Try to get a stockbook (book with strips of glassine on each page to hold stamps without hinges) as that's a great way to get a collection organised quickly. If you're lucky you'll be able to combine 2 and 3 by buying a collection in a stock book. I quickly moved onto lighthouse vario individual sheets in a file - expensive but look great and easy to reorganise as your collection grows.

4 As for catalogues - they're expensive (a set of 5 Stanley Gibbons catalogues will set you back well over £150 if new), but incredibly useful. I bought mine second hand from a stamp dealer for about £60 a few years ago. No need to replace for ages, especially for a topical collection. AS good alternative source is a local library - ask them when they'll be getting rid of theirs (they'll generally buy a new set every year or two or three) and then make them an offer.

5 As for farming - it's a topic I've been collecting for a few years. A great topic which has a huge lot of scope. I do "food and farming" as there are some lovely fishing stamps so I have quite a lot of stamps on this. I'm afraif I haven't the time today to tell you how I've organised things FWIW but will try to post within a week or so. Some starters - preparing the soil (eg Argentina early 1900s defins showing agricultural labourer with ploughed strips ahead of him), sowing (lots of rather attractive stamps here, including some great cheap oldies eg France defins early 1900s "the sower"); harvesting - ditto with lots and lots of stamps, eg early cheap 1900s series from Hungary; crops - huge range - cereals, fruit, vegetables, coffee etc etc etc; farming machinery (eg Bangladesh early defins) To whet your apetite, try google image with eg "stamp fruit" to give you some idea of what's out there.

6 Look through the many forums on this site, using the search facility - lots of good info all over the place on pretty well anything.

7 Subscribe to stampcollectingblog, by an SCF member from Finland - thoughtful, interesting and free.

8 Enjoy what you do - it's fun, not serious, make displays that you like, and ask lots of QQ here. That way you'll get to the magic 50 postings quickly, and can then trade the stamps that don't fit in your collection for stamps that do. And do all you can to make sure your partner / family / friends see why the hobby is so great - you'll need their tolerance as the bug bites!

Hello

1.Go for a kiloware. Then start to trade. Cheap, fast, and a lot of material. In few months do you learn about your stamps a lot.
2.Stamp tongs and envelopes.
3.Mostly all countries have a reference for the stamps on the web. Do not worry about value on the stamps, sure can you identify a rare stamp in your lot, you know the only one in your ten thousand stamps.

FDC sell it all, don´t bother with that (my opinion of course, I don´t like the mint/FDC/souvenir sheer/blocks/panes and any other Postal Administrators "Big Idea" for take the money of the stamp collectors)

Topical, Always have to start and never success. I like to read this article, http://www.owasu.org/articles/how_to_1.html

OK, back to Machins.

Fernando Moscoso
Ecuador

wow,thanks for all the help & advice.it is greatly appreciated.i have been a member of several different types of message boards but, this has got to be the friendliest.y'all deserve a

rod222,yep I just let another y'all slip.being from Alabama they tend to slip out on me

on the collecting front : I dug a box out of the closet (that had some of my Grandfathers things in it)and made a few dicoveries.
i found The Postal Service Guide To U.S. Stamps - 16th edition 1990 book
some more First Day Covers,postal cards,stamped envelopes,and a few stamps - including a few airmail stamps.some of the first day covers are the 1981 Ronald Reagan Inauguration Day covers.i have a few questions about them but i'll put them in the right forum.

thanks again,
T.J.