How Do You Tell Paper Type And What Is Grill?

Hey stamp lovers!
I recently have started identifying stamps, and I have 2 big obstacles. First, how do you tell what type of paper you have? I needed to know because it was a difference of about $100-100000! Also, what is grill, and how do I identify it? That was a difference of $500. Please reply.

RANDOM BANANA

Hi Spartacus, and welcome to this forum. I read your other post, and you said you have a brand new catalog.
If you have a Scott catalog the answers to both your questions are in the introduction.
Grills have been talked about in this forum, and pictures are found in different places. Please go to the "search" box and enter "grill". You will get a bunch of leads.
Paper types are very difficult to distinguish, especially if you only have one copy of a stamp. In my opinion you should wait till you get more stamps!
One thing you might do right now is to take a scan of your stamp, both front and back, and post those here. Sometimes we can tell a lot from just that!

Peter

Study of books and journal articles; that is, philatelic research. There may be a philatelic library near you.
Study of your stamps.
Reading past threads on SCF.
Watching videos at www.stamps.org or collecting societies.
Going to seminars.

These are broad topics that aren't amenable to instant answers. You need to invest time in educating yourself. You can't always expect to post a question here and get someone else to do the work for you. Sometimes you can, but not always, and the responses may be wrong.

Regarding paper, if you are talking about hard and soft papers of the Banknote era--that's a guess, because you don't say--there are many threads on SCF about this that illustrate various tests.

As to grills, roughly speaking, the number of points wide and tall are important, as is the direction of the points. You could start by measuring point ocua stamp and posting high-res scans, with your opinion, to see if others agree.

Another possibility to find out more about stamps and philately is to join a local stamp club, if there is one in your area. Members are likely to be very helpful in getting you oriented to some of the issues you bring up. Eventually, if your interest grows, you may consider membership in the American Philatelic Society, which publishes a magazine about stamp collecting.

Hi spartacus, welcome to the Forum. If you have a copy of the the Scott Catalogue, as PeterT indicated, the intro pages contain a world of info with definitions and explanations of many important facets that define differences between similar stamps.

You don't say here if you are collecting, and referencing older "classic" US stamps, or worldwide stamps from other nations. Since paper types and grills play a significant role in determining the many variations of older US stamps, I presume you're referring to US stamps. If true, you can use Scott "Specialized Catalogue of United STates Stamps & Covers"...

In the 2014 book you can check out pages 29A and 30A for paper/grill info. To help identify the different US grills (which vary in the area of stamp they cover), I purchased a nifty Precision US Specialty Multi-Gauge (available online thru Amos or Mystic or other dealers).

But as the others point out if you're serious invest in doing your research. Fortunately, I have learned a great deal from generous and knowledgeable collectors right here in this Forum. Enjoy!

Thanks for the advice! If you are wondering, I collect worldwide stamps, but mostly USA at the moment. I'll take a look at my library, and try to learn more. Thanks, I never would have thought of that on my own! :)

Stamp catalogues are rather expensive new. But the budget can be stretched by checking out used stamp catalogues listed for sale on ebay and or Amazon. Libraries frequently replace these reference books with the new annual edition and they sell the older version at a substantial savings.