Brand New To Stamp Collecting

My husband bought me a 2 volume set of worldwide stamp collecting albums for Christmas and 1000 stamps. I am kind of overwhelmed and don't know how to get started. I am not interested in collecting stamps for $$ but for fun and as a hobby. Could use any suggestions on how to get started and how to organize. Also where to get more world stamps.

Thanks,
Susan

Well first thing is - there are no rules to how you should or must collect stamps. Collect what you like - in whatever way you like - by country - by period (decade, century) or by what we call "topicals." Unsorted used lots are available all over the place - certainly on ebay - but you'll probably do better and cheaper at a local stamp club auction. World mixtures at such a place cost maybe $5 a kilo. As for the albums you have - if you are going to do world - I'd start by sorting the stamps you have into the respective countries. You will find no problem identifying 75% of the countries but the final 25% will be a steep learning curve. You can ask questions here about that - or borrow Scott's catalogues at your library.

Welcome to SCF and the wonderful world of stamp collecting. As CanadaStamp points out, there are no rules. It's whatever and however you like. There are many sources of information. You just need to type your question into your browser and you will find a wealth of information. You can check out the APS website: http://stamps.org/DisplayPage.aspx?id=68 and look to the left, under stamp collecting and find some beginners basics.
I wish you can find as much enjoyment in this hobby as I have these past 50+ years. Have a question? Ask it in the forum and there are many knowledgeable people happy to help!
Have fun!

Thank you for the information. I just went on ebay and bought some more stamps. The albums that my husband bought me are looseleaf pages with 2 holes punched into the sides. The pages are also larger than a 8 x 11 1/2 standard binder. Haven't been able to find a 2 ring binder that is also larger than 8 x 11 1/2 to put the pages in. Any suggestions?

Hello, welcome to stamp collecting! As others have said, there are no rules. You can pursue this however you'd like. As far as organizing the 1000 stamps you have (assuming you haven't already done something), you can start by organizing them by country. Take some time to get familiar with the country names on stamps since they don't always use the same names that you might be used to. For example "Magyar Posta" = Hungary, "Deutschland, Deutsche Bundespost, or Deutsches Reich" = Germany, "Nippon" = Japan, "Helvetia" = Switzerland, etc. Your album probably has an identifier that will list these for you. Once you have them organized by country, you can begin mounting them in your album.

As you're mounting or as you're looking through your album, you can just kind of go from there with whatever catches your fancy. Maybe you like the stamps of a certain country - you can then search out stamps for sale from there on ebay or through other venues. Maybe there's a certain era of history that you're interested in, or a certain part of the world you've always wanted to visit. There are collecting opportunities for any interest.

Beginner stamp packets are usually pretty cheap and are usually available for about 2-5 cents a stamp. I'd recommend buying a few of these to get a feel for the different types of stamps out there and before long you'll have a better idea of what you like and what you don't.

If you want to get more serious about it - say you really want to collect all the stamps of a particular country, region or historical era, you'll want to pick up a copy of the Scott Catalogue, which lists and values all of the stamps of the world. These are also available at most city libraries. A Scott Catalogue will allow you to come up with lists of stamps that you need for your collection. Most stamps that are bought and sold as specific stamps (as opposed to an unsorted mixture) are sold by catalog numbers. That's a little ways down the road, however. For now I'd recommend just taking it easy and keep your eye out for things that you find interesting or appealing to you and grow your collection along those lines. And be sure to come here often with any questions, concerns, comments, etc. There are a lot of helpful, knowledgeable people here who are happy to help nurture a new collector.

Here are some ebay listings for 2-post binders that should work. You might want to make a note of the hole type on your pages vs. the binders you're looking at, however. Some 2-post pages are round-hole punched whereas on some the holes are rectangular.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Publication...+post+binder

I sell beginner lots on ebay and I happened to make 2 sales of 3 lots each to someone named Susan right about the time you said you bought them. Let me know if that sounds like what you ordered and if so I'll be sure to go the extra mile to get you a better-than-normal variety of countries and eras. They'll likely go out in tomorrow's mail with tracking.

Perhaps an explanation on the 2-hole album pages is in order. For decades most albums had a binding system specific to that album. You bought printed pages for that album. Each year a supplement came out with stamps issued during the previous year, punched to fit that album's binder. You could buy blank pages or quadrilled (lightly ruled, to aid mounting stamps straight erather than crooked) to fit your binding system.

Today some albums use that 2-post system, others may have 3 or more holes. Historically almost all album pages were larger than 8 1/2 x 11 or A-4. It was assumed that an album with wider pages, perhaps also slightly taller, say, 9x12 was more dignified, that it displayed the collection better.

But we now have a variety of albums that use standard 3-hole punched 8 1/2 x 11 paper. We now have pdf files designed to be printed onto the user's own paper with her own laser or inljet printer. The most notable of these is William Steiner's pdf files that cover the entire world with spaces for every stamp ever issued. But a number of other album publishers have shifted to 8 1/2 x 11 size.

It depends on how far you end up pursuing this as to how soon or if you decide you've outgrown your initial album. For now, just have fun. If you use hinges rather than plastic mounts you can easily shift 1000 stamps to a new album at some point down the road. It's when the collection starts to include multiple thousands of hinged stamps that changing albums becomes a pain. At that point a person wants to think long and hard about where he wants to go in the future.

For now, have fun with your 2-post album. Repeat--have fun with the 2-post album.

A note on mounts and hinges. Plastic mounts are expensive, probably cost more per stamp than 99% of your stamps are worth. There are reasons why some of us use them. If lightly moistened, they can be pried loose and remounted in a different album but it's not easy.

In theory, using hinges permits easier remounting into a new album. But all the stamp hinges manufactured today are no longer truly "peelable," that is, you can't pull them off the album page and pull the stamp off the hinge without damaging both. The solution is to moisten hinges only very, very lightly. If and when you need to remount a stamp, remove the hinge and stamp from the album page then, if the hinge does not easily come off the stamp, cut the hinge at the fold and leave half of it on the stamp. If it's a used stamp you can soak the hinge off and dry the stamp but for gummed/mint stamps you may need to leave remnants on the stamp.

Vintage, truly peelable, hinges are available but at a high price. Right now you don't want to worry about that.

Have fun with that album and standard, more or less, sorta peelable hinges.

Hi Susan

I'm happy to see a brand new stamp collector
joining us here.

One thing no one has mentioned yet and perhaps you already
have, are stamp tongs.

Avoid touching stamps with your fingers, always use
tongs.

If you stick with this hobby you will have many hours of fun.
Actually it might even become addictive.

Welcome Susan:

Yesterday, I was catching up on my stamp reading and happened across this article. It's a good article, from a well-know philatelist, with great tips for ALL collectors -- new and experienced.

http://www.linns.com/howto/refreshe...rcourse.aspx

Thanks for joining SCF -- we look forward to your questions and learning more about your collection.

Kirk

Hi Susan, always great to welcome another worldwide collector.

If you have a chance, could you post the name/publisher of your album? That might help us give you some additional suggestions.

@Artful Hinger// I did by 6 packages of stamps today. 2 orders of three packages. So I do think it was me

Yep, I just responded to the message you sent me on ebay. This is like deja vu all over again for me. It was only about a month ago there was almost the exact same scenario where someone posted here about just getting started and said they just bought some stamp packets on ebay and it just happened to be from me. I mean, not every ebay buyer and seller posts on this forum (not even close) and certainly not at the same time that a transaction is happening, so the odds were definitely not in favor of that happening. At any rate, I'm honored to help a new collector get started, and if that's my niche in the stamp collecting world, it's a niche I'll be happy to occupy. For most of us that post here, our collections are a great source of joy in our lives and most collectors are eager to spread it around. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions about any of the stamps or about collecting in general.

Nice to see people connecting like this. And welcome, Susan.

@1840to1940
H.E. Harris Statesman Worldwide 2-Volume Album Set is what he bought me. But it is just the pages. No binders. Plus there are a lot of supplement packages with it,

You can find binders new or used on eBay--navigate to Stamps/Publications and Supplies/Albums and search "Statesman." Here's an example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Harris-Stat...em3a9ccfdf11

This one looks new. You could get used ones even more cheaply.

Cool. I'm glad you have those supplements. I hate it when the cost of supplements for an album is more than the base cost of the original album.

One thing you will quickly discover is that you will have stamps for which there are no spaces in your album. There are a lot of ways of dealing with this. My favorite is to keep a separate stockbook (or looseleaf stock pages) of such stamps until you decide what you want to do with them. (I.e., mount on blank pages, get a bigger album, stay with the stockbook approach, etc.)