This Stamp Frustrates Me, It Gets 11 * 11 Each Time,

It also leads to confirmation bias. Confirmation bias misleads hobbyists and causes them to waste time and money. They make horrible buying decisions and worse of all, the disappointment can cause them to leave the hobby.

Here is what NOT to do. Use ebay listings, sorted by highest first, to lookup a stamp with a similar design as a stamp in hand. See stamps listed with huge numbers. Excitement builds. Do a bit of research and read that the rare stamps are 19.75 x 22.25. Measure the stamp design; excitement builds to very high levels.

Come into a community like this and tell folks that they have a rare stamp; often they will argue for days and days. Sometimes they blame the community for being 'kill-joys' or otherwise 'crushing their dreams'.

None of this is fun or enjoyable for anyone; especially when a quick forum search will reveal 100+ threads which unfolded as outlined above.

It is important that hobbyists be open minded when identifying stamps. Our hobby has many things to offer, things that can be delivered without odds longer than winning ten lotteries in a row.

Learning to quickly make an accurate identification of a stamp is a core competency of the hobby. Sitting in front of a table full of stamp and wasting time thinking each one is rare steals time that could be spent learning about the history and culture that each stamp represents.

Lastly, our hobby does indeed require a significant investment in education. No one can learn this hobby is a few days, weeks or months. There are no real short-cuts to gaining the decades of experience that many in this community process. But communities like this or your local stamp club represent a wealth of knowledge which many are willing to share.
Don

Could not agree more.

Dan

I totally agree with what you say and there are probably many who are so disappointed that they close the books and never open them again.

What I meant by enjoyble is that I am fascinated by the reaction one can experience from a tiny piece of paper from 100 years back in time :-) and as I previously told, I have collected banknotes for many years. With banknotes, there are other criteria, which are more focused on quality and there are so many different quality levels. And fewer releases, so then one must use quality to distinguish all levels, one example is how many folds a banknote has, from 1 to 25 - 30 folds etc.

Production methods are often not topic because we should not know and they will be often produced only in one place. If you call the bank and ask for it then they will wonder why you want to know it? :-)

So that feeling is not present in this hobby .. when it comes to counterfeit banknotes, it is treasure hunting, false banknotes are always burned, if you find it you have a small fortune, a fake 500 note from norway around 1900- 1920, value $ 10,000-15,000, I been told

So it is human to be excited when one finds something resembling a rare postage stamp, but more one learns, understands and then understands why you are trying to curb the joy, relax, it just looks like something, no more: - )

I myself study engineer and love details, trying to live off my photo art so am interested in art in general, colors and workmanship, so stamps are fascinating. And history.

My collection has some history, long ... another time but twice it has been hidden away and dug into the ground, English / Chinese slightly damaged by water, etc ... 1 time my uncle's crazy son got hold of the collection , he had sold all the oldest Norwegian shilling stamps before they got him. Tragic.

So my focus on "values" etc is because I want to know what I have because I don't know the collection in detail. And if you has something good in a collection, its smart to know ;-)

I just know that my uncle talked a lot about his collection the last few days he lived, brain cancer. He told my aunt, hide it away, hide it, it's valuable ... and "important information" disappeared with him.

So more I learn more interested, more careful I become :-) And feel that the feeling of respect for what I have increases, take better care of it, keep it, they are mine, will not sell etc ..

Hi Dronen71,
One thing, you should be aware that there is a period in US philatelics known as "The Banknote Era", which saw National Banknote, Continental Banknote and American Banknote companies printing US stamps from around 1860 to about 1895. When I was reading about your mention of "Previously collected banknotes", I thought this was what you were referring to, then I realized, you mean printed currency... so careful mixing numismatics with philately terminology. :)

aha, I see Classic :-) I was talking about money :-)


One of the differences is that the price of banknotes / money is permanent, I think , even the old ones, they are valued and rarely change.

Stamps I have been told can change over periods. My Mao stamps had fallen in price over the last few years, but still good, one of the reasons Chinese stamps got some special pricing was that they were used internally in china as money / currency in the 50, 60 and 70's? Is that right? Did other country do the same?

another thing that you may be able to help me with, as you have understood I try to get an overview of what I have and have made the same mistake that many people do and precisely what Studebaker raised, that you sit down at a table and start 1 and 1 stamp .... big job :-)

How can I start otherwise? make system in the caos, divide into as many different types, periods, releases, stamps, year etc ... of course in can find lots if tips on web, but roughly how to get a good start?

of course, I have books and 40-50% its in there, but also a huge number of small bags, 50-200 stamps each bag,
several countries

so, how to start good

Not exactly true. People's Republic of China stamps have gone way up and way down due to heavy speculation. and will probably continue to do so for issues of that period. It is true that expensive stamps were used by wealthy people to pay for major purchases, as has been done elsewhere.