Hello To The Stamp Collecting Community...

My name is Joe. I'd like to take a moment of introduction. I'm a husband and Father that lives in Queens NYC. I've always had a collectors bug since a boy and have varied interests and collections.

I've collected books, paperbacks, comics, photography, coins, the list goes on.

I have always been interested in stamps but never collected. I'm looking to do so now.

I'm interested in British Colonies, British isles, and Chinese and Asian in general.

I look forward to learning here in the forum.

I'm particularly interested in the best way to avoid purchasing fakes. This is, I'm sure, a concern for all stamp collectors.

Anyway, looking forward!

DrWatson!

You'll find a lot of helpful folks here!

Welcome!

Joe,

You may want to consider King George VI. The collection would be closed as it begins in 1936 and ends in 1952. What is interesting about it is that you would be collecting about 25% of the world's stamps in a very tight timeframe. Just a thought.

Jack Kelley

Welcome.

Welcome!

Dale

Welcome

Thank you for the welcomes.

There's two peculiar things pertaining to functionality that I'm noticing about this forum.

1. The search function is disabled. It says 'temporarily disabled' so I'm hoping that will eventually turn on.

2. There doesn't seem to be a way to reply to a particular comment within a post; in other words, to respond to one person specifically.

Joe,

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences. Russ

Hi Joe, welcome to the community. I collect British Guiana and there are more fakes and forgeries than you can shake a stick at. The only way I know to avoid buying F&Fs is to educate yourself. There are sites out there that can help you. Stampforgeries.com presents the info from Earee's "Album Weeds" and the "Spud Papers" by Earee' et al are a good place to go for forgeries of classic stamps, if that is what you are interested in. I also paid for a download from a gentleman named Klasebauer and I have found it very worthwhile. For more modern info, I haven't a clue but maybe someone else could offer resources.

Search function isn't disabled. Only the bottom. Go ahead and search in the top portion.


To respond to a person only, you send them an email. Just click on their name, and follow the directions. All other responses/reply, are seen by all. Welcome to the forum.

DrWatson

You will need to have 50 posts before you can email anyone privately. Easy to get to 50. Just participate by asking questions.

To respond to one person specifically, you can address them by user name, or use the quote tags, as Partime did. In the FAQ menu, there is a quote example under the "How to format text" heading.

Thanks for the replies.

I collect just Great Britain and Northern Ireland pre 2001. My understanding is that forgeries in this sector that they fetch more than originals. I think that until relatively recently there was almost no forgery but modern GB stamps are being forged now for Postal use. If you aren't collecting every subtle variation then it is possible to collect all the United Kingdom stamps of the 20th century. In less than 20 years I have got all but one of the King George the 6th stamps mint and used and all the QE2 stamps except for some graphite wildings and a few allegedly common commemorative stamps. Enjoy the hobby.

Hi Joe, welcome to this wonderful forum. I grew up in Queens (Flushing) and lived there until I was 30. Likewise, I also collect British Commonwealth- definitives, dues, officials. And like Jack Kelly I have a very strong interest in KGVI.

Would be delighted to help you in any way I can.