How Do We Know If Something Has Been Postally Used?

I love birds, I love the idea of topical collecting, but wonder how far we have pushed stamp issuing authorities to print anything which was never intended to carry mail just to cater to our hobby?

I just was looking at the "Bird Auctions" and have to admit to feeling disgust as to how our hobby has been used to make money for every country willing to print topicals.

"Stamp collecting" after all, shouldn't it be about collecting things that were at least intended to be used for the mails?

I stopped collecting US stamps for this very reason - go to a post office and ask for stamps?

Surely I sound like an old timer, and I guess I am, but after 1940, I would rather see that my collection includes only genuinely created postal items otherwise I might as well collect labels from anywhere as long as they are pretty.

Topicals have been that way since the 60's. It was about money. Many countries issued large topical sets with different denominations. The higher denominations has almost zero postal need so never see postally used. The US will issue sets for collectors but at least all stamps typically have the same denomination.

Commemoratives have been a means of making money from stamp collectors since they first appeared. As have air-mail stamps. There is no postal need for either. The US Columbus series, or its 1930s issues featuring German airships are really no different in spirit from today's wallpaper, just more attractively designed.

Where does it say so?

Proofs, essays, "cancelled," specimen and training school stamps were not intended to be used on mail. Yet, people collect them.

If it was issued and could be used to pay postage it is "real" whether you agree with the intent behind it or not. Frankly most stamps are fanciful in nature. Do you really need 20 different Flower/Heart/Flag stamps? No you could just issue the values needed mathematically to make a rate and those values could be very utilitarian looking and it is likely the hobby of stamp collecting would be virtually non-existent.

If people did not desire (pay for) so-called topical stamps they would go away.

Topical stamps have fired the imagination of many a young person, myself included, and brought them to the hobby, many times for life.

You have good points for sure.

Specimens and proofs, though, are not they part of the production process?

Certainly I am glad that more people have been drawn to the hobby by the topicals I just feel used at times I guess.

To quote what I read here written by someone else, I am just saying what I do, not telling anyone else what to do.

That is because you want something, other than what it is.
That feeling is valid to you, but not the truth.
Disregard anything that does not fit your discipline,
No need to categorise it. let it be.

If you want genuine postal use stamps, then perhaps collect covers.
with cancelled stamps?

Enjoy a hobby that satisfies all sorts of people in all sorts of ways, aims and desires.
Ornithology is a great discipline, lots to get your teeth into.

I just checked my "Stanley Gibbons Collect Birds on Stamps"
Worldwide
7,500 stamps. 1,860 Bird Species

Fujeira, Ajman, Trucial States Included.
What is Fabulous, they list every example by Index Zoological name,
and every "type" in context.

Say you want to find every Nuthatch on a stamp, or the only example of a swallow Tanager on a postage stamp , is Venezuela SG#1752

Collect what you want. That's the first principle of stamp collecting.

CTO (cancelled to order) stamps have been around making quick money for dozens of postal administrations by selling "non-stamp" stamps for at least 60 years. Collect them if you like them. Don't if you don't.

I avoid them. And I avoid souvenir sheets. The number of souvenir sheets that some countries issue is hard to believe, and every one of them is entirely for the purpose of taking money out of collectors' pockets with no purpose in mailing anything. I'd guesstimate that about 90% of the souvenir sheets ever issued are pure garbage with no postal purpose whatsoever. When a country issued one every few years, that seemed fine. When a country issues a souvenir sheet for half its annual stamp issues, it's absurd. Unless you collect souvenir sheets, of course, which I'm sure someone specializes in. So I just don't collect them. Instead, I collect stamps that were issued -- as far as I can tell -- for postal use (probably).