New Member, Tying In To Family History

Hi, new member in Texas here. Trying to collect stamps from countries of my family's ancestry- U.S., Germany, and Great Britain. I say trying because I only have a handful from the UK, a few pages of German stamps, the Michel Germany vol 1 2016 catalogue, and beginner level US albums so far. Not seeking to create a valuable $ collection, but an interesting one, so space theme or Germany inflation stamps are two areas of interest for example. Have met a few collectors online, but anyone I knew irl who collected stamps is deceased, leaving me well, right here...

Welcome to the forum. Stick around, get some quality posts in, and you will eventually be able to participate in some sales, trades, and giveaways to help you build your collection.

Agree with your comments about collectors you have known. We will all, eventually, end up where they did. Best to enjoy collecting and camaraderie while you can.

It is funny how tying into family history can happen. I collect one non-USA country for that reason.

However,over the years I have found several family related goodies from the US. The first was a proxy postal card which had the required documentary tax stamp applied. When I showed it to my partner, joking about what I found I was set straight. It was in fact her father's proxy voting card. I was unaware he had spent time in the Dakotas before she was born.

Next, I was well soaked for a penalty mailing tag from a dealer. It had no stamps at all. I really did not understand why it was so priced until I received it with an enclosed note, "a relative?" Yes it was and clearly he took a gambol and priced it beyond worth for anyone except a family member. The person mailing the penalty tag was C.E. Hooks, Clerk to Committee on Parcel Post-Post Roads. It went to a great uncle.

Welcome "Definitive." That's an interesting angle which you are preparing to pursue.

The great thing about stamp collecting is your get to define your collection -- it's extent, exclusions, limits, etc. We hope you find it a pleasurable past-time.

The thought occurs to me that if you know the English counties or towns/cities, or the German principalities & cities where your family members lived, and the US equivalents..., that might form a collecting area where you could immediately begin to gather highly relevant stamps depicting scenes your ancestors likely saw, rather than the whole of the national stamp output which for the UK, Germany, and US could easily sprawl into a very large number of stamps.

Best wishes.

Hi Definitive - I'm doing something similar to what you're suggesting, focusing on Canada, GB and Germany where my family's roots are. One thing you might want to consider if you're just starting out and looking for a way to build your collection is to join the American Philatelic Society (APS) and subscribe to one or more of their country "circuits".

The way it works is every couple of months you get a set of booklets with stamps all from a country that you've indicated you're interested in. You pick out the ones you want and then send the remaining books/stamps to the next person on the circuit.

There's been some discussion in this forum of different issues with these circuits - mainly around mistaken identities where stamps are being misidentified by the sellers. I see that a fair bit. But if you're interested in collecting more modern stamps, say from the 40s on it's easy to stay away from those problem ones.

And I find those mid to late 20th century stamps from countries I'm focused on fascinating. I get interested in the stories they tell and then end up chasing wild hares on wikipedia for days.

Another place to find stamps cheap is on Ebay. But I made a lot of mistakes doing that - spending good money to buy somebody else's junk that wasn't well cared for. It takes time to learn, and I was in too much of a hurry. But over time it's possible to learn a lot from these discussion threads.

Good luck to you.

Best thing you can do as a new collector is join a local stamp club in your area. They will always provide you some more low cost stamps and keep you moving in the right direction. There are also a few good on line stamp clubs you can join for more information and presentations each month.

Finding a local stamp club is a great idea, if you have one nearby. I recall one instance where a woman found our club through adverts on the local Craigslist. She was interested in horses, so myself and another member dug out a few items, which in turn led her to other items of interest and before she left, she had close to a hundred stamps; paying next to nothing for them. After she walked out the door (quite happy, I might add), my fellow club member said to me "The first one's free, kid!".

Thank you for the ideas! I did a cost analysis using the tables and converted to $ (used another device but you probably know the site. Germany is expensive [read difficult] after 1940 but the collections badly fragment before then and it seems the 2nd Reich is one of the most affordable, compared to Great Britain, for example. The area I may need to avoid is the US before about 1930. It is extremely expensive relative to the other countries I looked at, and resale values were in a downward spiral at least from about 1995- 2015 (correct me if wrong but that is what the sources I have checked with indicate). I did order a Harris Liberty album part A but am going to focus on the 1930s on, only getting earlier stamps if they randomly fall to me.

I have looked at stamp clubs, with the nearest being about half an hour away. Based on what Rileysan and Collector Kent are saying though, it would be worth it to go to a meeting and see what they are like. I can look at the APA too. Thanks again!

Rather than stamps, I know of a number of genealogists who collect picture postcards relating to their family - hospitals where they were born, schools they attended, court houses where births/marriages/deaths were recorded, churches where family events occurred, where they honeymooned, fairs and parades they attended, cemeteries where they are buried, post offices they mailed their letters from, ships they sailed on when they emigrated, Ellis island, places of employment, pets, sports & hobbies, where did your father take you to your first baseball game or auto race or fishing trip, military bases where they served, etc. One can assemble a very personal illustrated family history to supplement far beyond the family photo album.