How Many Different Issue Stamps Are There Since 1840?

I was wondering if anyone has tackled this recently? The latest total I have is one that Keijo did back in 2012 and came up with 634,113 stamps. I think Linns used to do an annual count at one time. Not sure if they still do.

The problem with any count is how you define the word --"stamp ". The area we will disagree is does this include revenue stamps , Cinderella stamps ,different watermarks , perforations , color shades ,souvenir sheets . Since each collector makes their own decision it is hard to make a clear number .

Ah yes the age old question. In a perfect world, I'd go with Scott, plus a little Minkus and some of the European Catalogues, including the excluded counties Cuba, North Korea, etc. No Cinderella's (OK that could be a much larger discussion) yes to Souvenir Sheets. The basic question would be "could someone use this thing for postage?" if the answer is "yes" then it is in. Most revenue stamps would be another grey area depending on the issuance, I can't recall how Keijo treated those. He was very methodical in his count. Let's ask AI There is no exact definitive number for different postage stamps in the world, but estimates suggest hundreds of thousands, with some sources counting around 620,000 different designs from 1840 to 2010, and with approximately 10,000 to 15,000 new stamps issued each year, the total number is constantly increasing. The precise number is hard to determine because different cataloging systems and definitions of what constitutes a "different" stamp exist... Actually not a bad answer, but I feel like another power plant had to be fired up to answer it.

The answer given by many stamp collectors from at least the 1890s onwards is:

TOO MANY!

How many hills and mountains are there in the world? It depends how you define hills and mountains.

How could any collector ever say that there are too many stamps? Think of how much poorer the world would be without them all.

How many ? I would say from all the written comments on chat boards ,maybe 750,000 different if your talking face different . You could add another 50,000 for perforations ,paper, watermarks and other oddities {like blacklight stuff } .
Now your getting other problems in collecting stamps like ,cost or money , space to keep it ,and also time .All three kills the hobby from reaching that 800,000 level .

And it could certainly be argued that there are far more revenue stamps issued since 1840 than postage stamps. So many are not in the catalogs that most collectors use.

I like 750,000, sounds about right. That means I've completed 17.04% of the world ;)

From Wikipedia:

"The Society for the Suppression of Speculative Stamps (S.S.S.S.) was a short-lived and ill-fated attempt by philatelists before 1900 to suppress the issue of stamps designed mainly for sale to collectors.

"The society was formed on 6 May 1895 and lasted until about 1897 when it broke up due to the failure of dealers and collectors within its ranks to boycott speculative issues.

"The society was supported by the Royal Philatelic Society London and the American Philatelic Society."

I don't know what happens in other countries, but in the UK the eventual result of the S.S.S.S.'s demise is that Royal Mail issues twenty terrifyingly expensive miniature sheets and presentation packs every year, which have no postal purpose, and indeed no other purpose than to exploit stamp collectors' obsession with completeness.

TOO MANY STAMPS!

Is someone forcing you to buy them? I would think not; so if collectors want to, they will. So too many is very relative.

It is true collectors that collect set some kind of country limit or time limit with many setting both a country and time limit to what they are interested in .

again money and time are limits .

Or theme. Money is always a determining factor. Most collectors have limits.

So far I have met very few collectors who think they have too many stamps. OK, they may agree that they have too many, then they get more.

I know two collectors that had secret stamp rooms too to hide more stamps. One collector has great difficulty getting enough stamps out of the garage to park his car in for the winter.

I even have fun putting in the seemingly endless Hungary, Romania, Poland, Czech etc stamps in albums. They are cheap and fun. Go to any stamp show and one can find those counties and they really won't cost much to get a bunch. I love the Poland and San Marino Dino stamps.

And don't forget postal stationery.

Not as widely collected but certainly legitimate as postage to carry mail.

In my humble opinion, increasing numbers worldwide do collect this area, based on increasing issuance of country catalogs being printed.

The USA has 1582+ stationery items listed up to 2016. So, a conservative rough guess as to world stationery may be 250,000++. Lots of shelf space would be needed!!

Ferrari had one large room for stamps and another separate room for stationery. I've never been a big fan, except postally used can be interesting. People really could write small on an aerogram!

Several years (when I became editor of The Canadian Philatelist) I created a database of world countries, borrowed the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogues from a local library, and counted the 'major' numbers (if Scott assigned a single number to a larger pane, such as 25 or 50 stamps, I counted the individual stamps, not the single number).

This does not count the sub-varieties, such as perforation changes (i.e. any lowercase Scott sub-number).

I have not updated this count in the last couple of years as I have not gone back and borrowed more recent editions (yet).

This estimate is close enough for my purposes.

Here is my count:



Robin Harris
Editor, The Canadian Philatelist, Royal Philatelic Society of Canada