Stamp Collecting For Children

"Oh no!" I hear you scream. "Not stamps! Boring!" OK, maybe, but not if you pick the right stamps. There is a heck of a lot you can learn from them. History & geography for starters. Plus if you find the right stamp you can make a huge amount of money…and believe it or not they can be fun. Here’s some useful info…

There are a number of ways to start collecting. The easiest is to start soaking them off envelopes, and or buy a bag of stamps off ebay or preferably your friendly neighbourhood stamp dealer.

You can go into as much or as little detail as you want (I am afraid I am a bit of an anorak and sometimes take it a bit too seriously)

You can collect by country or by theme eg. cars, boats, birds. Children are sometimes very keen themes when stamp collecting.

My biggest tip is to collect stuff you like!

A stamp catalogue (like an Argos or Sears catalogue) that lists nearly every stamp can be a handy refeence tool. There are various ones available. Stanley Gibbons is as good as any for the vast majority of us but for German stamps the Michel catalogue has the edge I think.
My favourie country is Germany where you can see the start of a country from little states to unification. To hyperinflation, the rise of the Nazis, end of the war, division of the country into East & West, and then re-unification.

Below: Hyper-inflation German stamp of the 1920’s. Overprinted (surcharged) from 200 marks to the 2 million marks rate of postage. This is not just a stamp but a historical document that really brings home the fact that peoples life savings were being wiped out overnight.

Any questions feel free to post comments or e-mail. Some handy hints are listed below…

Some helpful info:

Stamp Condition

Stamps are either mint or postally used..

Used stamp conditions are:

Superb

Very fine used

Fine Used

Used

Space filler

Country Identification

Only Great Britain never puts its name on stamps.

Perforations

Stamps without perforations are imperforate. eg. Penny Black

Semi-circular perforations are called elliptical.

The gauge (size) of a perforation is the number of holes in a length of 2 cms along the stamp.

Watermarks

Detect watermarks by either holding the stamp to the light, putting a chemical solution on the stamp, or using a watermark detecting machine.

Plate numbers

The plate numbers on Penny Reds are halfway down the right hand side. Use a magnifying glass to see if necessary.

Plate 77 is worth £120000

Overprints

An overprint is any printing added to the face of a stamp after it has been manufactured. This is usually done to make stamps suitable for use not originally intended. Whenever an overprint changes the value, it is called a surcharge.

Stamp Catalogues

When possible avoid using simplified catalogues they do not list variations such as watermarks, errors in color etc.

Have a watermark detector, magnifying glass, and perforation gauge handy if possible.

Tips for using the catalogue:

Look for a date on the stamp.

If no date how old does it look?

Is there a monarch that will be a clue to the date of issue?

Look at the design. If it has a Dalek on the stamp look up Dalek in the index.

That should be enough to get your children going with their stamp collection.