Stamp Collecting Basics

Stamp collecting is the most popular hobby in the world. Philately is a broader term for the study of stamps, and it is frequently - but wrongly - equated to stamp collecting.

Through stamp collecting, people find information about history, currency, science, politics, arts, architecture and customs of different nations and countries of the world. All stamp collectors have fun with their stamps because no collection is ever complete, and there is always a challenge.

First, decide whether you would like to collect unused (mint) or used (canceled) stamps. If starting a mint stamp collection, purchase unused stamps from the post office. And if you see interesting stamps coming in the mail - collect them.

Many collectors prefer used stamps because they are less expensive or they may cost you nothing.

Some collectors save stamps by "topic": for instance, if you are interested in ships, you may want to collect stamps of ships and boats. Car fans often collect stamps with cars on them. You can disregard the countries and only collect stamps that have pictures that you like. Some people like to collect stamps of one or several countries, but which are all of the same subject. Popular topical themes are birds, cats, butterflies, flowers, sports, space, art, chess, famous people and other.

Specialized collecting means that you can collect all the varieties of a single stamp or collect stamps used for a special purpose.

Country collecting is usually done chronologically by date of issue, sub-divided into reigns or political periods.

Some collectors specialize in collecting only the first stamps, one for each country that has ever issued a postage stamp, or collecting first-day covers.

Some areas of collecting cost less than ten cents a stamp, while others can cost thousands of dollars.

A lot of people collect "Cinderellas" - stamps that are not official stamps issued by a country's postal administration. Cinderella collectors include in their collections local postage issues, telegraph stamps, tax stamps, forgeries and counterfeits.

The "hobbies" section of your local library may have basic books about stamp collecting, and the reference department may have a set of stamp-collecting catalogs. To find the value of a specific stamp, visit some good stamp-collecting web sites.

If looking for more information on stamps and stamp collecting, the local post office is the best place to start.

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The Many Uses Of Rubber Stamps

Rubber stamps have become widely popular over the last few years. Previously, rubber stamps were used for business purposes only, but people today now use rubber stamps extensively for craft projects. Nowadays, rubber-stamping has become a fantastic hobby where an individual can create all sorts of designs by using rubber stamps. For this hobby, obviously rubber stamps carved with different designs on the rubber is essential, as well as ink pad that is used to transfer the designs from these rubber stamps onto a medium like pieces of cloth, paper, or card.

Decorative rubber stamps, also called art stamps, are used extensively in homemade craft projects. Decorative art stamps leave a lasting image on the page and create wonderful paint designs on a wide range of surfaces. Art stamps can be used to decorate scrapbooks or to add color and variety to photo albums. Art stamps are also used on letters, greetings cards, birthday and Christmas cards, banners and flyers to give a personalized touch. Art stamps can also be used to decorate notebooks, stationery and holiday wrapping paper. Either one stamp design, or two or more complementary designs can be used at a time to embellish a single paper.

Art rubber stamps can be painted with fabric paint to create a decorative border design on a piece of fabric or an existing garment. The paint used should blend nicely with the fabric to give a personal touch to items such as tablecloths and napkins. Since rubber stamps can also be used on hard surfaces like wood or metal, hard items such as trunks, jewelry boxes and picture frames can also be decorated with rubber stamps. The paints used to decorate these hard surface items should be appropriate for the item's surface to get a good result. You can create elegant decorative borders, decorate a child's room, or design walls and ceilings with rubber stamps.

Care should be taken to choose the correct size of the rubber stamp. Small stamps should be used for stationery and wrapping paper, and extra-large stamps to decorate walls and ceilings. Paints should be applied to rubber stamps with a paint pen, small brush or the traditional stamp pad and rinsed immediately after use.

Much earlier rubber stamps had to be ordered or bought from office supply stores when needed. But today rubber stamps are available everywhere from local supermarkets to online sites that sell stamps of varied uses and designs. With the popularity of rubber-stamping, numerous books and magazines devoted to rubber-stamping are available both in the stores and on internet sites and display a varied range of rubber stamp craft projects.

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Korean Stamp Collecting

When choosing stamp collecting as a hobby, Asian stamps such as those from Korea, are not only fantastic additions to the overall collections, but beautiful and awe inspiring. The ancient Asian world is one of mystery and appeal. The Korean stamps on the market today epitomize that appeal. Korean stamps will originate from the Republic of Korea, North Korea, South Korea, and the Korean Empire to name a few. You will also notice some stamps listed as Korean stamps originating in countries other than Korea. These stamps have either been post marked in Korea or have a heritage or history linking them to Korea.

Korean stamp collecting is an art that requires time, diligence, patience and a keen eye for detail. With the recent advent of metered postage, many countries no longer use stamps as a means of postage. This means for the stamp collector that finding authentic stamps can be harder and harder as the years pass. This is especially true for a country such as Korea. Korean stamps are highly collectible and thus the value is climbing year after year.

Korean stamps will be gathered in a various of ways. The stamps will be sold as individuals, most common with very valuable or vary rare stamps, or as collection lots. The individual stamp will be rated or graded for rarity as well as condition before a price is set on the stamp. The collection lots will be offered at a combined rate for all the stamps offered under that lot title.

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Belonging to a Rubber Stamp Club

Often, when people hear the words “rubber stamp club”, they can’t figure out what kind of club this would be. Is it a club where people create rubber stamps? Is it a club where people trade rubber stamps? Actually, it is a club where these things happen and more. A rubber stamp club is, obviously, all about rubber stamping, and believe it nor not, there can be quite a bit to this hobby.

Many people know about using rubber stamps for various things such as marking children’s school papers, adding cute effects to letters, or stamping dates on things, but these days they can be used for much more. People use rubber stamps for creative crafts, and many times the designs on these rubber stamps can be quite elaborate. When you belong to a rubber stamp club, you have the benefit of being able to share what you know about this hobby with others, and they can share what they know with you. For craft purposes, different types of inks can be used, or hobbyists can use paint on their pads or even markers where they apply to ink directly to the stamp, instead of pressing the stamp on an ink pad. Rubber stamps can have a metal base, or a wood base. Most hobbyists prefer the wood base.

The designs for rubber stamps are endless. Hobbyists can get such designs as those for the different holidays, animal designs, floral designs, etc. Rubber stamps can be personalized, or more serious rubber stamp enthusiasts can even design their own. Many craft stores carry a myriad of rubber stamps and rubber stamp designs, and there are also many Internet websites that specialize in selling rubber stamps and rubber stamp designs. When there is a club, there are sure to be many club members who make their own rubber stamp designs, or at the very least know where to find unique hard-to-find designs for rubber stamps. Also, many rubber stamp club members know how to create elaborate works of art using rubber stamps, and will sell or trade their art with other club members. Using such things as multi-colored stamps, very large stamps or very small stamps, people can really turn rubber stamping into an art form.

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Vintage Postage Stamps

Vintage postage stamps may be known as the stamps that are not in circulation at present and therefore cannot be used to send letters or mails through the post. According to some people, vintage stamps are those that are older than some arbitrary year, such as 1960 or 1900. It depends on the postal service history of each country. People that collect postage stamps are known philatelists. They mainly specialize in vintage stamps.

Vintage stamps may be referred to in another way as well. They may be called vintage stamps if they were used before philately became a well-known hobby. The popularity of vintage stamps redefined the purpose and design of philately. With the increase in popularity, postal services began releasing special booklets or limited edition sets with a mind towards collection. Odd compositions with rare colors or shapes were less widespread, yet both foreign and domestic stamps exhibited topics such as endangered animals, fine art, and civil rights activists.

These antique stamps include misprints, cancelled, un-cancelled, national, international, memorial, and air post selections, and are exclusively defined by their age. Some post stamp collectors restrict themselves to a particular country or a particular year. While collecting vintage stamps, people may discover engraving and printing techniques, advertising trends, tourist patterns, and international relations such as colonial connections. Vintage post stamps include other extraordinary attributes. These atypical attributes arouse interest in people. This is so because they may have high face value or they may be misprinted with strange colors and typing mistakes.

Vintage stamps may venerate American historical events, such as the Bicentennial, World's Fair, Olympics, Independence Day, Space Shuttle launches, Anniversaries of Statehood, or World Wars. Other stamps may be decorative or organized by topic.

Vintage stamps are preferred more because they are intriguing to examine and simple to find. People can recurrently purchase entire sets, or arbitrary groupings, of vintage stamps for a low price. People may then put them in different classes or orders and discover what they might find the most captivating without knowing anything about their official values, dates, or issuing nation.

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Buying Date Stamps Online

Date Stamps are available as self-inking or regular inking stamps, which require opting for the date or add any custom text as per requirements. Date Stamps are quick and easy to order from the Internet by choosing a particular requisite date stamp or clicking on the link that leads to "Add to cart" and the website will show options of stamps at different price levels based on the required texts, designs, styles, patterns, colors and sizes. Date Stamps Online, offer individuals to select from top-quality date stamps with metal or plastic frames. They offer self-inking date stamps as well as those, which require a separate stamp pad.

Online date stamps companies are those that manufacture date stamps that have movable bands for months, days, and years. Customers can choose between sturdy metal frames or sleek, economical plastic frames date stamps. They are useful in various fields such as shipping, administrative, accounting and other industries. Other variants of date stamps allow the user to choose right, left or center justifications. They also facilitate the selection of the built-in inkpad colors. Different font styles and sizes can be customized for each line on the stamps.

Rubber-stamping, is an art to produce a more solid instrument, wherein the rubber is placed onto a more steady base either wood or an acrylic block. This ink-coated rubberstamp is further pressed onto a medium in such a fashion that the colored image gets transferred. These mediums range from various fabrics, papers, woods, and metals, to glass, plastics, and rocks. Liquid wax is used for high volume batiks instead of ink on metal stamps.

Since, date stamps appear on almost all pages of a document or file, repeated efforts of lubricating it on the inkpad causes a nuisance. Hence, self-lubricating rubber stamps are in vogue lately due to the fewer efforts they extract. It is advisable to choose an appropriate date stamp company on the Internet after appropriate enquiries and relevant research. An order must be placed well in advance to avoid any delays in receipt of the order.

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Pictures on Stamps

Wouldn't it great if you could print your own pictures on stamps? The limited selection of standard-issue stamps made available through the United States Postal Services are adequate. They get the job done.

But if you want to add a touch of pizzazz to your mail, if you want to create a good first impression, or if you are trying to set a mood or a tone in your recipient's mind before opening your mail, then pictures on stamps is right for you.

There are many situations where customizing your correspondence by placing pictures on stamps would be a great idea:

- Wedding invitations

- Birthday party invitations

- Graduation ceremonies

- Holiday greeting cards

- Advertising mailers to potential customers / clients

- Business correspondence that has your company logo on it

You could use a photograph of yourself or your loved ones. You could use your company logo. You could create your own graphic design. You can use just about any image as the pictures on stamps.

The best part is that this is very easy to do by yourself.

All you need are:

- A computer with Internet access

- A printer (color is optional, black and white is okay)

- Adhesive mailing labels

- A weighing scale

You can print your own postage stamps right from the comfort of your own home or your own office, from your computer directly to your own printer. No more trips to the post office just to by stamps!

You'll be printing them out yourself!

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French Stamps : Insight Into the Stamps of France

The first postage stamp was introduced in the United Kingdom in 1840 by Rowland Hill and James Chalmers. This stamp, the penny black, had a face value of a penny and revolutionized the postal system in that it was now up to the sender to bear the cost of postage and not the recipient as had been the case until then. Because it was now so cheap to send letters, even by 1840 a penny was not a lot of money, the change prompted an almost instant increase in the amount of mail. Other countries took notice and reformed their own postal system, amongst which Brazil in 1843, the United States in 1847 and France in 1849.

While the same change was proposed as soon as 1837 in France, it took nine years for the postal administration to change, following the 1848 revolution and the impetus of Arago. The first French stamp featured Ceres, the Roman divinity for agriculture and had a face value of 20 centimes or cents. The drawing of Ceres is from Jean Jacques Barre. The Ceres stamp was enough to pay for an envelope up to 7.5 grams to be sent anywhere in France. Shortly after was released a 40 centimes stamp color orange for bigger envelopes and a vermilion red 1 Franc stamp. However, the color of the 1 Franc stamp was too similar to the 40 centimes stamp and people were confusing them. This lead to a change in color for the 1F stamp from vermilion red to deep carmine. Today, the vermilion red 40 centimes stamp is the rarest of French stamps.

French Stamps Today

Stamp collecting is the number one hobby in France with more than two million people practicing it. Exotic islands, botanic, birds, stamp sheets, specimens or air post stamps are popular themes amongst French stamps collectors. Like in other countries, the value of French stamps is often determined by some type of unusual feature some stamps are known to exhibit. This is true for old and new stamps alike. For example, the 1989 stamp commemorating the Revolution designed by Folon is worth less than a euro, but if the signature of Folon is lacking the value of the stamp jumps to 180 euros. Similarly, if the face value of the stamp issued in 2004 commemorating the entente cordiale between France and England is lacking, the stamp can be worth 300 euros and up.

How old a stamp is also plays a big role in its valuation. There are three main periods in the history of the French stamp: the classic period from 1840 to 1900 ; the semi modern period, from 1900 to 1939 and the modern period from 1939 onwards. Stamps from the classical period are highly valued, especially the vermilion red 1 franc featuring Ceres from 1849-1850, which costs 90 000 euros new and 20 000 euros used. A bloc of four of such stamps sold for 820 000 euros at auction because one of the stamps was "tête-bêche", printed upside down.

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