We answer our first question straight away.
A stamp collector is called a philatelist.
And we owe that name to one of the first of our number, Georges Herpin.
Georges, a French collector, hated the term timbromania and its variants to the extent he thought it was putting off new stamp collectors.
Georges Herpin, French philatelist and term coiner.
Off he went to his Greek dictionary and put PHILO for love of with ATELEIA for tax exemptions (stamps paid a duty) and here we are.
Merci Georges.
2 - Is my dad’s/grandfather’s/mum’s collection worth a lot of money?
Almost certainly not.
Sorry to add to the negativity, but this truth is a well-known piece of stamp advice that is worth repeating.
Unfortunately most collections have little monetary value. That shouldn't get in the way of any personal and sentimental worth you take from them.
Stamps are - and always have been - mass produced. Most are extremely common. Rarities are generally very rare indeed.
Stamp collecting has been around a long time. And it's a hobby of classifying and listing and quantifying. Genuine new discoveries are thin on the ground these days.
You shouldn’t rule anything out though. Do some research online, but there’s no substitute for qualified expert advice on questions of rarity and authenticity.
And if you do have a family collection you can always dedicate yourself to improving it, completing it, presenting and preserving it properly and making it the basis of an ongoing passion of your own.
Stamp collecting is rewarding and fun.
3 - Can I buy valuable stamps over the counter at the post office?
Almost certainly not again.
Sorry.
Stamp collectors have killed the golden goose in that respect.
The hobby of philately is almost as old as the product it celebrates.
And from fairly early on in the piece, the stamp producing authorities saw a nice, steady source of income in stamp collectors.
So they started to produce specially for them.
While these products, for example first day covers, are in some ways scarce, and are genuinely limited editions they’re not scarce enough to become really valuable.
And because they're sold directly to collectors in order to be collected - they are. Most people who want a first day cover can get hold of it easily enough. And will keep them in great condition.
And they're very attractive things to own that make a great addition to your collections. They're unlikely to change your life if you sell them though.
Collector’s editions of stamps will only become really collectible in exceptional circumstances - a withdrawal, an error or other freak of production or history.
4 - Should I use stamp hinges?
Put your stamp hinges down.
Hinges destroy stamps.
At least some of them.
For generations, stamp collectors gummed their stamps onto paper sheets.
But for serious collectors, the gum on the back of the stamp has become as much a mark of its perfection as the picture on the front.
The best grading for a stamp is “unmounted mint”, memorializing all those decades of sticking a damaging attachment to the rear of our treasures.
Previously mounted stamps can be hinged, and, in fact, if used very carefully and correctly, any impact on stamps should be minimal with modern hinges.
But, we do love perfection. Sleeves of some sort are now preferred by the vast majority of collectors and by album makers.
5 - Can I discover rare and valuable stamps?
Of course you can.
If you have the resources to spend on your collection you can go straight in at the deep end and buy them.
If you’ve got the time to devote to study you might find valuable items before they become valuable.
Had you bought some rare Chinese stamps in the a western market back in the 1990s, you’d be looking at a price rise of several hundred percent now.
Chinese stamps like this 1897 1 dollar surcharges issue went up massively in price in the 21st century.
It was a somewhat predictable market move.
Truly rare stamps are needles in the haystack of philately.
And you can find needles if you jump into the haystack.
Stamps are sometimes sold by people who don’t know what they are and their true value.
Old envelopes pop up all over the place - house clearances, second hand book stores…
Errors may still slip through modern production processes.
I always think that a good stamp collector never turns off their needle-detecting machinery.
You should always be checking stamps, always be checking stamps at a detailed, collector's level, always have your magnifier with you.
6 - Which old stamps are worth money?
Just a few.
And you will need to learn your way around the hobby to find them.
However, there are rules you can follow.
Valuable stamps will be:
Rare - this is a supply-and-demand equation, if there are millions of something on the market it isn’t going to be worth much. That rarity may be delivered via production in small quantities for some reason, sometimes that's a matter of age, or of a small territory with a small population, or a high value stamp. Stamps worth money are:
Unusual - errors are the best short cut to value. Great effort is put into making stamps perfect. And errors can be easily missed. Some are obvious - colour errors are great fun - but others are much less easy to spot, do you count the perforations on every stamp you use? Stamp collectors do.
This error omitted a colour and left the stamp with no face value.
Attractive - There are exceptions to this rule, and it might be better understood as visually striking. But attraction is a great driver of demand, and that can push up prices. We know that some famous British collectibles - George V’s Prussian Blue and the Seahorses series to name just two - are highly valued for their design.
Well preserved - Most really valuable stamps are in notably good condition. Caveats apply according to age, location (humid, tropical climates are hard on stamps), and how many other examples there are on offer, but a good-condition stamp is always a better long-term buy than a cheaper poor-condition one in my view.
Genuine - No-one’s accusing you of flogging fakes. At least not deliberately. But they do exist in the stamp industry. And obviously valuable stamps are more worth forging.
You’ll soon come across “provenance” in your stamp collecting journey. It just means proving where something came from. Learn how to find and check provenance, including certifications or authenticity and condition, when you buy, and preserve any documentation your own transactions add to the chain.
Use these broad categories to help you hone in on stamps with real value.
7 - Is it worth collecting stamps?
Yes.
I’m biased of course.
But I think stamp collecting is one of the most rewarding hobbies out there.
Follow your passions - aesthetically, historically, culturally - and you’ll find great reward.
As to monetary worth.
That’s much harder to predict.
Never turn off your stamp radar.
I can tell you that at the very top of the market records keep getting broken.
A single stamp can be worth millions of dollars.
And true collectible rarities are not going to get any more available or any less scarce.
So if you own one it’s more likely to go up in value than down in my view.
Collecting stamps is for everyone
You can see our selection of stamps here. Maybe there’s something to get you started.
