Stamp Collecting 101Thanks
to the advent of technology, that has made almost all responsibilities
as less time consuming. Now, more people can indulge more on various
hobbies. The stamp collecting is an age-old pastime that never lost
its lustre.
If you have none, buy some assorted stamps from all over the world, which are available with stamp dealers or hobby shops. By spending few dollars, you can be an instant collector. If you are lucky enough to have access to stamp shows, you can even buy more varieties of stamps by spending few bucks. You just search and know about the stamp resources. A good bit of advice for starting the stamp collection is to become a general stamp collector at first. This will help you to be able to accumulate thousands of stamps and will eventually make you an informed decision of what kind of stamp collection you suppose to plan. When you get hang on it, you will develop a certain inclination to a few kinds of stamps that allow you to separate the kind of stamp that you really would want to focus on. Collect them like a professional. There is no safer way to collect stamps. However, you should have the sense for preserving them, than collect them on paper. This means that if you collect stamps, which are from mails, you have to cut the mail along with the stamp. Stamps on paper are easier to handle since it prevents them from getting creased, torn, or lost. One tip is that you should never try to pull out the paper support of a stamp because; there are chances to get damaged. To pull out the stamp in good condition, first cut the paper around the stamp with a sharp pair of scissors. Take care not to cut the perforations or edges of the stamp. De-paper them. It will be advisable for a new comer in stamp collection to do this process with an advice of experts. It requires soaking the stamps in the warm water, which may make the color to run off, if not done properly. Dry the stamps after soaking and take off the paper support. Even the drying part also requires utmost precaution, too. After drying, flatten the stamps with any clamping device. A book can be an improvised clamp and customized stamp drying books are available in the market that can do this job quite well. It will be helpful, if you sort your stamps according to countries. In addition to identification purposes, it will also help to know, what really makes you tick with your stamps. If stamps from a certain country enamour you, keep a mental note of that. Store them well in either an album or a stock book. Those are for holding your stamps and one can easily mount the stamps in an album. The other benefit of stamp collection is getting stamps free. How? You have to announce that you are a stamp collector and all of your relatives and friend are to be requested to save all the stamps they get from mails. In addition, if you are still getting the mails from the friends staying at distant place, you can simply ask them to use special stamps like commemorative stamps, to vamp up your collection. The old aged people of your family might have mails with the stamps of the olden days, which have been made when you were not born. Pen friends can help you to get more stamps by increasing the communication with them. Go though the internet and find lot of people looking for others who prefer the old way of communication. Select your pen friends from different countries to get the stamps of different countries. It is much better if you can speak other languages, as it will widen your horizon and consequently your stamp collection. Approach the international business offices or government offices that receive foreign mails regularly. If you know people who handle the mails that go to those offices, it is easy to ask for some of the stamps. Search through paper wastebaskets near P.O. boxes. The people who get mails from P.O. boxes usually discard their mail?s envelop on the nearest waste bins and chances are there to get few stamps from those waste bins, which means one's waste can be one's wealth! Trade or exchange is another way to widen the variety of your collection. Ask other stamp collectors to trade their duplicate stamps with you or you can ask for exchange of your duplicate stamps with their duplicate stamps. With that
run through the basic needs of stamp collection and some "imploring"
techniques, you will be in the path to becoming an expert collector
within no time.
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