Monday, March 10, 2008

Collecting Stamps Essay

Collecting Stamps
Collecting stamps is a hobby that attracts people from all around the world. When you're collecting stamps you can find them from a multiple of sources, including free sources, as well as paying for those stamps that you just can't do without. When you start collecting stamps you'll want to spend as little money as possible and concentrate on getting a beginner's collection of stamps.

When you first decide to start collecting stamps you may find that you have nothing to start with. If this is the case you can buy a pack of stamps from a hobby shop or a stamp collector to get you started. For a small price, usually around $6.00, you'll get an assortment of stamps from different countries. This is a great way to determine what types of stamps appeal to you and what area you might like to focus on.

The Internet is another great source for finding stamps. Places such as eBay have many stamp sets where you can buy for relatively low prices. Again, you should try to get as wide a variety of stamps as possible, so you can find out what stamps interest you and allow you to get plants from some other countries. Once you have a batch of stamps you'll need to organize your collection so you can make some decisions about what direction you want to pursue in your collecting.

When you buy or get stamps from an original source most of the stamps will still be on the paper on which they were mailed. Once the paper backing is removed, the stamp becomes fragile and can easily be damaged. Hence it is important to be careful in the way that you move around the stamps. Therefore it is important to sort out your stamps that you purchased according to country before taking off the paper backing.

It can be a tedious process to take the paper off the stamps so make sure that you have time and won't damage the stamps with a hurried effort. Make sure that you ease the stamp off the paper instead of just pulling the stamp, so you don't make any rips in the stamp. To begin with, use a small pair of scissors to trim the paper as close to the edge of the stamp as you possible can.

Find a shallow plate or bowl and fill it with just a bit of clean water. Place the stamp with the paper backing into the water, stamp side up, and let it soak for about ten to fifteen minutes. After that amount of time has passed you can carefully pick up the stamp and try to remove it slowly from the paper.

After removing the paper backing from the stamp, they need to be dried slowly and gently, so that they don't fold over and wrinkle. After the stamps have dried lay them flat between two layers of paper towel making sure that none of the stamps touch and overlap.

The dried stamps need to be flattened. This can be done by placing these dried stamps in the pages of a large or heavy book. Else you have the option of buying a stamp drying book to dry your stamps. These dry and flattened stamps can be sorted country wise to help you locate them when ever you want to. These sorted stamps then need to be arranged in your stamp collecting book.

3 Comments:

Unknown said...

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Unknown said...

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Unknown said...

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