Most stamp collectors are aware of the basic purposes that most stamps have such as air mail, general postage, stamped envelopes, post cards, etc.

Once you have exhausted your own neighborhood, it is time to venture further out to look for new acquisitions for your collection.

Laid paper comes to be via larger, parallel wires that form a design, which, in theory is a “watermark.” A watermark is an intentially thin area in the finished paper. To put it a different way, a watermark is something that “isn’t,” rather than something that “is.”

While snail mail has been on the decline since the advent of email, a lot of people still value and cherish old fashioned writing. Ask anyone in this high-tech world, and most would admit to be excited to see real mail in their old mail box, instead of the usual “junk� mail that we are constantl

Before postage stamps were adopted in Britain in 1840, whoever received the mail had to pay for the postage due. Imagine having to pay the postage on all of the junk mail you receive these days. You would have to pay the postage on all of the junk mail, postcards, bills and other letters you receive

Beginning in 1852, federal law required full postage to be paid on all letters transported and delivered out of the mails by enclosing them in sealed, dated, and canceled stamped envelopes.

“What is this old stamp worth?” is a question often posed by noncollectors. Unfortunately there isn’t an easy answer to this question. The noncollector has visions that his old stamp is worth an astronomical amount of money compared to the face value listed on the stamp. How much a given stamp is wo

Collecting stamps and coins are two hobbies that have more in common than either type of collector might believe. We will consider the idea of “value” or “valuable.”

Not every person who is interested in stamp collecting is in fact a collector. Some people are simply pack rats, which seems to be a cousin to a collector. Still other folks cannot bear to keep anything that doesn’t have a perceived use.