How to collect stamps in the XXI century

Contents:

• Introduction
• Purchasing Stamps
• Stamps catalogues
• Information
• Swap partners
• Thematical websites
• The Language Barrier

I started collecting stamps in the mid-1980s, when I was a schoolboy, while living in the Soviet Ukraine. Stamp collecting was a very popular hobby at the time for both children and adults. My major interest was the world-wide fauna, especially prehistoric animals.

I found my first fossil when I was 12-13 years old, in the mid-1980s. It was a tooth of a prehistoric fish in a piece of stone. I took it to the Natural History Museum where an employee explained to me what I had found. It was astonishing, because in Lviv, the Ukrainian city, where I grew up, there was no sea or even a river. Prehistoric creatures began to occupy my imagination.

Mix of Soviet fauna stamps

At that time, there were not many opportunities to obtain stamps.
Mixes of CTO (cancelled) stamps of the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries were offered in the magazine kiosks, usually in topical packages (sport, cosmos, animals … ).
These packages were usually a bunch of stamps laid flat on a cardboard backing then wrapped with saran wrap/plastic wrap tightly.
Mint stamps were much more difficult to get: the Soviet stamps were available in a philatelic stores, where many of them were offered only to the members of the philatelic society.
Once a month, my father took me to the trade meeting of the philatelic society of our city where it was possible to get some stamps from a wide range of countries, but many times only part of the sets. MICHEL or any other world-wide stamps catalog was very difficult to get as it was not sold in country. At the beginning of 1990s, after I finished school, I stopped collecting until 2010.
I restarted my collection again, while living in Germany. Today I collect any kind of philatelic item which is related to Paleontology, Paleoanthropology and to Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression. When I started collecting stamps again, I faced a different problem: not where to get stamps, but how to sort them out and not overpay. There are many offerings and a range of options to obtain stamps today. There are many internet resources which can be very helpful for philatelists.

Purchasing Stamps

Many Postal Authorities offer their recent stamps and associated philatelic and numismatic products on their online stores. The links to the Worldwide Philatelic Resources: philatelic bureaus, stamp issue plans/programs and catalogues are here.
Some Postal Authorities offer their products from the last 2-3 years, while others have even older stamps still on sale. Many of them also provide technical information and a short background story about their stamps.

Screenshot of WOPA+ home page

Screenshot of Delcampe home page

Screenshot of MICHEL online

Screenshot of Colnect online

Another good resource to get recent stamps at their face values is WOPA+ agency.
The Gibraltar based agency is an e-commerce platform for collectors which offers postage stamps of over 60 countries.
WOPA+ works as an intermediary between you, the customer, and postal administrations and sellers around the globe. Orders are shipped to customers from each Postal Administration within five business days of receipt from WOPA+. Sometimes it is even more convenient to order through the agency who accept all major credit cards and PayPal, than order from the online stores of the postal agencies directly.

Trade platforms such as eBay (ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.de … ) are good alternatives, especially for looking for older stamps or specialized philatelic products such as autographed or circulated covers.
Delcampe and HipStamps are two major trade platforms dedicated to collectors (personally I prefer Delcampe as it has a wider choice of items and strong search options).
These platforms allow collectors to not only purchase stamps, covers, postcards, but also sell their duplicates. I also have a small store there, where I sell my duplicate items. Many traditional, offline, philatelic stores offer their products on the Internet today, including the trading platforms for collectors.

Notes:

1. Please be careful purchasing at the trading platforms. Most of the sellers are serious dealers or collectors, but there are also some cheaters. Read the rules/conditions of the platform and check the ratings of the dealers before placing a bid or purchasing an item. Many platforms allow buyers the opportunity to rate the item and leave comments about the service provided. If the seller has a rating less than 100% you better read the feedback before making any deal. If the seller has a rating less than 90%, avoid buying from them.
2. Payment. Check for the payment options offered by the trade platform and accepted by the seller. Some payment methods, such as PayPal offer “buyer warranty” – an option to return your money fully or partially, when the items were not received or arrived not in the conditions as described.

Many small or poor countries outsource production of their stamps to international agencies. The biggest agencies are: IGPC and Stamperija. Both agencies produce a lot of stamps per year on behalf of their clients and offer their products in their online stores. Stamperija might produce over 1.000 stamps per year for a single country they represent. The lists of their clients are listed here: IGPC and Stamperija.

Stamps catalogues

Many world-wide, commercial, stamp catalogue companies offer printed and online catalogues, but it might cost several hundred Euro per annum. Major catalogues are listed below.

• MICHEL (Germany) online catalogue
• Phildom (Spain)
• Scott (USA) online catalogue
• Stanley Gibbons (Great Britain) online catalogue
• Yvert & Tellier (France)

Note:
If you collect specific countries, the best catalogues are usually the ones printed in that country - such as Scott Catalogues are authoritative for the United States, while Michel Catalogs are accurate for Germany, Austria, Switzerland.

Some catalogue publishers also produce specialized catalogues for specific types of philatelic materials, such as Machine (ATM) stamps for example, as well as for specific thematic/topical collections.
In 2019, MICHEL printed "Dinos - Ganze Welt" - 160 A5 pages with approx. 2500 colour illustrations and about 20 000 price quotations of prehistoric animals stamps, mainly dinosaurs.

On top of the classic catalogues, there are some free alternatives.

Colnect - (collect + connect ==> Colnect) is a comprehensive online solution for collectors of mass-produced collectibles (stamps, coins, phonecards and so many more) revolutionizing the collecting experience by providing online personal collection management within a designated community.
This free catalogue, provide images and technical information, including catalogue numbers of all major stamp catalogues. Stamp prices are not included. Registered users (the registration is free of charge) have an option to have the option of inventorying their collection by assigning each stamp to “Collection”, “Swap”, “Wish” or “Ignore” categories.
This internet site provides opportunities to improve their catalogue. Users are welcome to write comments or corrections about every stamp in the database. The website has an option to search for the stamp, or any other collectible item, not only by the country name, but also by the title.



StampWorld – they claim to be “The most complete stamp catalogue in the world”.
This website provides very basic technical details, including reference prices and options to buy the stamp from a registered user or sell your own stamps.

Stamps of the World is another free philatelic catalogue with over 384.000 images.

The Universal Postal Union maintains a catalogue - WADP WNS - of recent stamps of member countries back to 2002.
The World Association for the Development of Philately Numbering System (WADP WNS) was launched on 1 January 2002, with the primary aim of compiling a database of all postage stamps legally issued, from that date onwards, by the issuing postal authorities of UPU member countries and territories that have signed up to the WNS. The WNS therefore serves as a primary reference tool for checking postage stamp issues, helping to safeguard the philatelic industry against illegal issues. The WNS is a register of all official postage stamps issued by its members. It is the only system that provides collectors with a guarantee that a given stamp is official.
However, in many cases, the stamps are listed after some delay. For example, the newest stamp of Australia listed in October 2024 is from 2018 and many countries are not members of the WNS. The stamps in the database can be seen in high resolution. Basic technical information and links to the e-shop and the Post Authority (member) websites are provided.

Examples of circulated covers and FDCs sent to me by swap partners from Facebook.

Information

Information about brand-new and coming stamps is also available on the Internet.

• Linn’s stamp News (USA)
• MICHEL (Germany)

Many Postal Administrations publish news about their issues on their websites. Some of them publish philatelic magazines and bulletins, and stamps issue plans. List of the links is here. Many philatelic organizations and enthusiasts run YouTube channels about various philatelic topics:

• American Philatelic Society
• American Topical Association
• Exploring Stamps
• Stanley Gibbons

To talk to other philatelists or search for information about the stamps, you can use the Facebook or philatelic forums such as: forum of American Philatelic Society, The Stamp Forum or Stampboards.

Thematical websites

There are many websites dedicated to thematic philatelists.
For example, this website, "PaleoPhilatelie.eu", is about representation of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Philately, including the list of brand new and future philatelic issues.
StampedOut is also dealing with prehistoric life on stamps, including prehistoric animals from cartoons, illustrations from fiction, children’s artwork, etc.
Dinosaurs on Stamp provide information about dinosaur stamps only.

Thematic study units of international philatelic Associations are also present on the Internet.
Biology Study Unit of American Topical Association is dedicated to the international cooperative study of biological postage stamps and related material.
Germany based Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bergbau und Geowissenschaften, in English "Mining and Geosciences", study unit of German Philatelic Association is dedicated to study postage stamps related to mining, geology, paleontology, paleoanthropology, mineralogy and speleology.
These and many other study units issue magazines or bulletins on the regular base printed, on-line or both formats. Some of them, such as American Topical Association for example, provide thematic checklists for their members.

Swap partners

Many philatelists like to swap rather than purchase the stamps. The swap partners may provide not only mint or CTO (Cancelled To Order) stamps, but also help to get addressed FDCs or send a cover or postcard with particular stamps on it.

TradeOnlyStamps is the website to search for swap partners, but its capability is very limited.

My favourite platform to find swap partners is Facebook.
See examples of circulated covers and FDCs sent to me by swap partners from Facebook on the right.

The platform has many public and private groups covering every topic you can imagine, such as politics, travel, cooking, and even philatelic topics. Many philatelic organizations, Postal Authorities, agencies have Facebook pages where the followers can check their news. Here are just few examples of philatelic groups on Facebook:

• American Topical Association
• Cover collectors
• Maximaphily, traditional and non-traditional
• STAMP COLLECTING
• PaleoPhilately - the group about representation of Paleontology in Philately
• Evolution of mankind and Philately

Notes:

1. To see content on Facebook groups, you need to register in the platform. Registration is quick and not complicated. After registration, you do not need to add your image, share any private data, or connect to any other user. You have full control of the content in your profile and can even make your profile private.
2. As soon as you have registered with any Facebook group, you will receive updates about their activities. If you don’t want these updates, go to “manage notifications” to adjust the notifications.

Have fun collecting, but be careful with anything you do online as there are always some cheaters mixed with the many serious users on the world wide web.

The Language Barrier

When I was young, I spoke only my mother language. Communication with foreign collectors was almost impossible for me, due to the language barrier. Today Internet makes it possible.
Many websites have an option to translate their page to another language. This website, for example, has a "Select Language" menu at the top side of every page.
In the case such an option does not exist, Google Translator provides an ability to translate websites to all major languages.
Google Translator can be also used to translate text messages of international friends. The translator is not perfect, but is good enough to enable communication between international swap partners.

Below is an example of Google translation of MICHEL News page from German to English.

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to Dr. Peter Voice from Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Western Michigan University, for reviewing the draft page and his valuable comments.