Features

The Bates Student - September 25, 1998

 
 

The art of collecting stamps

By SAMEER RAJ MASKEY
Staff Writer
 

Philately, the passion for collecting stamps, is an incredibly popular and widespread hobby. A stamp can cost from one cent to thousands of dollars. It is the happiness a true philatelist gets by obtaining a stamp, which makes him pay thousands of dollars for such a small piece of paper. Today, more than thirty million people hunt for their wanted stamps and smile with victory whenever they get a new stamp in their collection.

Stamp collection is really beneficial to the human mind, as it is entertaining and educational at the same time. When someone gets a multicolored, attractive stamp it entertains him but at the same time the picture in the stamp tells him about something new. For example, after 1938, a series of stamps named the President Series were commissioned by the United States. All of these stamps had a picture of the presidents and told something about them. So if a six year old boy starts collecting this series of stamps, he will surely get a good history lesson because he will come to know and recognize the presidents of the country since 1938. Isn't that great?

Though stamp collection can be fun and educational, sometimes it can get hard because of the amount of money that needs to be invested in the collection. Surely, everyone dreams of having the first stamp of Great Britain, Penny Black of 1840. But not everyone can buy this stamp because everyone does not have the same amount of money to invest on the stamps.

A philatelist's wealth can end up being poured into collecting stamps. It was generally said that: "Philately is the king of hobbies and the hobby of kings." Maybe this had been said to show that only such rich people as kings had enough money to buy all the stamps they wanted, while the ordinary philatelists have to kill their interest in particular stamps because of the money.

Between 1847 to 1899, the postage stamps were produced by a method known as Line Engraving. The process of Line Engraving is described in the following way: first, the design that is to be printed on the stamp is fixed. Then that design is engraved on a flat piece of steel known as die. The design on the die is copied to different parts of soft steel. All the designs made in the soft steel are not the same. There are slight differences in each of them, which are called `relief.' Finally, a plate is made with numerous same designs and printed on the paper, which is usually moist at the first. After a few other conditioning processes such as removing extra ink, polishing, and drying, the stamps become ready.

Philately can be done by anyone from a small child to an old man, but there is a difference in the stamp collecting style of a child and an old man. As the philatelists get more experience, his philately skills get honed and become an advanced level philatelist.

Advanced philately is more than just collecting stamps: the philatelist has to look at the all features of the stamp before buying it. For a stamp to be in good condition, it should not have any kind of mark in the gum of the stamp, not even a finger print. The perforations must not be broken. There should not be any kind of crease on the stamp. These are the basic features of advanced philately, but if we look more upon this subject we can still find more complex features of philately. The rarity of a stamp is known to be the level of how hard it is to find that stamp. Sometimes an error occurs while printing the stamp. If the error occurs only in a few stamps then such stamps become very rare and very valuable. But, because of the special features of rarity and error, it is said that the hobby of philately is being exploited.

Nowadays, a few philatelists have taken this hobby as their personal business, thereby destroying the true art of collecting stamps. These businessman, with the fake identity of philatelists, buy a lot of stamps on the first day of issue and try to sell them later at high prices, making everyone believe that the stamp has become rare because it is no longer on the market. It is true that these kinds of events are discouraging for young philatelists. But one should not lose hope and should always try to go forward in the real world in search of stamps with a true passion, then one can surely get their dream stamp and be happier than ever before.
 


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Last Modified: 9/27/1998
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