The Hardest Part of Collecting is Beginning
By John M. Hotchner

When the bug bites, and one thinks, “Hey, I might try stamp collecting!” what is the next step? Actually, it may not be as clear as that. The collector-to-be may find herself saving the odd stamps that come in on mail, or purchased at the post office. A small accumulation builds up in a kitchen drawer, and the thought occurs: “Maybe I could put these in an album or display them in some other way.”

It can be tempting for “real collectors” to denigrate the accumulator, but a lot of accomplished stamp and postal history collectors began by saving the odd stamp. The question is how to provide resources and encourage people who are attracted to the hobby to become practicing members of the guild?

Three immediate questions present themselves: How do I get more stamps?, What do I want to collect?, and Where do I get more information about the hobby? Let’s take them in reverse order since, in practice, that is the order in which the caterpillar beginner becomes an experienced butterfly.

Ideally, the beginner knows someone who is a collector who can be a mentor. Failing that, such a person can be found at a nearby stamp club. As most of us these days are on the Internet, use your favorite search engine to research “(the name of your area) & stamp collecting”. As an example, I Googled “Northern Virginia & Stamp collecting”. A cornucopia of response came back pointing me to physical addresses and websites of dealers, shows, clubs, and auctioneers in Washington, D.C., from suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia as far south as Richmond.

In setting up your search criteria, my advice is not to be too specific. I could have put my precise area (e.g. Arlington, Virginia) into Google, but the regional approach will get a wider range of possible resources.

You can also go to www.stamps.org, which is the website of the American Philatelic Society (APS). Don’t let the name scare you. Philately is simply a fancy name for stamp collecting, and the 30,000+ members of what we call “America’s Stamp Club” range from lifelong scholars to the newest of beginners. You need not be a member to use the majority of the website, and you will find it helpful as you think about where you want to go with your new hobby. Among the resources on this website is a listing of the stamp clubs across the nation that are Chapter members of the APS.

Once you have found a stamp club — hopefully within a half hour’s drive — visit and introduce yourself. Most clubs will have members willing, even eager, to help newcomers to the hobby. They can explain how the club can help you, what is going on philatelically in the area, how to access and use stamp catalogs, how to get and use various stamp collecting implements such as tongs, stock cards, watermark detectors, etc., and can show you a range of stamp collecting periodicals that open the door to the world of philately.

I recognize that there are people who prefer to collect “anonymously.” That is to say, as a matter of security, they want to do nothing that “exposes” them as a stamp collector so that no one is tempted to rob them. While I personally think that is an excess of caution, it is a personal choice. Just realize that if you choose it, you lose the benefit of joining a club, and/or having a mentor.

If you choose to be a loner, you can use APS and other Internet resources to find books on how to get started in the hobby, and periodicals like this one that can keep you apprised of the current events and issues in the hobby. As to stamp catalogs, often your local library will have them in the reference section; though they might not be the most up-to-date versions. For stamp collecting supplies and implements, an Internet search will help you find suppliers such as Subway Stamp Shop.

Once you are connected to resources to help you get going, the next thing to establish is what you are going to collect. You have probably given this some thought already, and perhaps have been guided by what you have accumulated. That is one approach, but not the only one.

It used to be that most philatelists began by collecting the country in which they live. After all, there is a ready-made connection, and it is relatively easy to get more stamps for the collection. But another alternative is to give some thought to your or your spouse’s heritage, which got me collecting Italy and Poland in addition to the United States; your interests or profession, which motivated me to collect Russian stamps up to 1930, and American diplomatic history on foreign stamps; countries you have visited or lived in, resulting in collections of India, Venezuela, and Spain.

Today, I think more and more collectors are attracted to interest areas as a base for stamp collecting. This is often called topical or thematic collecting. If you are fascinated by the space program, themes that have to do with preserving our environment, great art on stamps, or any of thousands of other topics, there will be multitudes of stamps that connect to your interest, and a national philatelic society, the American Topical Association (which has an excellent website), can be a tremendous resource.

I would suggest one other approach; the one I began with (can it be?) 65 years ago: my father gave me a packet of 2,500 worldwide stamps. I loved them all; every last cheap example. I spent hours learning where they came from, grouping them by country, looking at the designs and trying to relate them to the area of the world they came from, trying to find them in the Scott Catalogue.

I stayed with worldwide collecting for probably three years; learning more geography than I did at school. During that time I also learned the rudiments of the hobby from a wide perspective, and came to some conclusions about what countries’ stamps particularly appealed to me.

Eventually, realizing that I could not afford to collect the world, I gave that up in favor of about a dozen countries, headed by my USA collection, that were especially appealing. But I had a pretty good foundation of hobby knowledge.

So, based on my own experience, I recommend starting if you can with a worldwide focus. I guess I never lost that approach as I still seek out what a friend used to say of her collection. She collected “any given stamp,” by which she meant stamps that appealed to her regardless of country of issue. It might be one or two stamps from a particular country. It might be a hundred. But I feel some sort of connection when I look at them.

The overriding point to keep in mind is that philately is a smorgasbord; from which you are entitled to sample at your whim, to choose as you wish, and to alter your choices when you feel like it. No one can tell you how to collect or what to collect. Yes, there may be a certain amount of sneering from established collectors who have come to believe that their way is absolutely the best way, and may try to convince you to go in their direction. They can be blissfully unaware that you are a round peg that does not fit in their square hole. You can patiently explain this to them, or just pity them their myopia.

We have one more question to answer: How do I get more stamps? We will take a look at some strategies in our column.

Should you wish to comment on this column, or have questions or ideas you would like to have explored in a future column, please write to John Hotchner, VSC Contributor, P.O. Box 1125, Falls Church, VA 22041-0125, or email, putting “VSC” in the subject line.

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