Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
Grow, Learn, Enjoy
Now it’s time to grow your collection, learn more about your collection and enjoy the process of collecting.
If you’ve read all 6 previous parts then you should have a better idea about:
- What type of collector you are or want to be
- Whether you want to specialize or focus on a particular type of stamp
- Some alternatives to collecting postage stamps
- The types of things that impact individual stamp value and collectability
- Tools that every stamp collector should have
- How to store and handle your stamps
Now that you have the basics, you can focus on building and enjoying your collection. You may want to join a local stamp club, they often have people who are looking to trade stamps or share information. Keep an eye open for local philatelic exhibitions. Join a Facebook group and consider setting up alerts on eBay for specific stamps that you are looking for. Join one of the online stamp catalogs – most are free and they really help you to identify individual stamps, review catalog numbers and figure out which stamps were released when.
Philately is much wider than stamp collecting and as such I enjoy researching a topic, learning about a stamp design, understanding an event, place or person who is depicted on a stamp. For me every stamp is a little piece of history with its own story to tell. Other people enjoy looking for errors and oddities.
My last words of advice are figure out what it is about stamp collecting that you enjoy and focus on that.