Stamp Stories

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23000, 20 April 1940, Page 3 (Supplement)

Stamp Stories

HINTS FOR YOUNG COLLECTORS

If the pursuit of stamp collecting is to become an enjoyable hobby, certain rules must be followed. The very first thing that the young collector wants, if he or she has gathered together a few stamps, is a book in which to keep them safely. People who like to be known as philatelists—the name used for advanced collectors and students of stamps—nearly always prefer loose-leaf albums. These are hooks with a spring or other patent catch which will allow the leaves to be removed from the cover and rearranged to suit the owner. The leaves in such albums are generally ruled like school graph books and some knowledge is necessary before stamps can be arranged effectively. The beginner usually favours a printed fixed leaf album with the name of the country at the top of the page, some illustrations of typical stamps, and with the pages divided into square spaces sufficiently, large to hold the normalsized stamps. While these albums are perhaps the most useful for the beginner, they have two disadvantages. The leaves are so arranged that stamps are mounted on both sides of the sheet and there is therefore the danger of stamps being damaged.

Where better class items are included. this difficulty can be overcome by including a tissue paper sheet so that the stamps cannot catch or rub against those on the opposite page. The second disadvantage is that the albums are 'not printed in New Zealand and there is too little space left for our stamps. Whichever form of album is chosen it is most important that the stamps should be neatly and carefully attached to the pages. In the early days of stamp collecting, it was the custom to affix the stamps firmly to the pages by the use of paste or gum. If it became necessary to remove - a stamp from the album sheet, there was the danger of tearing or of thinning the paper of the stamp. Hence the method came into use of employing a small piece of thin gummed paper which would properly hinge the stamp on the leaf. Small gummed stamp hinges (or mounts as they are sometimes

(Bv R- «/. G. Collins)

called) can be purchased from stationers cheaply and the young collector should always use them and never employ thicker . gummed paper, such as comes from the edges of sheets of stamps. To use a hinge to the best advantage. it should be folded once with one part smaller than the other and with the ungummed side inwards. The smaller portion of the folded mount should be dampened and attached to the top of the stamp. The large part is then also dampened and is placed flat on to the album sheet. This will keep the stamp safely in position m the album and yet will permit it to be turned up so that it may be examined for watermarks and other technical points, without damaging it in any way. It is an advantage if stamps are not fingered too much and the young collector would be well advised to learn the use of ah important philatelic tool known as the tweezers. These are small metal tongs and though the beginner may be clumsy at first in using them, a little practice will soon overcome this. . . ■i , Another “don’t” that is important refers to the condition of stamps.

Don’t waste your time and efforts with a stamp that is tom, or which has so heavy a postmark oh it that the design is not easy to see. . Philatelists prefer to group the stamps of a particular issue together. For example, the present Centennial stamps of New Zealand would be put on one page and the pictorial stamps that were in use last year would appear on another page. This grouping, however, is not possible with the ordinary fixed leaf album, and it is usual for the beginner to put in one stamp after another as he gets them, keeping the issues of different countries on their appropriate pages. The real benefits of stamp, collecting are not to be gained merely by accumulation, and it is certainly not numbers that count. A collector should never put a stamp into an album space without trying to learn something of the country froth which •it comes and something of the story behind the design.