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Chapter 6. How to Start

If you had decided to remodel your home, one way to start would be the method employed by a friend of mine. He decided to enlarge his bedroom by extending it out over the porch. The month was February and, having decided, he promptly took a sledge hammer and knocked out the wall of the house.

That, to say the least, was a positive method of getting the job underway.

You may be just as drastic in starting your stamp collection. You may, if you be so inclined, go down to the nearest stamp dealer and buy a few thousand unassorted stamps, dump them on your dining-room table and go to work.

After a few hours of frustration trying to put this mess into some semblance of order you will be ready for either of two alternatives! One, chuck the whole idea of building a stamp collection, or, two, call on some experienced help to explain just how it's done.

The sensible thing to do is to plan your campaign first just as the experienced carpenter would plan how to proceed with the alteration my friend so eagerly jumped into.

To begin with, while stamps are necessary it is also necessary to know what you are going to do with them after you have acquired them. Hence, in addition to stamps you need something in which to place them an album.

Then you will need something with which to secure them in the album stamp hinges.

Next you will need something to help you identify the stamps so that you will know where in the album they should be placed a stamp catalogue. And, you will need the tools for identification a watermark detector and a perforation gauge. Lastly you will need the tool with which to handle your stamps a pair of stamp tongs.

Now that all may sound very complicated but, to go back to my friend who remodeled his house, just how far would he have been able to progress after his sledge hammer antics if he tried to proceed without the aid of a hammer, saw, carpenter's square, spirit level, plane, etc? In other words, no matter how you start, you must have the tools to finish the job. And you must know how to use those tools.

This book will advise you how to select your philatelic tools and how to use them.

Suppose you have some knowledge of collecting stamps. You have seen the collections of others or have even collected yourself to some extent. Now you wish to get into the act and build a "real" collection. Or, let us suppose that you know nothing whatever about collecting stamps but think that you would like to do so. In either case the procedure is the same.

The first step is to visit a stamp dealer, or some place where stamps are sold, and acquire a beginner's outfit.

The New World-Wide Outfit is a typical beginner's stamp outfit. It contains a loose-leaf stamp album for over 15,000 stamps, a collection of hundreds of stamps from all over the world. Spaces for modern flags and coats of arms are provided in the album.

There are many of these available but, if none are in stock, any stamp dealer will be able to furnish you with the requisites of such an outfit.

A good beginner's outfit will consist of the following essentials;

A stamp album
Stamp hinges
A packet of one or two thousand different stamps of the world
Stamp tongs

To such an outfit it is desirable to add a catalogue of the stamps of the world.

At the very beginning I can hear many of you remonstrating that you only wish to collect United States stamps so why should you acquire a packet of stamps of foreign countries?

The answer is that you can not collect the stamps of the United States, or of any other individual country, without first knowing about stamps in general. Thus, you must acquire the basic knowledge necessary if your collecting is to be the source of pleasure you expect it to be. Hence your ideal beginner's outfit contains a general packet of stamps of the world.

Now such an outfit as I have described will cost very little. In fact, depending upon the album and the number of stamps, it can cost as little as three dollars or as much as twenty-five or more dollars. For a beginner I suggest an outfit containing a good album not a toy along with a packet of not over one or two thousand stamps. Having digested a thousand different stamps, identified each and placed it properly in the album, you will be well on your way to completing your "basic training".

You may advance from this point secure in the knowledge that you are now reasonably well grounded in the art of stamp collecting. And you will be ready to enjoy all the pleasures the hobby offers to the myriad of other collectors throughout the world.

Let me caution you against being over ambitious at the start. Be content with an initial packet of one or two thousand different stamps at the most two thousand. A little story will well illustrate my point. A friend asked me to get a stamp-collecting outfit for his fourteen-year-old son and wanted to know what it would cost. About five dollars, I told him. He scoffed at the idea. Why only five dollars? Why could he not get his son a big album and, instead of a thousand different stamps, why not a big packet? Everything I said against this idea was of no avail. In the end the father bought his son a beautiful large album and a packet of twelve thousand different stamps. The father thought that he was providing his son with something better than average and so giving him a better-than-ordinary start. The boy, of course, was pleased beyond words when he got his Christmas present. Both father and son sat down to sort out the stamps. Here was a real father-son project with hours of pleasure stretching out ahead of them. Certainly a fascinating picture indeed. Yet within a single hour the father-son team was undergoing strained relations. The twelve thousand different stamps presented an unbelievable problem. The son, dependent upon Dad for superior knowledge of all things, was becoming disillusioned rapidly. Dad, at first embarrassed, was getting desperate. He finally mumbled an excuse and went back to his pipe and book. Son continued for a little longer listlessly turning over the pile of stamps. Within a few weeks the stamps found their way into the attic where they lie to this day forgotten.

On the other hand, a learned doctor, head of one of our great medical schools, visited me one day with a similar request. He wanted to start a collection. I gave him a book such as you are now reading and advised him to study it as it contained the best information I had on the subject. In a day or so he returned and requested "one of those beginner's outfits" the book told about. It was provided and the doctor took it home to apply himself to learning. A few weeks passed before I saw this fellow again but when he returned he was full of confidence. "I've read the book," he said, "and I've worked out the thousand different stamps. Now I feel that I can go ahead. Let me see some of those better albums and let's see about starting a real collection." In due course this man built one of the finest collections of airmail stamps ever assembled and became one of the great collectors of our country. By starting correctly he found the way to enjoy one of the world's greatest cultural hobbies.

The same pleasure awaits you.

Now let us proceed with what to do after you have acquired your beginner's outfit.

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