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Chapter 12. How to Collect

As we have seen from Chapter 2 there are a great many different kinds of postage stamps. The problem arises just what should you, or I, as individuals decide to collect? Shall we collect the stamps of the world without discrimination? Or should we limit our fields of endeavor? In a previous chapter where we have outlined the steps in starting a collection, we have advised that the beginner should start out collecting "the world". This is good advice, for the tyro needs to learn about stamps and not just about some particular kind of stamp. The first few thousand stamps should be world wide in variety and cover all kinds of issues. They will, of course, be stamps of very low cost. Indeed their individual cost may not be determined. But they will supply the basic knowledge that every advanced collector has to have before he can build a worth-while collection of any description. The term "worth-while" is used for lack of a better description. Every collection is worth while no matter how embryonic. From the very beginning we start to learn about things that are of interest and will stand us in good stead as we progress.

We crawl before we walk, we attend grade school before high school, high school before college, go through "basic training" on entering the Army, and apprenticeship before the trade is learned, and we must be born before we can die. There is no short cut to anything. Life must be lived and stamps must be collected to bring full enjoyment.

Stamps of Austria mounted on a page of The New World-Wide Album

Many collectors, however erudite, never entirely give up general collecting.

However, almost everyone looks forward to completing a project and if our goal is a collection of the entire world, we shall have to be endowed with a very substantial fortune indeed let alone the time involved in building such a collection. Hence, after a few years of general collecting, most collectors turn toward specializing. They concentrate on a suitable project that has possibilities of completion within reasonable limits.

There are many ways that this can be done. One of the simplest, and one very widely practiced, is to concentrate on the stamps of a single country, or on a group of countries like Great Britain and colonies, France and colonies, Latin America, etc. Other collectors major in different kinds of stamps, such as airmails, special delivery stamps, postage-due stamps, etc.

For most any group along these lines special catalogs, albums and "study groups" are available as many have traveled these same roads and you will have much company.

Many people have confined their collecting to Roosevelt stamps, i.e. stamps that have been issued in honor of our late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by various nations throughout the world and here, too, special albums are available. Still others collect "Lincolniana", "Lindberghiana", and similar selected subjects.

Such limiting of collecting to the pictures on the stamps leads to one of the most fascinating forms of collecting the "subject" or "topical" collection.

Here one collects according to pictures on stamps that have relation to the subject at hand. Thus, the late Theodore E. Steinway built a world-famous collection of "music" in stamps. Francis Cardinal Spellman's collection of "Religion" is equally well known. This example has been widely emulated and there are many collectors of "music" and "Religion". Many collect "ships", others "birds", "animals", even "mountains". The latter offer a fascinating field for the youngster and the natureminded. I recall the collection built by Carla Pelander, one of the most charming and captivating persons I have ever known. Carla was only eight years old when I first saw her standing before an audience of grown-ups displaying and explaining her collection of animals and birds. Young as she was she held her audience enthralled as she turned the pages and told her story of each separate stamp that had been presented to her by her "hunters". The first few pages of her collection bore the autographs of the "hunters", including all of the prominent names of philately and many, many others. Each hunter had earned his right to sign her album by presenting the collection with a stamp not previously included. To have known Carla was to have known one of the fine persons of this world. Wherever she went people called upon her to show her collection and deliver her lecture. Whenever she did, her audience sat spellbound. She was a great philatelist. Her life was snuffed out by a terrible disease within two years after I first met her, but she remains in my memory and in the memory of all who knew her as one of the truly great collectors.

What Carla did with her animal collection others have followed. The possibilities are unlimited and one of the many attractions of "subject" collecting is that it is world wide. Your interest in stamps never wanes for the issues of all the world must be carefully watched for stamps that will fit into your scheme.

With this kind of a collection you are on your own. There are no catalogues or printed albums to guide and restrict you. The albums you will use will be blank albums, the reference books will be a general catalogue of the world's stamps, encyclopedias and similar materials to uncover the stories behind the stamps you place in your collection. You will be amazed at the knowledge you will amass from such a philatelic endeavor. Not the least comforting aspect of the subject collection is that it is always "complete" yet may always be added to. Each page as you mount it becomes a unit in itself. Many have found this a most satisfying form of collecting stamps.

First Day Cover. Note cancellation indicating first day of issue. The design at the left is called a cachet. Such cavers are prepared well in advance of the date on which the stamp will be issued as announced by the Post Office Department. They are often handsomely engraved as shown in the illustration.

Still another fascinating collection is one of "First Days". This consists of entire covers to which is attached a new stamp mailed on the first day of its issue. In the United States the Post Office designates certain cities to inaugurate the first day sale of a new stamp and provides a special "First Day" cancellation to be applied to all covers mailed from that post office, bearing the new stamp, on the specified day. Several firms provide envelopes with very handsome "cachets" which may be purchased and used with the new stamps. A "cachet" is an appropriate picture printed, usually, at the left side of the envelope which, in its design and wording, has special significance for the new stamp issue. Many of these commercially prepared First Day cachets are beautiful works of art printed from copper or steel engravings. They are obtainable for a few cents each week in advance of the appearance of the new stamps. The United States Post Office assists by providing means for you to send your First Day envelopes to the Postmaster where the stamps will be issued. You enclose the necessary postage to cover cost of the new stamps and the postmaster will apply them to your envelopes, properly cancel them with the special First Day postmark, and send them back to you. Warning, the number of such First Day envelopes any individual may send to the designated Postmaster is usually limited to twelve.

If one does not wish to go to all of the trouble incident to preparing his own first day covers there are many services available that will undertake this work for you at a minimum cost and assure you of receiving all new stamps as they are issued.

On special occasions, and for special stamp issues, some foreign nations have also provided special First Day cancellations to newly issued stamps.

But First Day collectors are by no means limited to the special printed cachet prepared by commercial firms. Any envelope bearing the correctly issued new stamp and cancelled with the official First Day cancellation provided by the Post Office is equally a "First Day" cover. There is a First Day Catalogue and first day collectors have their own society, nation-wide in scope. Started only a few years ago, the society is well on the way to enrolling five thousand members. Known as the "First Day Cover Society", the group publishes its own magazine, appropriately named "First Days", and holds annual conventions in various cities.

An adaptation of the First Day collection is the collection of Maximum cards. This consists of a picture postcard to which is attached a stamp bearing a duplicate of the picture on the card. The stamp is usually placed to the lower left on the face of the card. If a "First Day" or other cancellation is applied, or, perhaps, an autograph of the person pictured on both stamp and card, so much the better.

We have mentioned but a few of the ways stamps are collected. The versatility of the hobby is unlimited and no doubt you will develop your one particular "specialty" as you progress. Most everyone does.

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