Aussie Stamps: March 2009

Monday, March 9, 2009

Stamp Grading For Beginners

Grading Stamps for Beginners

To get the most out of your stamp collection if you are a beginner, you need to have a strong attention to detail. Even if you are just trying to fill a space, the eye-catching attractiveness of your stamps can be the most satisfying part of stamp collecting.

Stamp grading is not a required skill for all collectors, but some stamp grading knowledge is a necessary aspect of the stamp collecting hobby.

Although there is no universal approach to grading stamps, it is important to be able to detect flaws and imperfections that can alter the value of a stamp. Grading stamps is a multi-step process.

When buying or selling stamps, the grade of a stamp is the most significant consideration in determining the price asked and paid.

Stamps can be sound, faulty or defective. A sound stamp is not faulty or defective.

Faulty stamps have minor imperfections like a few short perforations or lightly creased corners.

Defective stamps can have many short perforations, missing perforations, heavy smeared cancellations, heavy creases, tears, stains, missing corners, scuffed designs and thin spots.

When grading stamps, you need to look very closely at the perforations.

Centering of the stamp is one of the most important things to consider when grading stamps.

A perfectly centered stamp is considered to be a superb (S) stamp.

A stamp perfectly centered side to side but slightly off to the top or bottom is an Extra Fine (XF) stamp.

A stamp perfectly centered top to bottom but off slightly side to side is a Very Fine (VF) stamp.

A stamp slightly off in two directions is a Fine-Very Fine (F-VF) stamp.

Stamps that are off center to the point where the frame of the design almost touches the perforations is a Fine (F) stamp.

A stamp whose perforations cut into the stamp's design is an Average (A) stamp.

A stamp with really bad centering, where part of the stamp's design is lost, is a poor (p) stamp.

There is an exception to the rule and that is with very old stamps. They were often printed so close together that the perforations nearly always cut into the design.

Happy Stamping
kerryduck@harboursat.com.au

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Collect Used Aussie Stamps

Stamp Collecting For Beginning Philatelists

To become a stamp enthusiast with the exciting hobby of collecting stamps, all you need to do
is decide on a topic and then purchase some stamps.

If you have particular theme or topic in mind, start with that.

Popular collecting themes can vary from animals, dogs, cats, farm animals, butterflies, birds, flowers, art, sports, Olympics, maps, scouting, space, ships, cars, trucks, trains, planes, caravans, stamps on stamps, famous people, chess, scenery or lifestyle images, pop culture icons, Disney characters, famous individuals, Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, royalty, flags, single countries and/or time periods, historical periods, definitive or commemorative stamps, Worldwide collections, revenue stamps, postal stationery, sheet lets, miniature sheets, souvenir sheets, corner blocks or plate blocks, postmarks, postage due stamps/labels, Philatelic literature, First day covers - (FDCs), counterfeit/forged postage stamps, Cinderellas, Geographic collections and so on.

My suggestion if you are just beginning, would be to focus on the nation in which you live.
That's because your already familiar with your own native country and the postage stamps are
readily available from mail delivered to your home.

The best way to further your love of stamp collecting is to immerse yourself by taking advantage of every possible resource available.

There are many different ways and places to find stamps, for a price and for free, both on-line and off.
Surfing the Internet for good stamp dealers with stamp sites offering stacks of assorted wide-ranging stamps packets for sale, is a good place to start. Most collectors find that the larger packets have the best stamps in them.

EBay is a great resource where you can bid at stamp auctions, as well as buy and sell stamps. On eBay, you’ll find thousands of auctions for affordable, collectible stamps.

You can get stamps through the mail via Web sites, either by approval (the stamp dealer sends you a collection of assorted stamps and you decide which ones to keep) or you can supply a wants list (when a stamp dealer checks his or her stock and quotes prices for specific stamps you want to collect).

You could entrench yourself in the philatelic community to obtain information. There are forums and groups where you can get together with other collectors with much the same interests to yours.

You can trade with other stamp collectors by joining on-line trading lists or requesting trades via trading groups or forums. There are pros and cons to all online trading sites, but sometimes it's just enjoyable to browse what's offered.

Philatelic exhibitions are an excellent place to get superior information and for meeting stamp traders.
You could join your local stamp club. Most regions have stamp clubs that advertise meeting times in national Philatelic magazines.

You could go through Stamp Collecting magazines looking for ads where you can subscribe to
stamp auction catalogues. National Philatelic magazines are a terrific resource for all things philatelic.

Lots of stamp collecting books are available through public libraries and bookstores. Information is freely available on the Internet.

To assist your collecting, you can check the values of your stamps in the most current Catalogue.

A cardboard shoebox is a good place to store your stamps where they will be safe and not
damaged when you first begin to collect stamps.

When you begin to accumulate a large collection, you'll need to put your favourites in some sort of logical order in your stamp album.

Whatever storage system you decide to follow is up to you, as long as you display and continue to build up your Postage Stamps Collection.
Happy stamping
kerryduck@harboursat.com.au

Australian Stamp Facts And Innovations

More than 1 billion Postage stamps are produced in Australia each year.
Australian Law states that Australia Post must provide a universal mail service that all Australians can access.
Australia Posts longest mail run visiting isolated communities and outback cattle stations, from Port Augusta to Birdsville, involves a 2600 kilometer, two day plane journey.
2.8 million Australia Post delivery points are in rural areas, the outback or on islands.
In 1990, Australia became the first country in the world to produce Self-adhesive (peel and stick) stamps for ongoing use on a mass scale, directly inspiring other countries to start using self-adhesives for standard postage.
No Commemorative stamps were issued in Australia between 1901 and 1927 because the UPU (Universal Postal System) banned commemorative stamps being used on international mail. The powers that be, concluded that the ban included the use of commemorative stamps for domestic use. The UPU lifted the ban in 1922. In 1927 the opening of the Parliament House in Canberra was commemorated with the first commemorative stamp issued by the Australian Commonwealth.
Australia produced the worlds first commemorative stamp in 1888, with a set labelled "One Hundred Years" In 1997, New South Wales and Victoria issued the world's first charity stamps. Charity stamps are sold at a higher price to benefit a charity.
In 1995, Australia produced it's first holographic stamp, Opals.
The worlds first personalized stamps, Stamps with people's own snapshots on adjoining labels, were introduced in Australia at the Melbourne international philatelic exhibition 2000.
During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Australia was the first country in the world to produce Instant stamps. Every Australian gold medalist had a stamp placed on sale within 48 hours after the medal was won.
In 1957, Australia was the first country in the world to issue Christmas stamps.
Since 1989, Australia Post has been putting the year into all stamp designs they issue. The year on the stamps are so tiny you need a magnifying glass to see them.
Australia's youngest stamp designer, Holly Alvarez from Perth, WA, was five years old when her 1983 Christmas design was chosen during a national competition amongst primary school children.
There are over one million stamp collectors living in Australia

Stamp Collecting Words and What They Mean

AAT: Australian Antarctic Territory
Accessories: Commodities used by stamp collectors to assist with stamp identification and handling.
Acid-free-paper: Paper with a pH greater than 7.0 containing no acidic additives.
Album: A book in which stamps and other philatelic material are mounted.
Appraisal: When a stamp collector seeks out the value of a collection, either for selling or insurance.
Approvals: Selected Philatelic material is sent to a collector, with prices, through the mail. The collector takes what they need and returns the remainder together with payment for items held back.
ATM: A term used by stamp collectors for Automatic teller machines that also dispense stamps.
Average: A standard of condition, not generally considered desirable.
Bisect: A stamp that has been cut in half so that each half can be used at half the face value of the original stamp. A person who collects bisects usually collects the original cover with the cancel covering the cut on the stamp.
Block: An unseperated group of stamps, of at least four, two wide and two high.
Booklet: A small cardboard booklet containing one or more panes of stamps.
Bulls-eye cancellation: A postmark where the city and date have been placed directly on the center of the stamp.
Cachet: A design imprinted on an envelope or postal card that describes the event for which the envelope was mailed. Cachets are commonly used on First Day Covers, covers celebrating a significant anniversary, first flights, stamp exhibitions, and so on.
Canceled to order: Stamps that are cancelled by a postal authority for the philatelic trade, without having been used for postal duty. They are not very highly regarded by collectors.
Cancellation: The ink impression applied to a stamp by a postal authority to render it unusable for re-use.
Centering: Refers to the location of the stamp's design relative to the surrounding margin.
Cinderella Stamp: Cinderella stamps are all stamps that are not government issued postage stamps or postal stationary items.
coils: Single denomination and design stamps that are produced in rolls of 100, 500 or more for use in vending machines.
Commemorative: A stamp that is issued to commemorate an event, an anniversary of an event, or honor a place or person. They usually have an interesting design, are produced in lesser quantities than definitives and are on sale for a limited time.
Cover: An intact envelope or postcard, aerogramme, etc. that has been through the mail with the appropriate postal markings and evidence of postal payment.
Definative: A regular stamp in general use over an extended period.
Face Value: The monetary value of a postage stamp that it will pre-pay as shown on the stamps design.
First-Day Cover: An envelope or postcard with a newly issued stamp affixed that has been cancelled with a First Day of Issue cancellation at a city designated by the postal administration.
To Be Continued

Aussie Stamps