A stamp A postage stamp is adhesive paper evidence of a fee paid for postal services. Usually a small rectangle attached to an envelope, the stamp signifies the person sending it has fully or partly paid for delivery. Postage stamps are the most popular way of paying for retail mail; alternatives include prepaid-postage envelopes and postage meters. The album An album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites is a book, often loose-leafed (to allow for expansion), in which a collection of postage stamps A postage stamp is adhesive paper evidence of a fee paid for postal services. Usually a small rectangle attached to an envelope, the stamp signifies the person sending it has fully or partly paid for delivery. Postage stamps are the most popular way of paying for retail mail; alternatives include prepaid-postage envelopes and postage meters. The may be stored and displayed.
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Overview
Albums are the nearly universal means for keeping stamps, used for both beginners' and world-class collections, and it is common to characterize the size of a collection by its number of albums.
Album layout
The arrangement of stamps on an album page depends on the taste of the collector and the purpose of the collection. A collection with "one of each" stamp may have rows of stamps packed onto each page, while a specialist's page might have a dozen examples of the same type of stamp, each captioned with a description of printing details or colour shades. Traditional page creation was done with pen and ink; in recent years page layout software and computer printers have become popular. AlbumEasy, available free, for both Windows and Linux, is an example of one of the many page layout programs.
Preprinted albums
Many collectors buy preprinted albums and pages, which are produced by several manufacturers. The gamut ranges from worldwide albums, with only enough spaces for the common stamps and a few more, to one-country albums with spaces for every type of stamp known. The usual format is to print a black-and-white picture of the stamp in each space, reduced in size so that a real stamp will cover it up, and add a thin frame around the stamp. Captions range from minimal mentions of perforation Rotary pinned perforation rollers are precision tools that can be used to perforate a wide variety of materials. The pins / needles can be used cold or heated or watermark A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness variations in the paper. There are two main types of watermark, the Dandy Roll process, and the more complex Cylinder Mould process. A watermark is very useful in the examination of, up to a paragraph giving a little background on the stamp's subject. Album pages are almost always one-sided; two-sided pages save space, but require interleaving sheets to prevent stamps from catching on each other.
History
One of the first albums was the Stanley Gibbons The Stanley Gibbons Group plc is a company quoted on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange and which specialises in the retailing of collectable postage stamps and similar products. The group is incorporated in Jersey but with offices in London, Ringwood in Hampshire and Guernsey. The company is a major stamp dealer “V.R.” published in the early 1870s. This was followed by the “Improved”, and then the illustrated “Imperial” albums. Present-day makers include Lighthouse (Leuchturm), Safe, Lindner, Scott, Schaubek, Seahorse Philatelic Publishers and White Ace. Once collectors have started using a particular brand, they have a strong incentive to stay with it, and the manufacturers offer annual updates for the stamps issued during the previous year.
In the earliest albums, stamps were stuck down to the pages, using either their own gum (as if put on an envelope), or glue. It soon became clear that separating the stamp and page would likely result in the destruction of one or the other, and stamp hinges Stamp hinges are small, folded, rectangular pieces of paper coated with a mild gum. They are used by stamp collectors to affix postage stamps onto the pages of a stamp album. The short end is moistened and affixed to the stamp, the long end is likewise affixed to the page. The hinge keeps the stamp on the page while still allowing it to be lifted were introduced. In the second half of the 20th century more sophisticated methods of storage came into vogue, such as the use of clear plastic sleeves, ensuring that the stamps were not damaged, and that both sides could easily be examined. Albums of this sort are known as "hingeless albums".
Using albums
Better-quality albums have padded covers, which reduces possible pressure on the stamps exerted by adjacent albums on a shelf. Careful collectors do not cram albums tightly together, so as allow for a bit of air movement through the pages, and to prevent gum oozing or sticking.
Free software for creating stamp albums
TheStampWeb.Com [1] publishes free software called AlbumEasy for creating stamp albums.
See also
- Philately Philately is the study of stamps and related items. Philately is distinct from stamp collecting which does not usually involve the study of stamps. It is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps. For instance, the stamps being studied may be very rare or exist only in museums
- Stamp collecting
- Stockbook Stockbooks are storage books used by stamp collectors for storage of postage stamps placed in pockets, on pages, for easy viewing. Other philatelic items, such as plate blocks, miniature sheets, covers, lettersheets, etc., can be stored in stockbooks
References
- Richard McP. Cabeen, Standard Handbook of Stamp Collecting (Collectors Club, 1979), pp. 30-34
Categories: Stamp collecting | Philatelic terminology
