Stamp collecting a solitary hobby

What do you collect? We are philatelists, stamp collectors, but the subject of our collection is as vast as the words in the dictionary. How many stamp collectors are there? Just as puzzling as their collections, because collectors are all individuals and mostly do not join any club.

Most collectors are isolationists, who do not associate with others. The hobby is an individualist hobby, where seldom a collector has a partner; not even spouses are involved in their partner’s hobbies, leaving estates after a collector’s death with headaches to deal with the remnants of the hobby.

So you have millions of stamp collectors buying millions of stamps, but they are all buying their own motif. Every collection has its own trademark on it. Suppliers try to create albums for different themes, countries and schemes for collectors, but eventually, none are the perfect solution and each collector resorts to their own obscure method of collecting their stamps.

In general, there are sure and proven, accepted methods on handling the tiny delicate objects. To attach the stamp to a page, there is an accepted method of mounting them, using mounts or hinges. Many a valuable collection has materialized where the hobbyist failed to follow the methods, resulting in a lessthan-worthless pile of junk. Scotch tape has ruined a multitude of collections. It is a great way to stick things, permanently, making it almost impossible to remove. It is clear and transparent. But, after a few years, the adhesive of the tape soaks into the paper of the stamp and turns yellow, leaving a nice yellow spot that shows on the face of the stamp. In most cases even before the adhesive changes colour, the tape cannot be safely removed.

Realizing these simple tricks comes from being among other collectors to share the secrets. I discovered stamp hinges in a book on stamps, after pasting all of my stamps in my junior world wide album with LePage’s glue. That seemed to work well, a little messy, but the stamps were stuck solid. Years later, talking with other stamp collectors, I learned about types of stamp hinges. Now, to keep my best stamps preserved, I use stamp mounts and those album pages are in protector sheets.

To answer that first question, you collect what strikes your fancy, the subject, the design, or the picture. You collect what you find. That is collecting. And, how many are there, is the magic question. Canada Post sells millions of stamps to collectors, so there are possibly more than a million collectors in Canada. In Lethbridge, the post office sells hundreds of souvenir sheets to customers. Most of these are to collections, so that would indicate the number in the city, with less than 10 per cent being members of a club. None of the club members know the secrets of the others, although they share stamps and discuss things. I like my secrets, too.