Stamp Collecting as a Hobby

British postmaster general Sir Rowland Hill came up with the concept of using a stamp that would be paid by the letter sender as early as 1837 but the long debates stretched the issuance of the first stamped letter three years after that proposal.

The first issued stamp, which had a photo of Queen Victoria, became known as Penny Black because it used black ink and it required a penny for one stamp. The United States, which caught on the practice of sending letters with a stamp, made its first stamp in 1847 with the image of Benjamin Franklin.

Since then, philatelists or stamp collectors have started their vocation. Stamp collecting may look like a simple hobby but listen to philatelists do their stamp banter and you would get lost in the way.

While the word ambulant may commonly refer to medicine or ambulances, philatelists view an ambulant as a roving post office. And do you know that stamp makers protect stamps from counterfeiting by placing a burelage or a design on top of the stamp?

A cancelled mail which does not reveal the identity of the canceling post office can be referred to as a mute cancel. While a specimen naturally refers to an object placed and studied in a microscope, the word specimen in philatelist lingo

When you are just starting your stamp collecting hobby you will probably be inundated with words like adhesive which refers to that sticky substance under a stamp which enable you to stick it easily to an envelope. Stamps with cancellation marks mean stamps that have been marked to show previous usage.

When choosing your stamp collection, you can start with collecting commemorative stamps or stamps issued to commemorate a particular person, event or for a significant reason. In 1893, the United States issued its first commemorative stamps to mark the discovery made by Christopher Columbus

And when you are asked by a philatelist of you got your stamps from a covered enveloped, it may just mean that the envelope has been mailed. A denomination on the other hand does not refer to a religious group but to how much the stamp is worth in terms of postage.

Stamp collectors use simple but weird terms like referring to a stamp placed on an envelope but which was canceled the very first day it was sold as first day cover. Business people may be more familiar with the term revenue stamps which refer to stamps that are not for postage of a letter but for the payment of taxes.

- Mrs. Nagalakshmi Tadakaluri, Philatelist.

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