Collecting Stamps is Like Owning a Small Piece of History

Have you ever thought about the possibility of owning a piece of history? What could a person own that would be of historical significance? Well of course there is property, that is if you owned some piece of property that actually had historical significance. Which if it did, especially any real historical value then the state or federal government would probably want it as a treasured landmark of some sort.

Next There are family heirlooms, these items such as furniture, pictures, jewelry, etc. could be worth some very great wealth if they were authenticated and proved to be a rare historical item. Yes you probably could make a great deal from one or more buyers that may want that item for their own collection. Most of us would not have anything like that, we have property and family heirlooms, yes, but they generally are not of any great historical value, except maybe to ourselves. There is one item that a person can own, that in most cases are not expensive, can be well cared for without a lot of care taking and are in some cases an actual piece of history in our country's growth.

What might you ask would that be, well it would be stamps. That's right United States postage stamps. There all several types of stamps and several categories that stamps fall into and whether it would be US stamps or world stamps it would give you the opportunity to actually own a small piece of history itself. Stamps are a piece of history because they have been used through history since their first invention. There are Topicals; these are stamps denoting a specific topic by their production. One example is Chess; there is a topical for Anatoli Karpoff the world champion of chess. Another type is commemorative stamp. These commemorate an event, place or person. The most famous of recent times is The Heroes of 2001 dedicating firemen and police of the 9/11 disaster.

The other types of stamps are what are generally known as "back of the book", these are such stamps as airmail, coil stamps, tax stamps, revenue stamps and so on. This is one of my particular favorite types of stamps as it designates a specific time in history. If you become enamored with stamps they can become an addition and take up a lot of your free time. My suggestion is to start small and work on one particular type of category and get your feet wet with that and go from there. Some of the stamps I have collected are not so much in monetary value, but the time period and event they actually represent. For example, I have plate blocks, that is four stamps usually although it can be six, that shows the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. I have one showing win the war with a V for victory in WWII. I have one that denotes the U.S. Frigate Constitution in 1747. I have one that denotes freedom of the press. One that denotes the old monster movie characters. One for The Apollo Soyuz joint space link in 1975, and so on and so on.

I can go on and on, the point is these represent a piece of history. Owning these small parchments of paper can give some the sense that they have something special, even if a lot of others do as well. There are such very important stamps monetarily such as the inverted Jenny, of the Graf Zeppelin, but most ordinary people cannot afford stamps like those. I continue to look for unusual stamps, I try to get them in plate blocks simply because I like the look of a small square of 4 stamps together. Some of these with the right stamp could be worth some money as most stamps are worth more in plate blocks that can be from four to twenty stamps. Usually stamps are not that monetarily important if it is only one stamp unless it is very special for a particular reason, such as the inverted Jenny, which was printed upside down.

While my collection may not be that important monetarily, it is very important to me. I collect stamps because I love the artwork, I love the time periods they represent and I love to say I actually have a piece of history. None of us can actually go back in time to see what actually happened in those time periods if we did not live through them. We can read about them in books, we can watch TV or movies about a certain time period or character. I have what I believe is an actual piece from that time period; therefore I have a small piece of that time to have and to hold in this time period. That I think is very special.