A Guide to Stamp Collecting Accessories

Stamp collectors require accessories to properly handle, store, and study stamps while preserving their condition and authenticity. These tools help prevent damage, organise collections, and enhance the overall experience of stamp collecting.

The Essential Philatelic Tools for Stamp Collectors:

It is better not to touch your valuable stamps with your hands. Even if you have washed your hands, your fingertips may secrete oils that can stick to and damage your stamps. There is also a high risk to damage/bind the stamp by touching it with your hands.

Stamp collectors usually use specialist tweezers (tongs) to handle their stamps. Stamp tweezers are made of metal and keep the stamp from getting damaged from dirt and oil from your skin. They are used for picking up and handling stamps.

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Beauty Tweezers are not suitable for stamps! Their sharp points can tear stamps. Philatelic tweezers have broader tips and an easier grip than beauty tweezers; sharp tips and hard grip of tweezers can damage the stamp.

Stamp Collecting Magnifying glass

A Stamp Collecting magnifying glass is a very common tool for stamp collectors, being used to enlarge details on stamps.

Alternatively, you can scan your stamps in high resolution (300dpi at least) or use a digital magnifier or USB microscope to see all the details on a big computer display.

If you’re not sure which magnifying glass to buy for stamp collecting, here’s a quick overview of the main types used by collectors:

• Simple/classical magnifiers, usually with magnification of 2× to 5×. These magnifying glasses are good for general inspection of stamps and identifying postmarks.
• Loupes, usually with magnification of 5× to 20×. These magnifying glasses are good for examining fine print, microprinting and errors.
• Illuminated magnifiers with LED and/or UV Light, usually with magnification of 5× to 20×. These magnifying glasses are good for examining fine print, microprinting and errors, as well as detecting UV security features in modern stamps.
• Digital USB microscopes, usually with magnification of 10× to 1000×. These magnifying glasses are good for examining fine print, microprinting, errors, creating high-resolution images, detecting fakes and cataloguing stamps digitally.

For those who work with magnifiers and stamp albums, tools with built-in lights or hands-free designs can make a big difference when inspecting stamps without removing them from protective sleeves.

How Should You Store Stamps to Keep Them Safe?

Mint (clean, unused) and CTO (cancelled to order) stamps are sold by postal authorities in their offline and online store in full sets or individually. The CTO and especially mint stamps are usually stored by collectors in albums or stock books (the details below) to preserve their condition as they were purchased.

Any damage of the face or the reverse side, loss of the glue for example, might reduce their value significantly. Stamps and covers should be kept where humidity and temperature are at safe and fairly consistent levels.

High temperatures and humidity can activate the gum on the back, which may cause them to stick to each other or to pages of albums. Cold temperatures may cause stamps to become brittle, which can also be damaging.

On used stamps, the cancellation might obscure details on the stamps. It also may be difficult to find a complete set of stamps in used condition. However, for modern issues, they are much cheaper than the mint and CTO stamps.

Used stamps are often offered in stamp mixtures, known as ‘kiloware’. These stamps, usually on paper, are sold by their weight, usually between 50g and 500g. There are many articles on the Internet and videos on YouTube explaining how to soak/wash-out stamps from the paper.

The storage of used stamps can be cheap because they do not require any special treatment and can be stored even in a box. Glassine envelopes are available in many different sizes. Very thin and translucent, they can be used to store used stamps which belong to the same topic or country of issue and can protect them from air and moisture.

What Are the Best Stamp Storage Systems for Stamp Collectors?

There are several stamps and covers storage systems available on the market. The most popular are albums and stock books.

What Are the Benefits of Using Stamp Collecting Albums?

The first stamp albums appeared shortly after people started collecting stamps, in the middle of the 1800s. At that time, it was required to stick stamps on the pages, because glassine or foil strips had not been invented yet.

Collectors used stamp hinges – small, thin, folded pieces of translucent paper with special gum on one side of the hinge. They were used to mount stamps onto paper of album pages, but they damaged part of the glue on the reverse side of the stamp.

Usually, a small part of the reverse side was licked or wetted, then attached to the page. Stamps hinges are still available, but you better not use them for mint or CTO stamps, so you don’t damage their gum and reduce their value.

The better option is to use mounts – clear plastic sleeves (pre-cut or cut-to-size) that protect stamps without using adhesive. Mounts are usually used on empty album pages, to allow the collector to arrange the stamps in a desired or preferred order. Mounts with transparent or black backgrounds are also used on the pages of philatelic exhibits to mount stamps on the pages.

There are many companies who provide printed pages or even offer to design and print your own pages. Stamp albums with printed pages are created especially for stamps from a specific country, time or theme. They have a dedicated space for each stamp and may also contain black-white images on the page and even be accompanied by some explanatory text.

The problem with pre-printed pages is that the stamps must be of the standard size to fit to the slots. If you would like to add the stamp from the corner or side of the sheet (with selvage or labels), it might not fit.

Also, if you would like to add an additional stamp such as a stamp with designer autograph on selvages or a stamp with a design error, there might be not enough empty space to place them on the same page.

What Are the Advantages of Using Stamp Stock Books?

Stock books are distinguished from albums, by having stiff pages lined with glassine or foil strips. The glassine or foil strip act as pockets to hold the stamps. The pages are usually white or black in colour.

These books give collectors freedom to store the stamps as they wish, add new variations and sort/resort the stamps collection without remounting the stamps. Stamps of different size, from different countries or time can be placed together on the same page as there are no dedicated slots.

Stock books are available in two formats – book like, with fixed pages, and as a binder with stock cards. These stock cards are removal pages, can be removed from the binder for display purposes or placed in another stock book.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Stamp Binder for Your Collection?

Some collectors choose to make their own albums using nice binders and blank pages. This is the most expensive and time-consuming approach. It can be good for collectors of small topics who add new stamps and other philatelic materials to their collection infrequently.

On the other hand, it gives you an opportunity to store your collection in a unique, creative way. You can keep stamps and corresponding covers on the page or place a long strip of stamp in diagonal, while glassine or foil strips in the albums and stock books are always preplaced horizontally.

You can also make a bigger space between rows or create small rows of stamp mounts (small plastic sleeves) for one or a few stamps. You might even store non-philatelic materials, the entrance ticket of a museum depicted on the stamp for example, on the same page and even write notes on the same page. A binder gives the possibility to make a unique album of your own.

What Is the Best Way to Store First Day Covers and Postal Items?

First day covers (FDCs), maxi cards and postal circulated covers can be stored in dedicated albums or boxes. The albums might be expensive and occupy much more space than office-archive boxes. Office-archive boxes are a cheap solution, but they are not designed to store postal covers, and it is difficult to find them in the size of covers.

Some collectors use shoeboxes, which are not designed to store postal covers either. However, these might work if your shoe size is big enough and you buy new shoes regularly!

Some philatelic accessories companies produce specially designed boxes for postcards and cover collectors. They have the right width and several sections for sorting the covers.

Being acid free, they offer better preservation. They are more robust than shoeboxes and prevent damage from humidity. It is good practice to store your covers in separate transparent glassine envelopes produced by one of the major philatelic accessories production companies. When there is nothing special on the reverse side, you can place two covers (back-to-back) in the glassine envelopes.

What Are Perforation Measurements and How Do They Impact Stamp Authenticity?

Perforations are small rows of holes punched between stamps to make them easier to separate. The number of holes in a 2cm distance is called the perforation number. For example, perforation 11 means the stamp has 11 holes along a 2cm distance.

The number of holes on horizontal and vertical sides of the stamp can be different. One side might have 11 punches, while the other side might have 12 punches per 2cm of the distance. For security reasons, to prevent forgeries, many stamps have perforations as floating numbers: 11.75×12.25 for example. Visually the same stamp, but different perforations might have completely different catalogue values.

The perforation gauge was invented in 1862 for the accurate measurement of perforations. It is usually a piece of plastic or metal, with hole markers on the sides. To use it, you have to align the stamp with a set of holes on the perforation gauge to see if they match. If not, move the stamp to another example set until they match.

Today, some postal authorities create fancy perforations as an additional protection against forgeries. For example, Portugal makes one perforation in the form of a Maltese cross in the middle of the left and right sides of their stamps. Poland often makes an oval perforation on the left and right sides of the stamps. Other countries use fancy perforations that have shapes related to the design of the stamp on one or more sides of their stamps.

How to Detect Watermarks and Other Security Features on Stamps

Since the issue of the first stamp, in Great Britain in 1840, the issuing authorities treat stamps like banknotes and try to prevent forgeries. The old technique was to add a watermark on the paper.

A watermark is a security measure, akin to a hidden signature, which helps prevent counterfeiting. These marks are created during the papermaking process, often involving a variation in thickness or density of the paper, which can be seen when held up to light.

Sometimes, it is enough to hold the stamp to the light or to lay it down on a dark background, in other cases, especially when the reverse side contain traces of cancelation ink or changed to its original colour as result of chemical reaction to air or water (used stamps), it might be required to use a special fluid, UV lamp or a watermark detector device.

First of all, it is important to check the watermark, if available, to ensure the stamp is genuine. All major stamp catalogues provide information about watermarks and their design. Check the catalogue for the stamp you wish to inspect.

Stamps that are visibly the same may be available in variants with and without watermarks. The variants may even have different catalogue values. For example, the ‘Moon Valley’ stamp of Argentina from 1977 was issued on watermarked and unwatermarked papers.

Stamps with a watermark have a catalogue value six times more than stamps without the watermark. Ignoring the details, such as watermarks and perforations, can lead to misidentification, and overpaying.

Modern stamps, usually, don’t have a watermark but other security features, such as fibres, numbers or even text visible under UV light.

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How Do Colour Charts Help Identify Valuable Stamps?

Many old stamps exist in different colour shades. The ‘Penny Black’ for example exists in three shades: ‘intense black’, ‘black’ (most common) and ‘grey-black’ (SG 1, 2 and 3, respectively). Some sellers and books distinguish a fourth variant of ‘grey’ stamps that were printed by very worn plates.

Similar to the ‘Penny Black’, the ‘Two Pence Blue’ stamp was printed in different shades of blue: ‘deep full blue’, ‘blue’, ‘pale-blue’, ‘milky blue’, ‘steel-blue’, ‘bright-blue’, ‘deep-blue’ and ‘violet-blue’.

The first three shades have their own numbers (SG 4/6 respectively) and are listed in all Stanley Gibbons catalogues. All eight shades are listed as colour-variants in Stanley Gibbons GB Specialised Queen Victoria Volume 1 Part 1 (2020) catalogue under numbers DS1-DS9.

In the case of the ‘Penny Black’, you might be able to distinguish intense-black from black and grey with the naked eye, but it might be difficult to distinguish between different shades of blue.

Colour identifier printed charts from Stanley Gibbons, Michel and other catalogues are supposed to help stamp collectors to identify the shade of their stamps and correctly identify its catalogue value. These colour identifiers must be stored in a dark place, away from the sunlight to prevent their colours fading with time.

When you purchase the colour identifier, match it with the catalogue version you are going to use because the shade names might change from one catalogue version to another.

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