|
By the looks of it, I know it sounds pretty
boring even for a hobby. So not all enjoy this
form of hobby you know. Then why am I even
writing about this hobby, is it some kind of a
diabolical scheme, something intriguing so that
you get hooked on to this hobby? Nope, nothing
of that sort. Oh sure, stamp collecting has
surely be termed as the world’s greatest hobby,
but what exactly has made it all that to be the
pinnacle of all hobbies? Stamp collecting, more
than a hobby, is a craze among enthusiasts to
collect since it gives them a feeling that they
have a piece of history, a piece of art in their
stamp collection books. How many times has it
happened that when you open your mailbox, you
come across a rather interesting postage stamp
and you keep telling yourself that hey, I can
start collecting these little things. Well, FYI,
stamp collecting is a rather interesting hobby
and lets face it, when you walk into a museum
and you come across a rather old stamp
collection, you always get the feeling that that
you could start off with something like this too
and why not right, I mean, how difficult can it
really get?
If these are the thoughts that have been
hovering in and around your head, I’m pleased to
formally greet you by saying, “Welcome to the
world of stamp collecting…” Careful as we are in
picking our words, this hobby is one of the few
that are spread the world over. One of the best
things about this hobby is that since people
from every background are engaged in this hobby,
the stamps collected by them will also differ
for the simple reason that they might rather
find some peculiar property of certain stamps a
bit more interesting than others, which makes
this hobby a bit unique. That’s because it is
assured that the stamp collectors won’t be
having the same collections throughout and they
are bound to differ. Besides, compared to other
hobbies, it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure
out that collecting stamps is an inexpensive
hobby. I mean c’mon, what would you rather go
for, collecting model airplanes and cars or
simply collecting some stamps? Stamp collecting
is quite an ancient hobby with the first stamp,
i.e., Penny Black, being showcased to the entire
world in the 1840s and soon, after a decade or
two, children all over England became engrossed
in the entire concept of collecting stamps.
This stamp collecting rage was even continued
when children grew up to be adults thereby
making stamp collecting a hobby not just for
children, but even for the adults. And this has
well gone throughout the 21st century
even where stamp collecting has got its rightful
place as perhaps the world’s greatest hobby.
Take this for statistics, more than 19 million
Americans are engaged in the hobby of stamp
collecting and that’s only America we’re talking
about, if you take the statistics of each of the
countries, boy, are you going to be surprised or
what!!! Timbromania (stamp madness) has affected
the world indeed and people are getting
infatuated by this hobby every second, even as
we talk about it, may be 2-3 kids have already
started filling up their stamp collection books.
People would perhaps do anything to get their
hands on those stamps that have a possible
defect on them, the most famous stamp in this
respect being the Inverted Jenny. Nobody could
understand how such a defect could take place in
printing out a stamp which in this case was
simply a picture of a plane was mistakenly
printed upside down. Stamp collectors did
everything they could imagine to catch a glimpse
of that specific stamp which only adds to the
whole craze of stamp collecting.
This takes us to the profitable aspect of stamp
collecting. Just as you may have seen rare items
being sold for a good sum of money, rare stamps
too can be sold for quite a profit. Lets take
the earlier example of the Inverted Jenny for
this one too, shall we? Only about a 100 stamps
of the Inverted Jenny were released in public
and you’d be quite surprised at the fact that
simply a block of four stamps were auctioned out
for a staggering $2.7 million. Stamp collecting
is one hobby that if it could speak for itself,
would pass out a comment like “How do you like
them apples???” to any other hobby in the world.
Chasing a rare/misprinted stamp is something
that really serious stamp collectors indulge in.
Selling/auctioning off rare stamps could make
you, as a stamp collector pretty rich and if you
get to make some big bucks simply by pursuing a
hobby, well, what more could you possibly ask
for?
Well, that’s that for stamp collecting. Lets
move on to something that was not discussed even
in the earlier article. Yes, we are referring to
“philately”. Philately is nothing but a careful
observation or a study of postal as well as
revenue stamps. You should remember that this is
not the same as stamp collecting since avid
philately enthusiasts will simply study the rare
and exquisite nature of the stamps without even
expecting to own them some day. This simply
points out to the fact that not all philately
enthusiasts are stamp collectors. Philately came
into existence when people starting observing
fine details of stamps like for example, all the
same stamps were not printed on the same kind of
paper. Differences like variations in the
watermarks, colors used, etc. made this hobby
quite an intelligent one helping people to
develop an eye for details. For a collector, a
stamp may as well be just a collector’s item,
but for a philatelist, it’s more of the study
that captures his interest.
So many years have passed and people over the
years always said that stamp collecting and
philately will eventually just fade out as kids
become acquainted with other forms of
recreational activities. People who said that
surely must be twitching and getting spasms in
their graves because boy, were they wrong!!!
Stamp collecting and philately can be quite a
fun activity for people of all ages. And it’s
pretty safe to say that this hobby is going
quite steady, even in the 21st
century, so why not, why not take up this hobby
and find out more about those little bits of
paper that we call “stamps”. It even educates
you about the cultural and geographical features
of countries all over and the more you find out
about it, the more enticing it will become and
besides, isn’t this what hobbies are all
about?
|
