How To Start Collecting Canadian Stamps
Originally this episode aired October 29 2016. Prior name of the Podcast was Tea with Puppets.
In Episode 3, we went back a bit to talk about how to start collecting, what are the basics to know and what, if any tools do you need.
Here are some of the items mentioned in the Podcast
Stamp Tools
Canada Post has a great starter kit called “Children’s Stamp Collecting Starter Kit”. item # 342331. Check it out here.
The 5 in 1 magnifier I bought from Canada Post that has two magnifying glasses, a pocket light, a uv light and a reading light. It’s my go to travel item. Item # 341909. Grab one here.
Glossary:
Perfs or perforations: holes found in between stamps, or when broken apart the border around them. Early stamps had no perfs and had to be cut apart. These are known as imperforates.
Denomination or face value of a stamp: This is the price of stamp cost when it was issued. In Canadian stamp collecting, for more modern stamps you will see a “P” instead of a value. This means it’s a permanent stamp and can be used to mail a letter within Canada, no matter what the current rate is.
Semi-Postal: These stamps have a denomination or the letter P and a plus sign with another number. That second number is amount that was donated to charity or a special fund. You’ll see that on the recent community foundation stamps Canada Post recently issued.
Se-tenant: It’s the french word for joined. These are two stamps connected together unperforated.
Strips: which are three (or more) stamps in a horizontal or vertical row.
Blocks: Blocks, which are 4 or more stamps joined together in a square or rectangle.
Gutter: the space between rows of stamps, usually it’s plain, but sometimes they have coloured circles, in the border (known as traffic lights). These are the colours used to print the stamps. There is a premium value for blocks with traffic lights.
Cancel: a mark made by hand or machine to ensure a stamp can’t be re-used. A date, time and location may be included and this is known as a Postmark. A “killer” or obliterator, is a cancel that is done in a way which completely hides the design of the stamp.
Official First Day Cancel or OFDC: An official first day cancel is issued by Canada Post, and usually comes with a cancellation stamp related to the issue (from the city the stamp is about, for example). The cancellation is dated for the first day of a stamp issue.
Reference Information
We talked about Tagging, You can read more about tagging here. As you can see quickly, Stamp tagging is it’s own sub-genre of collecting.
From the Children’s Stamp Collecting Starter Kit, below is one of the easier example of how to determine condition.
Where to find stamps.
Stamp show in Montreal next weekend, info at nuphilex.com. Admission is 3.00 and runs Nov 4–5–6, with Sunday being free admission.
You can find shows near you here: http://canadianstampnews.com/events/
Where to get Stamp News
There is linns.com which has the occasional stamp story about Canada, although it really is focused on the US market.
There is the http://canadianstampnews.com/ which publishes news on a regular basis.
In terms of deeper/historical coverage there is the The Royal Philatelic Association which publishes The Canadian Philatelist six times a year.
Canada Post has something Details Magazine, it publishes every quarter. You can sign up for it here.
Extra Links
Here are some extra links which could be handy:
