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Go Back To Tips |
Stuff for Stamp Collecting
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Tongs
Use tongs instead of your fingers to pick up stamps. This keeps your fingerprints off of them. |
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Hinges
Use hinges to put your stamps on album pages. Good hinges will peel off easily. You can use "mounts" instead of hinges. They cost more. A mount is a piece of plastic that goes around a stamp. Mounts come in many sizes. |
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Catalogue
Use a catalogue to look up information about your stamps. This catalogue is just for U. S. and United Nations stamps. There are catalogues for other kinds of stamps too. |
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Magnifying Glass A magnifying glass is used to look at stamps. Then you can see all the details on the stamps. The magnifying glass on the left has an electric light. |
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Perforation Gauge
Perforations are the white edges on stamps. The perforation gauge is used to measure the perforations. Why do you measure perforations? Well, some stamps were issued (made) with one size perforation. Then they were made again with a different size perforation. That can change the price of the stamp. A stamp catalogue will list all the perforation sizes for a stamp. Some stamps have ten or more perforation sizes! |
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The Invisible Code Reader!
This is a watermark tray. It is just a little plastic tray. You put special fluid in it. It is called watermark fluid. Then you put a stamp in the fluid, upside down. |
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the stamp was made on certain paper, a
"watermark" will show up! A watermark is often
letters or numbers. They only show up when the stamp is
in the watermark fluid.
A stamp catalogue will tell you whether or not your stamps have watermarks. |
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