Tools of The Hobby

Welcome back to Stampede Philately! In this entry, we shall talk about the equipment and stationery used to facilitate the enjoyment of stamp collecting. You don’t have to follow my recommendations to the book, this blog post is aimed to help newcomers have a rough idea of what to start out with. If you feel that there’s no need to get certain items mentioned in this post, then feel free to skip them. This hobby has to be personalised to your needs and taste! 

Disclaimer: I am not sponsored by any brands to endorse the products you see here. It just happens that I am using these products myself and any opinions are purely my own.

Stamp tweezers/tongs

Arguably the most important tool in this hobby, in my opinion, are a pair of stamp tweezers. Some people call them stamp tongs, some call them tweezers and they are both right. You do not want to handle them with your bare hands as our skin produces an acidic oily substance called Sebum and it can damage your precious collection after awhile. It is imperative that you try to cultivate a proper habit of handling stamps from the start so you won’t have to worry about damage when you get more expensive stamps down the road. When I first started collecting, I made a silly mistake of using a pair of cosmetic tweezers to pick up my stamps. Never use those as they have sharp tips used to pluck eyebrows. There is a good chance that your stamps may get crease marks or even torn. Luckily, only some commonly used stamps were damaged during my learning process. There are different types of stamp tweezers you can choose from and most of them are stainless steel, so you don’t have to worry about rust. 

Tweezers with pointed tips.

Tweezers with flat tips.

Some people have asked me if they need to wear a pair of hand gloves or finger gloves when they are handling stamps. Personally, I don’t use them. If you are already using tweezers, that’s enough, wearing a pair of gloves only hinders the process and you may feel uncomfortable when you have many stamps to arrange. I would advise fellow hobbyists not to use a pair of gloves in-lieu of a pair of trusty tweezers because it is so easy to accidentally damage your stamps just by handling them with your hands.

Stamp albums

Next up, a place to store your beautiful stamps. There are several ways of keeping your stamps. You could get what we call a Stock Book, a book with rows of plastic strips to slot your stamps into. They normally come with glassine paper wedged between pages to prevent your stamps from coming into contact with each other. They are non-acidic and do not chemically react with your stamps.

Stock book album.

How it looks like on the inside of a stock book album.

If you want to splurge a little more, you may get a fancy ring binder with a slip cover. They look more formal and classy, for times when you want to show off your collection. Do bear in mind that you have to buy the refill sheets separately to store your stamps; they are not included when you get the binders. The refill album sheets come in different sizes and pockets for you to choose from, ranging from one pocket pages for full sheet of stamps to rows of eight pockets for smaller stamps.

Ring binders with slip covers.

How the storage system looks like using the refill albums.

Refill album sheets which are not included in the ring binders.

They come in different pockets to fit your stamps in.

They can be quite expensive in a long run if your have many stamps to collect. You may want to look for an alternative such as a Stock Book or a clear folder from any stationery store. You could even DIY a storage system using non-reactive materials. I am going to share a couple of YouTube links from “Ted Talk Stamps” on how to do just that.

You could replace the ring binders with clear folders to save some money.

Video for DIY albums from Ted Talk Stamps:

Sometimes, you may find stamps that don’t quite fit the theme in a particular album and so you may not want to include them in that album. They require a temporary holding area, waiting for the right time to be sorted. You can select from several options by either getting stock cards or glassine envelopes, both of which come in different sizes to choose from. A cheaper option is to get plastic holders to store them in. It is advisable to use plastics that are graded as Polypropylene (PP) or Polyethylene Terephthalate (PE). Never ever use Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) to keep your stamps in, they will chemically react and damage your stamps after some time. Be sure to check the type of plastics before putting any of your philatelic items in. With climate change haunting us these days, please use plastics responsibly. Reuse them if possible, if not, properly dispose them into recycling bins once you have no need for them anymore.

Stock cards.

Glassine envelopes.

Plastic covers to hold your First Day Covers.

Protective plastic to hold your stamps in.

Another way of storage is by using illustrated album pages and stamp mounts. Illustrated album pages are pieces of thick paper with printed illustrations of stamps on them. You can then mount your stamps on the corresponding images. It looks neat and presentable that way. 

Illustrated sheet albums before mounting any stamps.

After the stamps are mounted.

I would strongly advise any potential collectors not to get those old cardboard-like albums made in the 70s to 90s. The materials used to make those albums are not acid-free and lint-free, which could heavily damage your stamps after some time. The rate of damage is accelerated if you stay in a country with a humid climate.

Try not to get such albums if possible. 

Mounts & Hinges 

Similar to refill sheets mentioned above, mounts come in different sizes. They are mainly used for mounting stamps onto illustrated album pages or used in philatelic exhibitions to display your exhibits. There is a clear plastic side and a cloudy adhesive layer on the other side. Do not use too much moisture on the adhesive or you may find liquid permeating through to the back of the album page. Gently apply a little moisture on a small area with a q-tip or towelette just to make sure it sticks onto the pages.

Stamp mounts come in many sizes.

Inside a bag of mounts.

A strip of mount. One side with clear display panel, other side with chalky adhesive layer. 

Hinges are little strips of plastic coated with soft adhesive, they are used to hinge stamps onto album pages. It was once very popular with older collectors and still holds a special place in many philatelists’ hearts. It is certainly much cheaper in cost as compared to mounts. However, there are downsides to using hinges these days. They leave hinge marks at the back of stamps and do not offer adequate protection like mounts do; your hinged stamps will be exposed to the elements unless you wrap up the album pages after you have hinged your stamps. They may not command the same price as their unhinged counterparts if you are looking to liquidate your collection in the future. It is also time consuming to hinge many stamps one at a time. Some collectors enjoy the process of taking their time to hinge stamps and do not mind the hinge marks at all, if that’s you, then go for it!

A packet of stamp hinges. 

What it looks like.

Instructions on how to use them.

What a hinged stamp looks like. 

Hinged mark on a stamp after removal of hinge. 

Stamp Mount Cutter

Stamp mount cutters are a godsend device when you have to cut up mounts for hundreds of stamps at a time. For anybody considering to mount that many stamps, I would highly recommend that you get one for yourself. The convenience is unparalleled and you are going to save a lot of time and effort. You can set the size of the mounts you want on a slider and then proceed to chop them up from there. Mount cutters cut every mount uniformly in size and does a clean cut, something you can’t do with precision using a pair of scissors. They can be dismantled into smaller parts for better storage. The blade on the cutter is dull enough not to hurt you but just sharp enough to cut plastic. The blade sharpens itself slightly with every cutting action, so you don’t have to worry that would become too dull.

A life and time saver!

Magnifiers

Stamps are a form of miniature artwork and there are times during your collecting journey when you just want to scrutinise the intricate details on them. There are stamps that may look identical but are actually different prints and from a different period in time based on these minor details that set them apart and thus, their prices may vary greatly as well. Your eyes have certain limitations as to how fine a detail they can resolve, so in comes magnifiers to the rescue! There are many kinds of magnifiers out there, some used to observe jewellery and precious metals while others are used for the comfort of reading, so which should you choose? Generally, there are two main types you can choose from - tabletop or handheld. Both have their pros and cons. The preferable magnification for stamp viewing is anywhere between 2x to 15x. “X” means times and the number before it means the power of magnification it offers, eg. 15x is 15 times more powerful than what a person with average eyesight can see. Some magnifiers have two or more lenses on them for different magnifications, I prefer getting this sort of magnifiers as I have more options to play with on a single tool.

So many to choose from!

If space isn’t a concern, you may want to get a tabletop magnifier. It allows you to comfortably view your stamps hands-free and offers a wider field of view, unlike handheld ones. The downside is, they offer lower ranges of magnification, so you will need to switch to a handheld one with a higher magnification should you wish to see something really small in detail. It’s better to choose one that has in-built lights if the place you are viewing at is poorly lit.

Very sturdy tabletop magnifier.

Comes in 2x and 6x magnifications.

If you are constantly on the move with your stamps in-tow or love going to stamp shows, a handheld magnifier may suit you more. They are light and highly portable. However, the downside to it is that, when you hold it in your hand for too long, you may lose the comfort of viewing your stamps. They have a smaller field of view and your eyes may get tired and lose focus after awhile. Just as with tabletop magnifiers, try to get one with in-built lights if possible.

Handheld magnifier that comes in 5x, 10x and 15x magnifications.

I have recently come to learn that there is a better alternative to a handheld magnifier from my usual stamp dealer, and that is the mobile phone clip-on microscopes. These little things have variable magnifications based on how many times your phone’s camera lenses can zoom in. It’s a really awesome piece of gadget; you can view the magnified stamps directly on your phone’s screen and even take a photo of it! 

Just clip it onto your phone’s camera, easy peasy!

Magnify the image by zooming in on your phone’s screen.

Perforation Gauge

Many modern postage stamps have perforations which make tearing them from a full sheet of stamps hassle-free. A perforation gauge is somewhat like a meter ruler used to count the number of perforated holes that each stamp has along a 2-cm length. Some poorly counterfeited stamps are known to have a missing or additional hole and collectors may want to determine that by using a gauge.

Perforation gauge.

This 1978 stamp from Great Britain has a perforation of 14 and 1/4 at the top edge.

Ultraviolet Torch

Another handy equipment to have is a UV torch. Most modern stamps are coated with a florescent dye which can only be seen by shining UV light over it. This is a security feature to prevent counterfeiting. Some stamps have interesting UV features that form pretty shapes to complement a stamp or make a subject on the stamps glow. There are people who exclusively collect such stamps, it’s a whole theme all by itself!

Pro tip: look for jellyfish stamps

Couple of different types of UV torches. One with fixed setting, another with adjustable settings.

Before UV.

After UV. You can see the security number on the stamps.

A set of stamps from a cartoon series, before UV.

You can see the subjects glowing once UV light is shone on them.

Catalogues/Guides

Stamp catalogues are good to have around if you want to keep up-to-date with past stamp issues and their current prices. Most decent catalogues have details of every stamp’s printing company, the quantity of stamps issued by the postal administration, date of issue etc. There are elaborate catalogues of worldwide stamps and catalogues based on individual countries. It’s a good source of information. However, with the advent of the Internet, such information can be found online these days. 

Such comprehensive catalogues of worldwide stamps can be very expensive. Image source: Catawiki

Catalogues of stamps from individual countries.

Guidebooks are cool especially when you are new to the world of philately. They can help you navigate around the hobby and even prevent you from making some costly mistakes. Do give them a read if you are a beginner.

I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Tan Chun Lim of CS Philatelic Agency for allowing me to take some of these pictures at his shop. I must admit, there are gaps in my knowledge and there are many other tools out there that I have yet to explore and use, things such as soaking stamps in Zippo fluid to see watermarks on old stamps. I do not yet have the tenacity of doing that, that’s why I have not included such methods in this post. That’s all for this entry. In the next entry, we will talk about commonly used terms in philately. Until next time!