Stamps

How does one get a stamp of approval for stamp collecting and selling? Here’s the deal:

1. Take canceled stamps off your mail.
2. Ask family and friends for their old stamps.
3. Buy new stamps at the post office.
4. Put your stamps in a shoe box.

Here you have the beginnings of a hobby but is a far cry from serious collecting. A serious collector knows the graphic outline of a stamp. Place diagram of stamp………..


Stamps and stamp-substitutes are arranged differently. Various collectors desire different formats.

Sheet format. This is a perforated sheet of stamps.

Plate blocks. This is a block of stamps that includes on the selvage the number of the printing plate used to print the stamps. A block of stamps can come in quantities of four or more; the “selvage” is the white edge around the outside of the stamps.

Coil format. The stamps are produced in rolls. Coil stamps are perforated on two sides only, usually the left and right sides. They are collected in pairs.

Booklets. A whole booklet is usually referred to as an unexploded booklet. A pane is a booklet page.

Covers. A cover is any type of envelope that has been sent through the mail. The reason it’s called a cover is because it covers the message or rather the letter that is inside.

First-day covers. First-day covers contain a postmark for the first day the stamp was available for sale. Usually one unique city gets the privilege of selling this stamp. Many first day cover collectors send the stamps to themselves.

Postal stationary. There are three types: prestamped envelopes, aerogrammes and postal cards.

Hard Pressed! How stamps are printed.

Engraving (a.k.a. intaglio). The most intricate process, engraving involves making a photographic reduction of the stamp’s original artwork on a master die, transferring the image to a printing plate, and inking and printing,

Typography (a.k.a. letter press, surface printing). After the master die is cut, the area not used as a printing surface is cut away.
Photogravure(a.k.a. rotogravure). The likeness is photographically transferred to a special metal plate through many tiny dots.

Lithography. The stamp’s outline is designed on a printing plate using an oily material. The parts of the plate that won’t be printed have water on them. Since oil and water don’t mix, the ink is compelled to the oily parts of the plate.

The Age of Acquiring.

A few tips in acquiring stamps:

Get stamps in used but not abused conditions.

Invest in stamp mixtures, which are piles and piles of assorted stamps.

Find a great dealer in your neighborhood. They reach and teach and you buy.

Mail order stamps offer greater selection.

Attend and act on auctions.

Show off at shows.

Trade with friends.


Stamps and coins as investments.

Time alone does not lead to a higher premium on your collectibles. Age, too, is not an indicator in value. Rising values are fabricated when increased demand forces the limited supply to come out of hiding. The most valuable collections are built slowly over time with little thought to monetary gain. Compare prices and ask at least three dealers before plunking down a purchase. Also check prices in leading publications prior to making decisions. Buying collectibles in mint condition always leads to a greater return.


Three pennies in a fountain or the art of coin collecting

The first coins made their appearance in the 7th century BC in Lydia and Ionia in Asia Minor (now modern Turkey. Coins did not have a standard size so they had to be reweighted for every transaction. Merchants were finally sufficiently irked to push for an official standard stock coin. No many people know that the first models were off-center and uneven. The first coins were admired for their beauty and the Greeks decorated their coins with their Gods. The first Roman coins, produced around 300 BC, were bronze. The Roman coinmakers honored living characters, including women, a rarity in the ancient world. Coins were first produced by machines in the mid-16th century.

Coin Terms

Obverse -- the front of the coin the “heads” side
Reverse -- the back of the coin, the “tails” side
Device -- the major part of the coin’s design.
Edge -- The thin, curved surface of a coin.
Rim -- the slightly raised border, just inside the edge.
Field -- the flat surface of a coin, between the ridge and devices.

Baseball Cards Collecting

Card collecting began in the late 1800's. The first baseball cards were issued around 1886 by the New York-based Goodwin and Company, a tobacco corporation, as incentives for buying their products during an era of intense competition.

Tobacco companies printed cards of athletes and celebrity entertainers on cigarette packages. The tobacco cards were plain looking and very small. Mounted on heavy cardboard, these cards were about a third the size of today’s baseball cards. Most had nothing written on the back and the stars were identified only by their last names. Most of these cards were of baseball players, but there were football, and later hockey stars too.

By the end of the 1890’s the American Tobacco Company so dominated the market that the lack of competition made offering these cards unnecessary. As a result, very few cards were produced during the next 15 years.

In 1909, the “golden age” of baseball cards started. That period saw the issuing of the most distinctive, innovative, and valuable cards to date. The cards of this era were characterized by fine artwork, brilliant color, and creative formats such as double and triple folders.

The 1930’s marked the “Second Golden Era”. In 1933, the Goudey Gum Company of Boston came up with the idea of using cards to sell bubble gum instead of tobacco. The Goudey cards were created with the kids in mind. They featured the great ball players like Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth and had very colorful designs. They issued the first major set of baseball cards consisting of 240 players, 40 of whom are now members of the Hall of Fame. Six years later, Gum Inc., which later became Bowman Gum, issued their first set entitled “Play Ball – America.”

In 1948 the Bowman Company produced a 48-card set. The Topps Company entered the market in 1951, remaining virtually the sole manufacturer of baseball cards until the Fleer and Donruss companies entered the business in the 1980’s.

The 50's and the 60's were a great time for kids collecting and trading baseball cards. For 5 cents, you would get a pack of five Topps cards and gum! Most kids then didn't care much if the cards got worn or bent. They traded them and played games with them, not realizing that someday they would be worth lots of money.

By the mid -1970's,baseball cards had become extremely popular, the hobby began changing and adults were collecting cards too - especially the older cards. The more people wanted these old cards, the higher the price for them became.

Today, collecting baseball cards is very serious business. There are at least six major companies, each producing at least two or three different major cards. The most popular sports cards are baseball, football, basketball and hockey. However, there are also cards for pro wrestling, boxing, soccer, bowling, fishing, and dog sled racing.

The goal of card collecting is to have fun. Which ones should you collect or how much you spend on them is up to you. But here are some tips:

Collect by year – try to complete an entire set of a particular type of card for one year.

Collect by player(s) – try to obtain every card ever made of certain player or players.

Collect by team – try to get all the cards of the players on a specific team. The collection can include a specific year or the team’s entire history.

Collect by Hall of Fame standing – collect cards of players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

You have to figure out how much money you are willing to spend and then do not spend more than your budget. You can shop around and find the best price for the card you want in your collection. Some people pay a lot of attention to the prices in price-guide books. These books list how much each card is supposed to be worth, but a lot of times these price lists are too high. More often than not, you will be able to get a card for less.

Like baseball cards, sports cards were first produced in the 1880’s to protect fragile cigarette boxes and attract buyers. During WWI boxing cards held center ring. By the 1930’s attention had shifted to football cards. In 1958 the Topps Bubble Gum Company issued a series of basketball cards. In the 50’s and 60’s, hockey became very popular.

There are five ways of collecting sports cards: by era, type, team, player, and sport.


 Read also: Tips for Collecting Baseball Cards

How to find out as much as we can before we buy a painting?

First, we need to know who is the artist.

Second, what is the medium?
Is it acrylic, charcoal, gouache, ink, mixed media, oil, pastel, pencil, tempera, watercolor, etc.?

Third, what is the subject?
Is it figure study, landscape, folk art, genre, hunting scene, illustration, marine, portrait, primitive, seascape, sporting scene, still life, wildlife, etc.?

- What is the size?
- What is the framing?
- What is the condition?
- What is the style?
- What is the quality?
- What is the painting’s historical importance?
- What is the prior ownership, shows or exhibitions, any awards?

The last question that we have mentioned above is very important for the value of a painting. So, when buying a painting, look also for:
- signed statement of authenticity from a reputable art gallery
- names of previous owners
- an appraisal
- articles mentioning the painting

Beware of fakes!

Most of the collectible silver available was made between 1840 and 1930. In its pure state silver is too soft to be made into flatware or any other form, so copper is added to it in order to get a shiny, strong alloy known as sterling silver.

There are several types of sterling:
- American Sterling
- American Coin Silver
- English Sterling Silver
- Continental Silver
- Sterling Silver from the former Soviet Union
- Danish Silver


American Sterling

Sterling silver is .925 pure silver. Sterling is the most frequently found mark on American sterling silver. There is also “925”, “925/1000”, and “Sterling. Weighted”.


American Coin Silver

Before 1859, “solid” silver pieces contained only 900/1000 parts of pure silver.
Known as “coin silver,” it was often marked coin, pure coin, standards, premium, or dollar. The letters “C” or “D” were used, or they were marked with the maker’s name.


English Sterling Silver

Antique English sterling silver can be marked in several ways:
- A full lion, facing left.
- A letter.
- The maker’s mark, often name initials.
- Guild marks that tell where the silver was made. E.g. the anchor (Birmingham), crown (Sheffield), castle (Edinburgh), harp (Dublin).
- The head of a monarch may or may not appear.


Continental Silver

Continental silver includes countries like Germany, France, Italy, Eastern European countries. Antique German silver is often marked with a half-moon or crescent and a crown, along with the number “800”. Antique French silver carried a capital letter with a crown or a fleur-de-lis. Old Italian silver can have a Roman or classical portrait with other hallmarks. Eastern European countries marked their silver with a castle or shaped center design encircled with numbers.


Former Soviet Union Sterling Silver

Though its silversmithing industry was long producing objects in great quantity and of a quality not surpassed anywhere in Europe, up until 1613 the marking of silver articles was not compulsory in Russia, and even then it was only in Moscow that it was made mandatory.

In 1700, however, Peter the Great, fresh from his extensive travels in western Europe, and bent on bringing reform to all aspects of the Russian nation, began a full-scale re-organization of the marking system. It was made compulsory for the silversmith to stamp his mark, and for the minimum gold and silver standards to be guaranteed.

By 1741, therefore, typically, a piece of silver would bear the following marks:

- the maker's mark, usually his initials, less often his full name, generally in cyrillic characters
- the city mark, at first incorporated with the date
- the assay master's mark, with the date, once it ceased to appear with the city mark
- the silver standard, expressed in parts (zolotniks) of pure silver per 96 parts of the whole; generally this would be 84 zolotniks, but could also be 88 or 91

Until 1798 this last standard mark was optional, and if it was omitted then the alderman's mark would be added, in order to guarantee the quality of the piece.

A further re-organization of the system took place in 1896, bringing in the era of the kokoshnik marks. This name derives from the fact that the mark features a female head, wearing the traditional Russian headress, the kokoshnik, originally made of stiffened cloth, which later evolved, in Court circles, into the familiar jewelled ornament, the tiara Russe.
From 1896 until 1908, the period of the first kokoshnik mark, silver articles were marked with this female head, facing to the left, with a number representing the silver standard to her left, and to her right the initials of the assay master (very tiny), all within an oval outline. The maker's mark is also found nearby, as shown below.

In 1908 the second kokoshnik mark was introduced, this time with the female head facing to the right, with a small Greek letter signifying the city of assay to the left e.g. alpha for St Petersburg, and delta for Moscow, and the silver standard to the right. This mark was used until the Revolution in 1917, and somewhat beyond, until the establishment of the full Soviet system.


Danish Silver Sterling

Danish Silver is easy to authenticate because the maker’s mark appears on all the silver the Danes produced between 1490 and 1893. Since then, retailers have added their names to the maker’s marks as well.

Hollywood Memorabilia can be divided into several categories:

- Posters -- Posters come in various sizes. In the era of silent films, movie companies often hired the finest commercial and graphic artists to design their posters. Visual appeal was vitally important in an era without radio or television ads. The movie poster had become a really sought after collectible. When looking for a movie poster, look at its age, its visual appeal, posters featuring films that have become part of the American culture, and of course always look for the stars represented on the poster!

- Lobby Cards -- Lobby cards were issued in sets of eight. They were usually numbered. Earlier cards did not have numbers.

- Movie Heralds -- Movie Heralds were placed in press books, sent to promoters, and also used in theaters to advertise show dates and times. They are original movie art and are easily framed. Some were issued in full color, while others were in duo-tone, tri-done or even a single color including black and white.

- Press Books-- Press books come in various sizes and colors. They contain a description of the movie and ad mats that were used by newspapers and magazines. Some are cut, meaning that the ad mats were cut out and used.

- Movie Art Sheets-- These sheets were placed in magazines containing movie art work and images. They like posters promoted the particular film. The art work can be different from that of the poster.

- Movie Programs -- Movie programs give the viewer a summary of the movie. They vary in size, color and content. Many contain pictures and or artwork. The first programs, issued in 1850’s, were small playbills or posters.

- Actors
- Actresses
- Pin-Ups

- Animation-- Used in films and advertising. Artwork used to animate a character.

- Pictures – They come in different sizes.

- Autographs
- Etc.