Stamp Collecting Equipment
A few basic items of equipment are needed to collect stamps. Stamp tongs help to handle stamps safely, a magnifying glass helps in viewing fine details and an album is a convenient way to store stamps. The stamps need to be attached to the pages of the album in some way and stamp hinges are a cheap and simple way to do this, although some collectors prefer more expensive hingeless mounts if the stamps are valuable. Another alternative is a stockbook where the stamps drop into clear pockets without the need for a mount. Stamps should be stored away from light, heat and moisture or they will be damaged.
Stamps can be displayed according to the collector's wishes, by country, topic, or even by size, which can create a display pleasing to the eye. There are no rules and it is entirely a matter for the individual collector to decide.
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A stockbook with clear plastic pockets is one of the safest ways to store stamps. Some collectors prefer a traditional stamp album.
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Clockwise from top left: hinge-mounted stamp, stamp about to be hinge-mounted, stamp damaged by a hinge, stamp hinges.
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A magnifying glass.
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Stamp tongs with rounded tips help to prevent damage to stamps from skin oils and rough handling.
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The tools and items of collecting all fit neatly on a desk blotter.
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Famous quotes containing the words stamp collecting, stamp, collecting and/or equipment:
“Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism—victimless collecting, as it were ... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Why not draft executive and management brains to prepare and produce the equipment the $21-a-month draftee must use and forget this dollar-a-year tommyrot? Would we send an army into the field under a dollar-a-year General who had to be home Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)