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 | Starter's Set: $3-$10 |
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 | Basic Tools and Supplies: $70-$150 |
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| | | Each stamp has its own story -- that's part of the allure of stamp collecting. Stamps reflect the issuing country's history, culture, heroes, artists and more. A stamp can grab your attention because of its subject matter, its artistic design or because it commemorates a significant person or event. People have been collecting stamps for more about 140 years; the Association of Austrian Philatelist Societies provides a brief history of stamp collecting and ideas about what to collect. | | |
| Typical costs: | - Start collecting stamps without spending any money by saving interesting stamps from your incoming mail and asking family or friends to do the same. The American Philatelic Society presents 10 low-cost ways to start collecting stamps.
- You can get a beginner's set of 500-1,000 assorted worldwide stamps for $3 -$10 from a hobby shop, stamp dealer or on eBay.com.
- For about $70 -$150 you can get basic stamp collecting tools and supplies, such as specialized tweezers, glassine (semi-transparent) envelopes, a stamp album, a book on stamp identification and more. A beginner's stamp collecting kit retails for $20.
- Your stamp collection can be as simple and inexpensive or expensive and elaborate as you choose. While a beginner's stamp album runs $5 -$20, a complete, multi-volume world stamp album can cost $5,000 (that's just the album, without the stamps). It's estimated that 5.7 million people collect stamps, spending $1.18 billion each year. Research shows that a casual collector spends an average of $50 -$150 a year on this hobby, while a dedicated collector might spend $2,000 -$4,000 or more annually.
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Shopping for stamp collecting: | |
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Article updated August 2008 |
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