What do you collect as a philatelist - part 1

Is that a silly title ? Could be if you are an experienced philatelist, but for a layman; it is not always obvious. Some people have been known to collect garbage eventhough the intention originally was collecting something of value.

The Used Stamps or Cancelled Stamps.
First thing first. The most obvious thing to collect will be the stamps themselves. As a child usually people begin collecting stamps, most of them will be collecting used stamps from the envelopes. Okay, not so much nowadays with the e-mail as competitor, but people still use letter and the stamps are still being used.
There are various degree of stamps condition when people start to collect them. The cheapest one would be the used stamps which you get from the letter that come to your house.
These kind of stamps normally is called used or postally used stamps and they are always covered with the cancellation from the post office.
There are 2 different kind of cancelled stamps; the first one is cancelled by the post office because it has been used as a postage stamp and the second one is called CTO (short for Cancelled To Order). CTO means that the stamps have never been used as a postage stamps. Most CTO will still have the original gum in the back of their face. However, in term value, CTOs have the lowest value if not considered worthless.

The New Stamps
If you have a little bit more money, then you can afford to buy the stamp from the post-office. The New Stamps is a stamp which has never been used as a postage stamp; they have an original undisturbed gum in the back and no cancellation on their face. They could be old stamp from 1890s, but if the 3 conditions above are met, then they will first be considered as new stamp.
This category is the second biggest category of philatelic material that are collected by the philatelist. They are easy to get (you only need to have some money) and relatively not very expensive as well. However, please bear in mind, there are some very expensive new stamps as well.
You can get the new stamps from the post office or from the stamp dealers.

First Day Cover (FDC)
First Day Cover or normally people call it FDC is a new unused envelope with a stamp attached to it and the stamp is cancelled with a special cancellation. The FDC is normally issued by the postal office to commemorate the issuance of a stamp. The cancellation on the FDC will be date when the stamp was first issued. So in general, if the post office is issuing 10 new stamps, it is very likely that they will issue 10 different FDC as well. Most of the time, the FDC never goes through the mailing system, so the stamps on the FDC is considered as CTO.

Souvenir Sheets (SS)
Souvenir Sheets is very similar to stamps. At the time of the issue, the value or the cost of purchasing the SS will be the same as the value declared on the face of the SS. Compare to the stamps, the SS normally have a much bigger size because other than its main design in the form of the stamp, an SS will have some background picture related to the stamp itself. For this reason, most of the SS will have a higher denomination than ordinary stamps.

Minisheets
Very similar to ordinary stamps, except the number of stamps on the sheets are much smaller. An ordinary sheet of stamp might consist of 100 stamps, whereas a minisheet might only have 10 stamps. The drawing on the minisheets normally the same as the ordinary stamp sheet.

Maxicard
Maxicard is a postcard with a picture of the stamp on the part that normally is used for writing. Most maxicard will be issued at the same time with the stamp. Postcard will be considered as a maxicard if they are issued by the post office and have the exact same picture as the issued stamps. Postcard which is issued by a private institution can not be considered as a maxicard even if they have the same kind of printing.

The above listing are all the philatelic materials which are generally found on the stamp dealer and being collected by general philatelist and will have some sort of value at a later date.
There are other material which are more specialized and being collected by advanced collector. In order to collect these other material, a good knowledge of philatelic material is required.