What do you do with your stamps ?

Now that you have collected your stamps and organize them into stamp albums, what else can you do with it. Some people just collect stamps for the sake of collecting stamps; some people do it to make a living buying and selling stamps, some people doing it to keep them occupied and there is also some people who like to get busy with their stamps and participating in the stamps exhibition.

The one which is rather complicated is the one if you are interested in participating on the stamps exhibition. I am not an expert on this subject, although I have participated on the stamp exhibition in the past. There are a lot of rules that you need to follow and time to spend making the preparation for the exhibition.

There are several organizations involve with the stamp exhibition. In general stamp exhibition is not a private exhibition, but it is organized by countries/government organization. The participants are postal services from various countries, stamps dealers, philatelic suppliers and last but not least stamps collectors. I have no interest on the other section of the exhibition, except the one which concern the stamps collectors. During the stamp exhibition, normally there is a collector competitions. This competition is divided into several different classes or groups which are outlined below:

1. Traditional - Philatelist who stamps based on country. This includes collecting all kinds of stamps, essays, proofs, watermarks, gum, errors and forgeries.
2. Postal history - gathering the postage material by tracing the postal history of a country through philatelic material. This includes collecting postal articles showing markings, postal routes, postal rates, development of postal system, automation of mail. disaster mail, maritime mail etc.
3. Postal stationery - the part of philately which deals with post cards, envelopes, covers, wrapper etc. The collection can include registration mail, acknowledgements, certificates of posting and telegraph mail. All the items has to be related to the post office or at least issued by the postal services.
4. Aero-philately - a branch of philatelist who collects aviation and airmail stamps, postal material carried or dropped from air, cancellations, rocket mail, balloon mail and pigeon mail. Basically any postage material that are processed through the air.
5. Thematic Philately - the branch of philately which are collecting stamps and other postage material related to a theme like birds, flowers, train etc.
6. Literature Philately - the study of literature on stamps like catalogues, research articles, handbooks, philatelic periodicals etc.
7. Fiscal Philately - a specialize branch which deal with revenue stamps and stamped documents which have been used to pay revenues or taxes.
8. Maximaphilly - the group which are collecting picture postcards showing the stamp design or a picture with some relation to the stamp on it.
9. Astrophilately - collecting stamps related to space, rocket mail, astronomy, history of space research etc. Very similar to Aero-philately, the dream of a man that one day we will have a postal service between the earth and the moon.
10. Mophila - collection of modern stamps restricted to last 15 years. The term of 15 years is relative since at one point of time, the object on mophila will become classic as well.
11. Social Philately - collection of postal articles describing the social history. The exhibit can contain upto 40% non philatelic material to supplement the exhibit.

Most people who collect stamps do not go through and participate on the stamp exhibition simply because it takes too much time and effort. However, there are benefits that you will get if you try to participate on the stamp exhibition. Being a passive stamp collector who only collect stamps does not pushed you to get more information about the stamps, whereas if you are participating in the exhibition, you need to know your stamps. In the process of getting to know your stamps, you will gain a lot of knowledge. If you want to become an investor in the stamps collecting, one of the best way to start is to become a collector who participate in the stamp exhibition.

The drawback of stamp exhibition is the cost of participating is not cheap. Specially if you are participating on the Postal History section. A single envelope with a special cancellation will cost you easily USD 1,000 and you need several of them for your collection. But please bear in mind as well that a good collection will worth more than all the item that make up the collection. There is an added value for your collection if you won a high level medal like vermeil or gold.