Stamp Exchange

There are so many ways to build a stamp collection once you take the route of being a stamp collector.

You can get your stamps at the post office or directly from the postal authority that produces them or buy new issues for a new issue service. You can buy your stamps from a stamp dealer or at an auction. These methods require money to leave you pockets in return for stamps for your collection.

There is another mode to obtain stamps without using money as a medium of commutation. You can exchange or trade stamps with other stamp collectors.

Exchanging stamps can be completed on a one-stamp-for-one-stamp basis or done based on catalog value. You can dispose or duplicate stamps that you do not need or either acquire at no expense stamps that you don’t need to add to your collection.

One method of trading stamps is face to face and perhaps the best way to get your foot in the door in face to face trading is by joining a local stamp club.

Major metropolitan areas and smaller cities and larger towns have at least one local stamp club. To look for a stamp club in your area, look at the listing of local clubs by state under the Reference tab at Linn’s free web site located at www.linns.com. After you have located and joined a local club, canvass the membership to see if anyone has stamps that you need and is willing to exchange with you. There are numerous ways to trade stamps that do not involve face to face transactions.

Specialist societies join collectors from many different geographical areas who have similar collecting interests. Although not anyone in your local club will share your collecting interests, everyone in a specialist club or society is assured to have a related interest, perhaps even exactly the same collecting advantage that you have.

Several specialist societies operate exchange or swap circuits where one can trade their duplicate stamps for stamps that you need.

An advantage of finding trading partners in foreign countries that you collect is that the covers that they send to you are also collectible since they are collectors themselves. They usually frank their covers with recent commemorative or souvenir sheets.

If you aren’t a cover collector, you can soak the stamps off the covers for your stamp collection all the time.

Trading is a great way to obtain a lot of different stamps without much cost.