How to Identify Stamps

The hardest thing when you begin stamp collecting, and even as you have been collecting for a while, is identifying the stamp that you are looking at. There are various ways of identifying stamps depending on the level of identification you want. This article walks you through each level.

Beginner

When you first start, all stamps are strange creatures and you don’t understand where they’re from, when they’re from and if they have any market value to collectors. It can be overwhelming when you start.

The first clue is always the country name. Depending on the age of the stamp, some countries may no longer exist either at all, or with the name that they used to exist.

All United Kingdom (UK) stamps, until this day, do not have their country name on the stamp. So if you can’t find a country name on a stamp it is from the UK. Within the UK though there are further definitions of countries i.e. Ireland, Scotland etc. These are usually noted with other marks and only appear in the 1900’s onwards.

All other stamps will have some reference to the country of origin and it may not be the entire name of the country. Within the country, you may also have states or territories of those countries who also produced their own stamps. Here is an example of where you may find some country names on newer and older stamps.

Once you know what country you have, the next step is the denomination of the stamp, and also the colour. This will help with a basic Google image search to try to identify your stamp. Finding the year of issue of the stamp is the trickiest part, even for veterans, so start off with colour, country and denomination.

So for the Canada stamp above I would type in Canada 3 pence orange stamp and then click on images. Navigate to the one that looks closest (doesn’t need to be exact at this point) to the stamp you have and click on the link.

On clicking around the articles I now find out that this stamp was first issued in 1859. Now I can go to stampworld.com and get some more information.

First navigate to Catalogue, then to British Canada, then to 1859 and have a look at all the stamps that were issued that year. A little knowledge of history helps here i.e. knowing with British Canada and Canada differentiated.

So take a look at the screenshot below. Note at this point that even though the article said 1859, the catalogue states 1851. So just knowing the ball park of the identification can lead you to the actual identification. See also the value of the stamp and the different conditions, used and unused.

Now just because we have identified the year and how much we think it might be worth, we haven’t categorically identified the stamp. More knowledge is needed.

Intermediate

So now you we know the actual year of issue, the colour, and denomination we have a couple of options. We can do a Google search using the known terms and see what other information we can find about the stamp. At this point we are looking for anything like history around the stamp, any watermarks, any faults, areas of distribution, how long the stamp was in circulation, how rare it may be etc.

After my first search was completed I found out

• Printer: Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson
• Perforation: Imperforate
• Paper: Laid paper, ordinary paper, striped paper
• Amount printed 2850300
• First stamp of Canada
• Postmaster of Canada was General James Morris
• 250,000 were printed in New York
• At least four shades of this stamp have been catalogued

and lots lots more. So it is a relatively rare stamp given that only nearly three million were ever made. Also the catalogue prices are very high. How can you further identify the stamp to see if you have something very valuable?

Advanced

As we found out above, there were at least four shades identified in catalogues. When this is apparent in a stamp issue, shades play a large part in value. Some shades will have larger numbers than other. The least amount of a shade available, the greater the value.

Type of paper is also a crucial element. As a beginner, you may need to do some more research on the type of papers mentioned here. So you would want to find out the differences between Laid Paper, Ordinary Paper and Striped Paper and how to identify the types of paper on the stamp.

Once this is known you can with some measure of confidence state what you have and search for a catalogue price. Usually these will not be readily available online, but you can find the same information through previous auctions or ebay to get a ballpark of what your stamp may be worth.

If you don’t want to sell it, write the identifying elements you have found for the stamp on a small piece of white paper and sit it next to the stamp in your album for future reference. Example below.

This is just a quick introduction on how to start identifying stamps. I hope you found it helpful. There will be more exercises on this throughout the website as it grows. If you have something you are really having trouble with, let me know.