STAMP COLLECTING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20060, 5 October 1939, Page 2

STAMP COLLECTING

NEW NOVEL PHASE TOPICS CLASSIFIED American stamp collectors have taken up a novel but more generally interesting phase of philately. It is the classification of stamps according to topics, rather than according to countries. This was strikingly shown during the International Philatelic Week celebrated at Chicago. Philatelists still claim that the basis of good collecting is gathering stamps from various countries -by their years of issue, but many “fans” develop a sideline of hunting up stamps according to a given topic. •Many collectors have chosen original topics. In the exhibit of stamp collections of the 23 philatelic clubs in Chicago, several - outstanding topical collections were shown. Ships formed the particular choice of one collector, who has spent years in gathering stamps from various countries, each bearing the picture of some kind of water craft. Locomotives are the particular choice of a collector who has stamps picturing engines ranging all the way from the wood-burning locomotives of early days to the streamlined modern types. Railway engines are found cn stamps from the United States, Peru, Spain, France, the Congo and other countries. Anyone may become intensely absorbed in stamp collecting when- he chooses a given topic, because the list of subjects is endless. One New York woman has even made a study of the various styles, of hairdressing by collecting stamps bearing portraits of women.