Hobbies And Interests
United States Postage Stamps
Thousands of stamps have been produced in the United States since the first stamp, a 5 cent brownish-red stamp with the visage of Benjamin Franklin, was issued in 1847. Most of them aren't worth much because so many were produced, with typical press runs in the millions. But there are a fair amount of rare or unusual U.S. stamps, including notorious misprints like the upside down "Inverted Jenny" of 1918, and these can sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
How do you know what you've got? And even for common stamps, how can you narrow down when it was produced? The easiest identifier is the face value. First-class stamps, for example, were 10 cents in 1975, and have increased 15 times since. Figure out the cost of first-class postage in a certain year and you're well on your way toward dating your stamp.
But there are so many specialty stamps out there with varying prices, and for varying uses, that identifying a stamp by face value alone can be tricky. That's when you turn elsewhere.
Online Identification Guides
Several online guides for U.S. postage stamp identification are currently available. One of the best is 1847 USA (see resources, below). You can click on any year between 1851 and 1970 and get pictures of most of the stamps issued that year by the U.S. Postal Service, including how many copies were printed. Some early American stamps changed every so slightly over a period of a few years; to aid in their precise identification 1847 USA has several clickable "Identifiers" outlining the slight variations. There's also a great section for what the site calls "back of the book" stamps, such as those issued for air mail, special delivery, even postage due and parcel post.
American Philatelic Society
The American Philatelic Society is the world's largest nonprofit association for stamp collectors, founded in 1886 and currently boasting 44,000 members in more than 110 countries, according to its website. The society now offers a stamp identification service of its own called Quick I.D. Users can scan the stamp in question into their computers and then email it to the Society, along with an application. A detailed report comes back within three days. As of 2009, the cost for members is $2 plus $5 per scanned stamp; for nonmembers, $10 per item.