Stamp Collection for Beginners – 07. Thematic Stamp Collection

With a phenomenal rise in the number of issues of stamps by various countries over the past 150 years and the amount of money needed to acquire them, it has become impossible for an avid stamp collector to have access to all of them.

To this, one can add the development of stamp issuing policies which have reflected much greater freedom in the choice of both the designs and the subjects, not withstanding the fact that some of these have been prepared with the modern collector in mind. This gave birth to a new discipline i.e., THEMATIC COLLECTION.

Now what is thematic stamp collection? A general stamp collector would assemble the material in one of the several ways, geographically collecting a single country like India or a group such could be chronological for instance, the reign of a particular monarch or else the period of a war.

The thematic collector cuts across such boundaries as the period or the country of the issue and collects philatelic material which has something in its wording or design that relates to a specific topic or theme.

It is usually the design of the stamp which is important in the thematic collection and the other aspects of the stamp are of subsidiary importance.

A thematic stamp collection can be started with very little money because gaps can be disguised more easily over here than in the country collection.

Another advantage of the thematic collection over the country collection is that in the former no two collections are alike even with the same type of theme because an individual collector is free to give his personal touch. The stamps found in the two collections may be the same but the sequence in which they are arranged by two individuals can never be the same and hence the difference. While in the case of the country collection the stamps are arranged date-wise and in the same sequence and so the collections will be the same and look drab with the passage of time.

Furthermore it is impossible now for a beginner to go for a country collection unless he is extremely rich. So the only alternative is the thematic collection and there is no dearth of themes over here. These could be bridges, sports, space, animals, ships, music, religion, railways, transport, flowers, fishes, birds, marine life, insects, aviation, scouting stamps on stamps, United Nations and many more depending upon the knowledge; skill and perhaps sense of humor of a person.

Some collectors find amusement in entirely different directions i.e., designs, errors on stamps, stamps printed only in black or stamps showing values in a series of numbers from 1 onward.

Having decided that you would form a collection on a particular subject, you now have to decide what theme to choose. This maybe either accidental or deliberate.

By Accidental we mean a theme associated with your work. For example, an architect would have a collection of stamps on bridges, buildings or dams, an airline pilot may go in for a collection of stamps on aircraft, a keen gardener could have a collection of stamps on any particular flower, and so on.

By Deliberate we mean when a person has a fancy for a particular theme which has no relevance to his business and is an interest quite different from his normal day-to­ day affairs. This could include any of the themes mentioned earlier.

Some would like to explore and keep away from the bandwagon issues and make there subject more interesting. For instance, one collector had formed a collection of stamps showing bicycles and umbrellas. He even came across stamps that show both, one from Laos featuring a cycle-rickshaw and a bystander carrying a parasol and another from Russia portraying the writer Checknow carrying an umbrella with a bicycle just visible in the background.

Beginners may be advised on two points. Firstly do not bother about any criticism coming from any quarter because thematic stamp collection has come to stay and has been accepted as proper Philately. Secondly, do not make thematic stamp collection the ultimate aim of your hobby.