Building A Basic Stamp Album

For the stamp beginner nothing is more challenging than believing you have to decide on which direction you want to take your collection. The truth is you don't have to take a direction---at the moment. Don't adopt a stamp album---US or Foreign. Collect stamps you enjoy keeping and purchase a set of Vario pages.

Vario pages are sheets of special paper with sleeves that protect your stamps but still allow you to view what you have put together thus far. You are not confined or cornered into a certain country or theme. These pages are left holes made for inexpensive loose leaf binders. $ 5 on Ebay plus $1 for the binder will allow you to build a basic stamp album without choosing a hasty and expensive direction.

As time marches on you will be able to assemble a collection of stamps that will allow you to start formulating what you want to keep and what you want to trade. This discovery is what inspires a collector to pursue, sometimes for a lifetime, a certain type of stamp.

Stamp Alphabet Series: V is For Victoria

Value

This term can refer to either the printed denomination of a stamp or to its monetary market value to a collector or dealer. The term also refers to the relative light or dark of a color, on a scale from white to black; thus, a high-value color is a very light pastel shade. A low-value color is very dark.

Variable Denomination

A relatively modern type of stamp that uses a form of key plate to produce the basic (but blank) background design. Computer printers then print the denomination on the stamp at the time it is vended. U.S. variable- denomination and Autopost stamps are included in this category, as are the various Frama and other types of foreign computer-vended stamps.

Varnish Bars

See Lacquer Bars.

Vertical Pair, Imperforate Horizontally

Vertical pair of stamps lacking horizontal perforations between stamps and with horizontal straight edges at top and bottom. Perforations are present at left and right sides.

Very Fine

A term that relates more to centering than to overall condition. A stamp that has very fine centering is slightly off center, but has clear more-or-less evenly spaced margins surrounding the design. Imperforate examples have four decent margins.

Vignette

The central design portion of a stamp. In most cases, this is a portrait, but it can include other strong design elements contained within the border as well. A second and much less commonly used meaning of the word comes from an early French term that described pictorial labels with no postal value.