Commandment of the Philatelist: Look and don't breathe! Part I

Here’s an article about my hobby. Philately is a wonderful passion for life, I really wish everyone to fall ill with it!

The philatelic collection and the stamp-mania itself came to my life from my dad. He collected ‘Soviety’ — postage stamps of the Soviet period of the history of my country. The most interesting of them are the postal ‘marki' of the first decades of new-born Soviet republic. Their harsh aesthetics have a sort of a special attraction — the ascetic design conveys the spirit of that time, and the stamps sujets illustrate the mood of those people for the heroic transformation of the world. My dad was very fond of 30s-40s postal stamps — after all, he’s started with collecting of that items more than half a century ago.

For me it was contagious.

My father said: "I'm in philately from childhood, with interruptions, sometimes long, but this is for my whole life." Looking at him, I was drawn into this fascinating hobby too. As a child I was a philately fan, in my youth, frankly speaking, it seemed stupid and useless. And now the threads of nostalgia came from the heart to the old stamps and strengthened former affection for them. Now I understand that the philately really does have such a feature — even being postponed for months and years, it will certainly remind about itself after occasional glance at the shelf with Knucklers (albums for stamps).

As the hobby usually starts from childhood, the most loved ones for me are the stamps that were purchased for the change from the school meals at ‘Soyuzpechat’ kiosk. Now the philately of the 70's is not very expensive — postage stamps were then issued in millions of copies. But what was produced earlier… it is interesting not only as something nostalgic.

With each new annual catalog release Soviet stamps on average rise in price by 10% per year, but in fact the cost of some of them is twice as expensive as it is prescribed in the catalog. In addition to purely aesthetic pleasure, engaging in philately is also a good investment. Moreover, as in any collecting, there are some extremely unique rarities here, whose value grows exponentially with time.

To be continue >