Philately
Philately is the name usually given to the hobby which is generally known as the stamp collection. As the coins the stamps also try to tell us many things and have some piece of information behind it. The hobby is very interesting and does not require any special skill except the dedication and passion for the hobby. Some time this hobby come out to be a very paying option, if you happen to have some rare stamp in your collection. Some people differ in the opinion about the Philately as a different area related to the stamp collection and some people refer them as one and the same. The stamps came into existence long back in the 18th century. Indian stamps also came into existence almost the same time and there were lot of different stamps were issued by the different princely states and supposed to be very rare now. You can start your collection by just grabbing what you can get in the vicinity, generally starting your collection with the stamps of the nation in which you reside and slowly you can widen the area of your collection.
The area of collection may range from the stamps of the whole world to the stamps dedicated to some particular subject like some personality, some animal, flower, monument or any event or else. Usually the collection which is dedicated to any particular subject attracts more value as compared to the general collection. In India postage stamps go out of circulation or sale after some time of issuance. The non availability of the same slowly increases the value. Till now we were talking about the stamp collection, one more thing is equally related to this hobby and that is the collection of the first day covers.
First day cover is issued on the day stamp is issued and sold on that very day only. It bears the graphical picture of the stamp and is cancelled with a special cancellation stamp. The first day cover also includes a brief literature about the subject or personality depicted on the stamp. If you start collecting them then, you would observe that from the day two of the issue it starts attracting some value greater than the purchase price and as your collection grows old the value increases simultaneously.
The mistakes and fault in printing increases the value of the stamp. Some of the stamps with misprinting have reached to a value which can cost you a fortune. These types of stamps are very rare to find. For your benefit some rare stamps are given below:
