World Stamps

Staying connected with other collectors through social media: Computers and Stamps

Jul 14, 2016, 5 AM

By William F. Sharpe

There’s no stamp club anywhere near you? Stamp shows are too far away from your home? Those are not problems if you use the Internet for social networking.

A Google search offers many choices. I searched for “social networking philately” and received numerous relevant results. 

You also can find links to social media at prominent websites. Linn’s site offers links to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as an invitation to subscribe to Linn’s various newsletters

The American Philatelic Society provides a full page of links, including Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, the American Philatelic Research Library’s blog, and Nancy Clark’s Stamp Talk.

I wrote about stamp videos in the Feb. 2, 2015, Linn’s, and about Pinterest in the Nov. 25, 2012, column. 

The APRL blog is updated several times a month. You can read the latest entries or search either from a search box on the page or a list of categories. 

The link to the APS Stamp Talk radio program only shows a few older shows. Click on “APS Stamp Talk,” and you will find 10 years’ worth of archived one-hour shows to listen to.

You can visit Pinterest or find pins related to stamps from the APS page. That site lists 12 boards with a total of 170 pins.

Connect with Linn’s Stamp News: 

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If you go directly to Pinterest and search for “postage stamps” or “philately” you’ll see a larger assortment of stamp pins. 

The “postage stamp” search found more United States stamps, and the “philately” search found more foreign stamps. I also searched for “Einstein postage stamps” and retrieved a long list of such stamps.

Rod Tilyard in Tasmania developed a site called MyStampWorld.net, which bills itself as a “free online community for philatelists of all ages the world over.” Steve Swain, in a Stamp Insider magazine review, called this site “Facebook for stamp collectors.” 

You can log into the site with your Facebook or Google+ account, but you can also view blogs, forums and groups as shown in the top menu line on the home page. 

The “More” option on the right side of the menu provides access to many additional features.

Stamp boards are another way to interact with other collectors. I am most familiar with Delphi Forums Stamp Collecting Forum, which includes a discussion board covering first-day covers, U.S. stamps, Canada and Great Britain, other countries, expert opinions, clubs and organizations, dealers, auctions and shows, buy-sell-trade, stamp specialties, postal services, and computers.

Other active stamp boards include the Virtual Stamp Club, Richard Frajola’s Board for Philatelists, and Stampboards.com

The Stampboards site has no ads or fees. This site had 124 users online, 21 registered and 103 guests, when I visited in June. Statistics at the site were impressive, with a total of 4,525,431 posts and 66,273 topics. 

You can locate other stamp boards by using a web search.

I also discovered that Wikipedia has a philately portal. Most of Wikipedia’s entries about stamp collecting are available through this site, although the main page provides a selected article, selected biography, selected picture, a “Did you know” list of questions, a stamp of the month, and a list of new articles.

Scroll to the bottom of the portal page to find links to postage stamps of Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, Oceania, and Australia, plus a link to the Wikipedia article about revenue stamps. 

Pictured nearby is the philately portal page with the “Show” entry on the right side selected for the third entry. You can click on any country listed to see the Wikipedia entry for its stamps.