Stamps and the Art of Collecting Them

Before stamps people didn't like the whole letter sending system so at the beginning of stamp history a guy named Rowland Hill invented a different system and at the same time he invented the 1st stamp, the "Penny Black!" It started off in 1840 and only 7 years later the U.S. released it's 1st stamps, the 5 cent Benjamin Franklin and the 10 cent George Washington stamps. In the same year that the first stamp was made people started stamp collecting and since then the "Penny Black" has always been a favorite since it was released! There are currently millions of stamp collectors out there so chances are you know one for example, FDR was a very famous stamp collector with 35,000 stamps! (Not very many people have more then 35,000 stamps and I've been collecting stamps for 2 years and I don't even have 1,000 stamps!) Stamp collectors want to have really old and/or very rare stamps. For example one extremely rare and old stamp is the "24 cent Inverted Jenny" which was accidentally printed upside down and only 100 were made. Recently they made $2 copies that are extremely common!

24 cent Inverted Jenny

(Image found here)

I have a stamp to show you that I own which is from the late 1800's!

It's for the John Ericsson Memorial 86 year anniversary.

I like stamp collecting because I like finding the history behind old stamps!