About Stamp Collecting

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Postage stamps are often collected for their historical value and geographical aspects and they are also collected for the many different subjects that have been depicted on them, ranging from ships, animals, birds, Kings, Queens and Presidents. (Information From Online Wikipedia)

There is a variety of types of stamps issued by the Post Office: 

• Difinitive Stamps – The most common type of stamps. Stamps that are issued for ordinary postal needs and placed on sale for an unlimited period as opposed to commemorative.
• Airmail Stamps – Stamps which may be required for airmail, which may have special postage rates
• Commemorative Stamps – Stamps issued to honour or commemorate anniversaries, important people or special events, only available for a specified period of time.
• Postage Due Stamps – Special stamps applied by a Post Office to mail that bears insufficient postage, issued in several denominations
• Revenue Stamps – Stamps issued to pay taxes
• Postal Stationery – All forms of postal envelopes, postcards, wrappers etc., which have impressed or imprinted stamps.
• Newspaper Stamps – Stamps issued specifically for the postage of newspapers.
• Souvenir Sheets – the postal service sometimes releases stamps in a format that looks like a sheet with a big picture. Various parts of the picture can be torn out and used as postage stamps with 10 stamps in one picture.
• Se-tenant – Two or more adjoining stamps which differ from each other in value, design, or in some other respect such as one overprinted or surcharged, and the other not.
• First Day Covers – Envelopes with stamps attached and canceled on the first day that the stamp was issued. Most modern FDCs bear designs, called "cachets" related to the theme of the stamp issued.

Collectors may collect other types of postage stamps and stationery as well:

• Covers – An envelope that has been sent through the postal system.
• Cut Square – Imprinted stamp from envelope, card etc. that was cut in the form of a square or rectangle. 
• Cut to Shape – Imprinted stamp from enevelope, card, etc. that was cut to outline of the stamp design.
• EFO Stamps – Errors, Freaks, and Oddities. Stamps that are imperfect: 

Many people may think stamps that are not perfect in color or appearance are defective. But collecting imperfect stamps, known as EFOs, has become fun and profitable for many thousands of philatelists. If you are gathering information on this hobby or are interested in learning more, it is important to know what the EFO classification means.

Errors refers to stamps or postal stationery that have printing or production errors caused by a missing or failed step in the printing process. To be a true error, there must be a completely missing step or a botched step in the printing or production of the stamp. Errors include: 

• Omitted Colors And Perforations 
• Tagging or Any Other ‘Missing Step’
• Inverts of Color, Paper, or Over-Prints 
• Improper Color or Tagging Type Caused by the Wrong Ink 
• Doubled Printings, Perforations or Grills 
• Improper Perforations or Paper 
• Wrong Embossing Die on a Stamped Envelope
• Stamp Design having incorrect information, typos, misspellings
• Other Inferior Processing such as with the Plate Numbers missing or otherwise botched.

Freaks refers to stamps or postal stationery that have only partial errors as opposed to Major Errors. Usually Errors are worth considerably more than Freaks, except where a Freak stamp is rare and therefore in greater demand. Freaks comprise the largest portion of EFO collections usually because they more affordable and are sometimes spectacular in appearance. The appearance of a Freak stamp is more random than Error stamps that usually encompass an entire press run. Sometimes Freaks occur inconsistently on numerous stamps, envelopes, or postal cards. Due to the countless types of freaks, cataloguing them is impossible. Typical Freaks include color shifts, over or under-inking, smears, blobs, nearly missing colors, ink contamination, pre-printing paper creases, slime spots in paper, tagging ghosts, gum skips, misperforated or miscut stamps, gutter snipes, set-offs, and other odd-looking things that would have caused the stamps to be destroyed if noticed during production.

Oddities are something that is within the bounds of usability for the stamp, but still has a distinctive appearance. The usual sort of oddity is misregistration on a multi-colored stamp, which can result in shirts apparently with two sets of buttons, eyes above the top of a person's head, and so forth.

Printer’s Waste – EFO stamps should have been destroyed but have been smuggled out of the Post Office Printing Office by unscrupulous employees and sold in the EFO market.