Guidelines For Stamp Appraisals And Merits

By Margaret Johnson


Most people have hobbies which they engage in their free time. Surprisingly, a lot of people around the world enjoy a collection of stamps. They tend to appreciate the history and design of the stamp. What can make them appreciate even more is having Stamp appraisals done. It is a process whereby the value of the stamps is estimated.

The first steps of the appraisal can be easily done by anyone. The first step is to make sure that the design is well centred on the white borders. This gives it the aspect of neatness. After that, you should turn over the stamp and take a look at how the glue has been spread out. There should be no creases or empty patches, it should be uniform.

A new earmark should always have a earmark hinge. This may be unfamiliar to most. It is actually the light piece of paper found in the back of the stamp. It may not seem like much but it is actually the part a collector would use to stick it to an album. Lacking this will cause the earmark to have less value. If you want to remove it, ask a stamps dealer how to without causing any more damage.

You should observe the perforations on the brand. This is the little-punched holes in the boundaries of the brand. The nearer they are, the more value your earmark will have. Another important thing is the termination mark on the brand. This is usually put when the brand has been used. The thicker it is laid on the earmark the more value the earmark loses.

This is quite obvious that the colouring of the brand will determine the value. A brand should be sharp and attractive. A fading brand will usually not be valuable and will be fading because of sunlight, pollution among other things. The grade of the earmark is important and can vary from poor, ordinary, fine, very fine and fabulous. All this depending on the centring and heaviness of the termination mark.

You will need to know how old your brand is. The older the earmark, the higher the value. You can do this by looking for clues such as figures or historical events in the design. Another thing is to determine the origin of the brand. This again will help in value addition. The clues are still found in the design and maybe in words. If you recognize the language you can trace the country.

The rarer a stamp is, the more value it has. Now imagine have old earmarks that were rare. This means that they are worth a lot. The number of stamps that were printed at the time go on to determine how rare the earmark was. To conclude on the rarity of the earmark, you may consult a earmark dealer or even look it up on the reference books.

A kind of brand you may not know about is the error brand. At first, you may think it is not valuable. It is, however, one of the most valuable earmark types. This is because the error is not in the appearance but in the design. It is very rare to find such.




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