In 1848 the postmaster of Bermuda issued a stamp, after the manner of the U.S. postmasters. The next two years witnessed the extension of the system in Europe and elsewhere with stamps from Bavaria, Belgium, France (1849), Austria, British Guiana, Hanover, New South Wales, Prussia, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Spain, Switzerland, Victoria (185o). Every year (1851-1909) new countries or colonies were added to the list, and no country with any claims to organized government is without postage stamps of some kind.
The Extensive Field for Collections—Postage stamps were already attracting collectors in the '5os; by 1860-62 a great wave of popular interest spread in Europe and America, and the extensive literature of stamp-collecting began. Mount Brown's catalogues published in 1862-64 list 1,200 varieties known to him in May 1862, and 2,400 in his last edition in March 1864. The Standard Catalogue (1928), which lists only main varieties of Government stamps, presents a total of 46,969. The more de tailed catalogues, inclusive of minor varieties (Gibbons, Scott, Kohl, etc.) may be estimated as recording 170,000 to 18o,000. Even these high figures refer only to adhesive postage stamps issued by Governments ; if the stamps of municipal, local and private posts were added, the number would be much larger.
The first lists of postage stamps for the use of collectors were privately circulated in manuscript in 186o by Oscar Berger Levrault, a printer of Strasbourg, and in Aug. 1861 he issued a thin quarto 12-page list printed by autolithography. Alfred Potiquet, of Paris, had the benefit of these lists when he com piled his first catalogue, published in 1861. The earliest English catalogues (Booty, Mount Brown, Dr. Gray) appeared in 1862. Booty, a young artist, produced the first illustrated stamp cata logue (his 3rd ed.), pictures and text being drawn by himself on the lithographic stone (Aug. 1862). In America the first publi cation of the kind, A. C. Kline's Stamp Collector's Manual (Dec. 1862), was a pirated copy of Mount Brown's catalogue. Periodical literature began with the Monthly Intelligencer (Sept. 1862), but by 1863 journals which remain of reference value were started in the Stamp Collector's Magazine (England), Timbre Poste (Bel gium) and Magazin fur Briefmarken-Sammler (Germany). The first printed stamp albums were designed by a Frenchman, Justin Lallier, and published in France and England in 1862.
The development of the study of stamps, as distinct from mere collecting, dates from about 1867, when M. Berger-Levrault in
Les Timbres Poste, Catalogue methodique et descriptif de toes les timbres-poste connus gave details of dates of issue, methods of printing, shades, varieties of paper, watermark and perforation. These were the outcome of the "French school" of collecting, favoured by leading English and German collectors. The name philately had been given to the study in 1864, derived from the Greek scaos (loving) and iiTEX17s (free of tax), the intention of the originator, M. Herpin, being to indicate a fondness for things (stamps) exempt from tax.
Forming a Collection.—The vast output of stamps enables the beginner to start with a greater variety than was possible in the 19th century. Packets containing i,000 to io,000 different stamps are regularly stocked by dealers ; they form the cheapest basis for starting a collection. The principal sources of supply for adding to collections are the stamp trade, auctions and ex change with other collectors. Stamps are arranged under coun tries, in the chronological order of issue. The loose-leaf album allows greater freedom for arrangement and expansion of the collection.
In addition to the stamp dealers established in many cities who hold large stocks of old and modern stamps for collectors, stamp auctions are held frequently in London, Paris, Berlin and New York, at which collectors and dealers bid in competition. An important source of supply of modern issues is the "Philatelic Agency," the first of which was started by the United States as a department of its post office at Washington (1921) to supply current stamps, and such stamps of older issues as may be avail able, at face value, to collectors and dealers; similar agencies were set up in Canada (Ottawa, 1923), the Canal Zone (Balboa Heights, 1924), Netherlands and colonies (Amsterdam, 1925), Denmark (Copenhagen, 1926), Sweden (Stockholm, 1927).
The stamps are generally removed from any back paper before mounting in the album; the mounting is done in a special way to permit the examination of a stamp, back and front, without removal from the album, and the removal of the stamp for trans ference to another place. This is done by means of hinges, con sisting of small strips of paper, gummed on one side. This little strip, folded, gummed side outwards, forms the hinge, one arm of which is lightly fixed to the back of the stamp, while the other arm holds the stamp in position in the album.