In search of perfect stamp exchange recipe
As some know, I’ve been more or less active in stamp trading / exchanging for nearly two decades. Below are some of my personal experiences and opinions about the fine art of stamp trading.
Trading stamp by packets
Let’s begin with the traditional stamp trading. With this I mean “sent me 100 stamps and I’ll sent you 100 of mine” kind of trades, which are often referred as packet trades.
Personally I’m not very enthusiastic if somebody suggests a stamp trade like this. I have had some good experiences as well as some really bad ones. You never know what to expect – which is both good and bad. With packet trades trades approx. ¼ up to ½ of offered stamps have been what I really need, the rest (meaning 50-75% of stamps) have been either junk bin material (damaged etc) or something I already have or don’t want.
View from my junk bin - damaged stamps such as these should never be offered in stamp exchanges (or anywhere else)
The good side of this trade type is easiness. You just pack 100 (or more) stamps and sent them away to your swap partner, and in return you get (hopefully) 100 different stamps.
Trading stamps by wantlists
Another very popular stamp trade type are wantlists. In practice this means posting (more or less long) numerical lists of stamps wanted to trade partners. The benefit of this kind of trading is that one usually gets precisely the items wanted (at some point).
Wantlists are IMO fine IF one has all the extra stamps sorted out by stamp catalog number and country wise. But for a worldwide stamp collector like me – with mile high wantlists (and equally large duplicates box) – this kind of swap is usually simply a not attractive.
Some Maltese stamps I'm trading right now - in image based exchanges stamps are usually placed on stockpages before taking a photo/scan.
One of the major headaches with wantlists are different catalogue numbers. Scott, Michel, SG etc. each has unique numbering system – the numbers game works only if both parties use the same stamp catalog. And with worldwide stamps, that is very rarely the case.
Trading stamps by images
My personal favorite is image based stamp trading. In this both swap parties scan the images of stamps they have, then the images are exchanged (using email, photosharing website etc) and both share information on what items they’d like to have. In addition there’s usually a loose rule of “1:1 of the same kind” (meaning a commemorative equals a commemorative, defin equals a defin etc.) with the exception of better items that need to be judged stampwise.
I admit, it does have much more work than sending 100-250 random stamps by snailmail. Organizing everything just for a single trade easily takes a whole working day; but in return you usually end up having 200-300 new stamps.
Closing words
Every trading system has it’s downsides and strengths, and in the end personal preferences matter. What’s your take on stamp trading? Do you prefer some method over another, and why?
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I prefer trading stamps by images too. It’s indeed a bit of work, but the result is much better too, esp. when you don’t have hundreds of stamps to offer (like me…
) Then you really have to go for it to get the best results with the stamps you have.
I have to try the exchange by images yet.
So far, I prefer exchange by catalogue number for Argentina and Spain (countries which i have more advanced) and by packet for everywhere else, but for some latin american countries, this method is reaching its practical limit. I will have to make wantlists, I suppose.
I have tried exchange by image with Tamas Majoros and the result is two happy stamp collectors.
I can only agree. Tamás is a great exchange friend
Hi, Im from Malaysia and have quite a numbers of local stamps. If you interested to trade with me, pls email me. Thanks.
Hi Wyan,
please see my exchange page for a guide / instructions on how to exchange with me.
best,
-keijo-
Well,well,well,well…to me the perfect way to swap is by images. Being a very specialized collector, is the best! I take stamps from every corner of the planet, but…as long they fit on: famous people (in arts,science, Nobel Prize,etc.)sports: base-ball, rugby and pelota basque. Slania as well (I have about 200 stamps designed by him, and looking for more)and wild big cats …as you can see I’m not easy to please thou! L O L ! ! !
@ FRED MUGURUZA
You like ‘wild big cats’. That means you like TIGERS !
When I sold my stamp collection years ago, the one thing I did was to pull every stamp with an image of a Tiger on it