I pulled this helpful post to help you get your picture /scans here.

To add an image in your post:

First, you will need to put your picture on the internet somewhere. Many ISPs give their customers webspace as part of their package, so you should check to see if you already have space. If you don't, I'd recommend checking with the Photos/HTML board to learn of other free sites where you can store images for remote loading.

Once your image is somewhere on the internet, simply type this code into the text box when you want to make a post:



NOTE: Please do not use quotations here. I originally included quotes around the URL, but that causes problems in some situations, so please leave them out!

To create a link to the image:

Again your image needs to be on the internet first.

Next, use this code without the quotes:

"To view my image, please click here!

The "here" becomes a clickable link when you do this.

I hope this helps, and I hope you have fun with it!

Daphne
eBay Community Development

Simwinzee,
You have a lot of good questions, let me answer each one. First, get a good beginners book on stamp collecting, buy some tongs, stock sheets and have a 3 ring binder handy. Next purchase a used set of stamp catalogs (Scotts is fine) the more recent catalog set the better, but the older ones will help identify most stamps. Use the stock pages to place the stamps in country order, you can write down the catalog and value on the stock page. Leave the envelopes as you find them. Sort and put them in a box buy date or the amount found on the stamps. Postmarks can be valuable, there are a few books on postmarks that catalog them and price them. Postmark collecting is a area of stamp collecting that is specialized. Some folks collect just the stamp with a postmark clearly seen on the stamp alone. These are called bulls eye cancels. Also read my beginners Workshop, you will find it on the side bar to the right. Thanks for your question. JR.

Thanks for the information. What books have the information on the post markings? We have looked for these and haven't found any.

Do you think you would like to collect stamps? Well step right up and see what kind of collection you could start.

How about wild boar, yes wild boar. I thought that was a weird idea too. But I took up the challege and started collecting wild boars on stamps. When I found my first one I couldn't believe it. But then I found another and another until I had about 30! All from different countries. One of my favorites is from South Africa and shows a portrait of a male boar with tusks. Topical stamp collecting can be very interesting because of the variety of subjects like Disney, Boy Scouts, butterflies, spiders and flowers and more!

Good Day and welcome back to Stamp Talk. Today's stamp collectable topic is "Postal History" or collecting stamps on envelopes (covers) or pieces (parts of packaging). This area of stamp collecting can be fun, you can even find interesting items in your own mail. Their are some collectors that collect colorful junk mail...I mean advertising mail. Well, junk mail has been around along time! You can collect modern day ie. polictial mailers or you could collect "Seed and Feed" advertisments from the 1890's. It is a wide open collectable area. You will need a album with quality heavy paper, some photo corner mounts and a few reference books for writing up. You could even use the web for researching. Some specialty areas included "Pointing Hands or return to sender mail", "Proper use of postage rates for the time period","Censored Mail from WWII" and many others. If you like History, then Postal History is a way to collect it.

Does any one know how old US PO Post cards with 1 to 5 cents on them would be & is there a market for them. I had already posted in collectors forum before I saw this one on Stamps. Thank you for any info. you can give me.

I recently began digging through 3 interesting collections (mostly Cdn) which I have inherited and which have not seen the light of day for approx. 35-40 years. Having collected stamps many years ago, I realized that there was enough to combine into a single pretty decent mint collection. So I decided to sell the dupes, used, FDCs, blocks etc on Ebay so that I could buy MNH stuff to make one really good MNH collection. I was amazed to discover recently that at least one Ebayer has had literally hundreds of auctions of nothing but forgeries (btw, is there a difference between "forgeries with no postal value" as he calls it - and good old-fashioned counterfeiting?) Anyway, I browsed thru his feedback history and realized that dozens of people had bought this stuff. I emailed Ebay and Presto! They're mostly all gone in 48 hours. Good for Ebay I suppose............
but my point(s) are:
1. Are these forgeries good enough to fool the average semi-serious collector? (How would I be able to tell the difference before I bought them from an unscrupulous - or unwitting Ebayer?)
2. Was I the first person to bring this to Ebay's attention? This possibility really amazes me because they've been listed continuously for at least 4 months (according to the feedback history.)
3. All of these auctions were plainly listed (IN CAPITAL LETTERS) as forgeries - a seeming direct violation of Ebay's states Rules & Regs. Am I wrong to be disappointed that Ebay apparently has no process in place to make even the most basic scan for apparent criminal activity?
4. At this point I can't help thinking that I am really risking my money if I buy expensive MNH stamps on Ebay. I also have many MNH stamps that ARE genuine but I wonder if I will get fair value for them - or if serious potential buyers may likewise be afraid that my stamps are bogus too.

Does anyone else share my concerns or am I missing some obvious explanation.
TIA for all feedback.