You may be interested in learning how to identify a stamp for several reasons. You may be hoping to find out how much your stamp is worth, ensure you are collecting the right type of stamp for the country or theme you are interested in, or just because you are curious. Whatever the reason you want to identify a stamp, find out some of the best ways here.
1) With a Physical Stamp Catalogue
A stamp catalogue is the most traditional of all the methods in this list. If you are a beginner, it can sometimes be difficult to understand exactly what you are looking for and how to read the catalogue itself. There is a fantastic guide from Stanley Gibbons that goes into detail on what to look for on your stamps to ascertain where they are from – they also mention how you can value your stamp.
Over time, you will become more proficient in recognising country names, currencies and colours of your stamps. It may be enough for you to just want to sort by country at the start of your journey, but then wish to drill down further and organise by date. If you are a beginner, have a look at our beginners guide. This is where a catalogue can be incredibly helpful, as it is very difficult to age a stamp by looking at it alone unless you are an expert.
Another reason why a catalogue is such a great tool is that it is easy to grab when you need it, rather than having to use a computer, mobile phone or the internet.
2) Download a Stamp Identifier App
Stamp Identifier apps such as Stamp Identifier on the Google Play Store and Apple Store are a fantastic way of quickly finding your stamp with minimal effort. The Stamp Identifier is free to use with ads and has a great selection of features. You can use the app to take a photograph of your stamp, crop it, and then let the app do the hard work by finding closely matching images. You can also save a digital copy of the stamp you have identified to your favourites, or upload existing stamp photos from your camera roll.
The Stamp Identifier app gives you a plethora of information about the stamp and incudes links to Colnect and eBay to add these to your online collection or find a great deal on your next stamp. There are other apps available to identify a stamp on the web store – but I have not tested these myself.
3) Colnect’s Search Function
Colnect is my favourite website when it comes to collecting anything at all. The name is derived from the combination of collection and connect – which is precisely what the site promotes. As well as being able to use a very sophisticated search utility, you can also browse through hundreds of thousands of stamps at your leisure. Colnect is also perfect for those that are looking to buy, sell and swap stamps. We will cover stamp exchanges and stamp swapping in a separate article.
4) With an Online Stamp Catalogue
There is a fantastic selection of stamp catalogue websites that have been carefully crafted and many are available to access for free. Here are a few examples of some of my favourites:
- https://www.stampworld.com/
- http://countryid.stamps.org/
- https://www.freestampcatalogue.com/
5) Try Google Lens
Google Lens is a powerful tool that will analyse and image and provide you with a set of results that are a visually close match. I have had success identifying a stamp with Google Lens when the Stamp Identifier app has not managed to find the image for me. Google Lens is easy to access on android by going to your photos and selecting the photo of the stamp you wish to identify and choosing Lens.
6) Take Them to Your Local Stamp Expert
Regardless of your location, there is bound to be somebody who is an expert philatelist who can help you identify a stamp. If you don’t have access to a person you can meet, there are several ways to get in touch with stamp dealers using a dedicated website.
7) Use Forums and Message Boards to Identify A Stamp
The Internet is a wonderful thing which can help us speak to and ask questions about almost anything and get advice from both experts and enthusiasts. Forums such as Reddit and Quora allow us to ask the public for their help to identify a stamp.
33 year old casual stamp collector from the UK!
