The first thing to do is to once you have decided to become involved in collecting postage stamps - or Philately - is to select a particular area or topic for your collection.

Years ago when I first started my collection I wanted to get stamps from every country in the world. Nowadays, with so many countries producing so many stamp issues each year, forming a world collection would be a difficult task.

My suggestion if you are just starting out is to focus on the country in which you live for two main reasons. Firstly, you already have knowledge about your own country so this is a great place to start, and secondly, the postage stamps are readily available from your local post office and mail that comes to your home.

Or course, if you have a favourite country, penpals, or if your heart is set on a particular subject, start with that!

A very popular way of collecting is to take a subject or theme of interest and build a collection around it. This is called thematic collecting. For example- you may enjoy sports and decide to make your collection based upon sports and sporting activities.

The possibilities are endless for thematic collectors - animals, butterflies, sailing ships, painters, conservation - just use your imagination and let the stamps take you there.

The other main forms of collecting fall into the following categories:

Worldwide collections: stamps of all countries from 1840 to the present.

Geographic collections: stamps of a single country or a group of countries.

Specialised collections: usually built around the stamps of a single country but sometimes restricted to a small group of stamps or even the exhaustive study of a single issue.

Most beginning stamp collectors want to get lots and lots of stamps. One of the best ways to make a flying start is to buy a large packet of used stamps from a stamp dealer. (We recently bought a packet of 1000 mixed stamps for $12.) You will also find that ebay is a great source for purchasing stamps.

Also available are smaller packets of stamps at your post office.

One of the best (and cheapest) ways to build up your collection is by asking your relatives and friends to save you the stamps from all their letters. When you ask people to save their used stamps for you, it's a good idea to ask them for the whole envelopes. That way the stamps are less likely to be damaged.

What I did on several occassions was ask at local businesses who get lots of mail if they would please keep the stamps off envelopes for me for 2 weeks

If you are purchasing packets of stamps, starting with the largest possible packet size is a good idea for two reasons. First, it provides a good start with enough variety to make it interesting. Second, it avoids duplication. If you go back later and buy a second packet, particularly if it's a theme-based packet (stamp dealers also sell packets of stamps based on the more common themes such as birds, flowers, etc), you may receive many of the same stamps.

Once you have your basic starting pack you can have fun sorting them into countries and themes and putting your favourites into your album.