One of the most popular areas of philately today is known as topical stamp collecting. Topical stamp collecting is collecting stamps that revolve around a particular topic of the collector’s choosing.
I’ve seen collections of everything from volcanoes on stamps to thimbles on stamps to just about every subject you can think of. I personally have a topical collection of trains on stamps, specialized even further to just steam engines on stamps, because my son and I really love the big old beasts! 
There are some challenges to topical stamp collecting that just collecting by country or year range do not have. One of the biggest challenges is finding albums to hold this kind of material. For the most part, albums simply aren’t available for this kind of collection. I did manage to find pages at Subway that are labeled Railroads on stamps, but they are blank pages other than the label. So, since you will be using blank pages for the most part to build this type of collection, imagination plays a big part on forming a topical stamp collection.
Following on to the fact that you will be using blank pages to house your collection, you are then presented with the challenge of how to organize that topical stamp collection. This will be a matter of personal preference, but the way I do it is to first arrange the countries alphabetically, and then mount the stamps chronologically by issue date of the stamp. Further to that, I generally mount sets of stamps and souvenir sheets on pages by themselves, and then individual stamps in a manner that allows for plenty of white space on the page. I’d love to see and hear how others approach this problem. Leave a comment telling us how you do it!
Another problem that uniquely applies to topical stamp collecting is the lack of reference material. There are a few catalogs or lists out there, but there certainly isn’t one for every possible subject. The American Topical Association (ATA) is a good resource for finding these types of lists and catalogs, and an excellent club for those interested in topical stamp collecting. Under the umbrella of ATA, there are an almost countless number of specialty clubs and study groups centered around many subjects. In addition to the ATA resources, there are also some catalogs published by a company called Domfil, but they are not updated often. Finally, Scott Stamp Monthly publishes catalog updates every month in it’s magazine, with topical summaries at the end of every magazine. If you don’t subscribe to it, you might want to consider doing so. The online subscription is a real bargain at only $9.00 per year. I’m assuming that if you’re reading this blog, then you are certainly capable of accessing the online magazine.
Other resources that are available to the topical stamp collector are websites geared around your collecting interest. A perfect example of a site of this type is published by a friend of mine: Giraffes on Stamps. At his site, you will find listings and illustrations of any and every stamp ever issued that has a giraffe on it. Some of them are amongst the most beautiful stamps ever issued, even if they were mostly intended to get stamp collectors to part with their money. Another great one is this Disney on Stamps website. I also collect Disney on stamps, and I’ve used this site over and over again to figure out what parts of sets I’m missing.
Any way you slice it, trying to get a complete listing of stamps that you need for a particular topic can be a real challenge. It can also be a very expensive and time consuming process if you are focusing on a particularly obscure subject. This would require getting a copy of each volume of the Scott catalog if you live in the US, or whatever catalog is dominant in your country, and painstakingly poring over every page in the catalog to identify the stamps that fit your subject. Having said that, a project like this could be very rewarding. I would urge anybody that has done this kind of research, no matter what the subject, to publish it somehow, either by making your own website with the information or having someone put it on their website. For that matter, I would be more than happy to publish any of this kind of stuff right here and make sure you get full credit (not to mention accolades!) for your work.
A topical stamp collection can be as simple as just showing your subject on the stamps, or you can go really in-depth on the research and try to acquire every variety of every stamp showing your subject. First Day Covers can also fit nicely into this kind of collection, as well as other types of covers that show advertising, cancels, or other types of cachets that reflect the subject of your collection. This is one reason why I really like topical stamp collecting: it’s as in-depth as you want it to be, and can contain anything you want it to. Basically, your imagination and willpower are the only limits on what can be included. That’s what makes topical stamp collecting so fun and rewarding.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this article and topical stamp collecting in general!
philately, stamp collecting, topical stamp collecting
