Writing Challenge Week 13

This week we are looking at hobby writing. Of course, writing is a hobby for a lot of people. Even if you are writing a novel it can still be a hobby. When I think of hobby writing I think of something for fun. Something that I don't have to think about or "work" hard on. Just something to enjoy, no deadlines, no pressure, just go with the flow type thing. So today's challenge is to take something else you are passionate about, this could be anything that you know a lot about or are passionate about, and write about it.

Personally, I love collecting Stamps (and other things), and I am working on a collectors page. So I decided to write about the stuff I know about collecting Canadian Stamps and the different types of stamps available to collectors out there. You can do something similar or something you would enjoy blogging about or just write about. Anything that just flows naturally and you don't have to research or put too much thought into.

Canadian Stamp Collecting, like most countries, has a rich history to it and knowing the history of Canada really is an asset when it comes to knowing what you want to collect and what to look for. Canadian Stamps currently offer a little something for everyone and you can choose what to collect based on what you like or just collect them all. Canadian Stamps can really be broken down into a few different categories.

Most people are used to buying a "booklet" of stamps. This is a small book of stamps usually 8 to 12 stamps and you pay a price (around $10) for the whole thing. And you simply place them on your envelopes at home if you have a lot to send out and it save the people at the post office from selling you individual stamps. These are actually collected by a lot of people. You can buy the whole booklet or you can buy a strip from the booklet (which is either the whole row of stamps or one of each different stamp in the booklet), or you can get an individual stamp punched out from the booklet.

The next common stamp people recognize is the single stamps. People collect these in a few different ways. You can have single stamps from a booklet, single stamps from a roll (and they have different types of rolls), a single unused stamp or a single used stamp.

They also have "strips". Now, this can be from a booklet, or from a roll (again they have different types of rolls). And this just basically means that they are a strip of stamps together (usually 3 or 5). Typically these are unused stamps because they don't stay in a strip when being put on a letter or package.

After that, we have "panes" or sheets. These are like the strips except much larger. This usually holds a lot more stamps. A "pane" is a decorative card (or mini-poster type thing) that holds a large number of stamps (4 to 6 usually sometimes more), and displays them. A sheet is the full printed sheet of stamps, sort of like stamps in bulk. They are all in one and you can see the perforation marks but it is a full sheet oftentimes with the white border still on it.

Shifting gears a little we have First Day Covers and Souvenir Sheets. These are somewhat similar but are quite different. In both cases, they are stamps on a display sheet or card so it isn't just the stamp by itself. First Day Covers are more like postcards with the stamp on them. They usually have a photo that relates to the stamp and it is a hard card with information on the back. A Souvenir sheet is more like a pane it is a thin sheet with stamps on them and a nice background.

A.L. Keegan for Crazy Collector