The Bottom Line
Pros
- Lots of pictures of stamps and postal material
- Covers a wide range of topics
Cons
- Half the book is wasted if you are not interested in coins
- Somewhat dated information
Description
- 512 Pages
- Over 6000 images and illustrations
- Covers both Philately and Numismatics
Guide Review - The Complete Illustrated Guide to Stamps & Coins
The Complete Illustrated Guide to Stamps & Coins is the combination of two previous books, the World Encyclopedias of Stamps & Stamp Collecting and Coins & Coin Collecting. The stamp part of the book has two sections. The first is an introduction to stamps and the hobby itself. The beginnings of postal services and stamps are discussed, as are the different types of stamps such as definitives, commemoratives, airmail and postal stationery.The introduction to the hobby covers the basics; how to start a collection, the necessary equipment, and displaying your collection. The various topics and types of collecting are examined. The book devotes more pages to topical and thematic collecting. Examples offered are Olympic issues, postal history, local philately, wartime mail and cinderellas among others. The descriptions of these areas is concise, while still giving a sense of the breadth and depth they can offer the collector. Stamp clubs, shows and exhibitions are also described, as well as online philately.
The second section of the book is a stamp directory. This offers entries on almost all stamp producing countries, with a brief examination of their history and development of their stamp programs. The book jacket states that almost every major definitive stamp issue is presented, which might have been true some years ago, clearly isn’t today. Printed books are always going to be a bit behind the curve, but when the latest U.S. issues shown are 37¢ (2002) in a 2008 book, it becomes clear that there hasn’t been much of an update. This is also clear from the online sections which don’t mention EBay, a major source of stamps in the virtual world.
Overall this book is not the most useful stamp reference and shouldn't be the first choice for your philatelic library.