History of Philately
  Introduction
The narrative of philately is one that goes back to about the year 1841 when the first stamp collectors in the world began to emerge.
However, the subjects embraced by philatelists today commenced many centuries earlier.
The Spanish Kinglike Academy defines philately (which comes from the Greek words Philos, meaning friend, and Ateleia, meaning deliverance) as the "Art dealing with the understanding of stamps. and principally with postage stamps".
But this definition is too restricting. Philately embraces not only the love and knowledge of stamps, but also the study, bent and knowledge of all issues and material related to the postal services from the earliest known times in mankinds account.
Custom SearchThe Post in Ancient Times
To tell the story of the postal service is to try to write the account of the world, for every civilization in every country has contributed something to its development. The transmission of the orders of the sovereign, the reports received from the four corners of his empire, the despatches of his ambassadors: these are the royal posts. Orders, invoices for staples and market...
Read more... Towards a definition of the Collection - Objects
the following is cut&paste from:
http://daize.confounding.org/school/collection.html
July, 2003
"Collectomania is a disease that gets all of us sooner or later"
- Elizabeth Gundrey
"We are either born with or without the "virus of collecting"
- Claude Frére Michelat
It is paltry coincidence that both authors refer to collecting as an unavoidable physical malady. Both definitions appear to regard collecting as a part of the mortal condition, so it is worthwhile to try and uncover the true nature and motivation behind collecting.
The usage of the word "collection" appears in all sorts of contexts. Whole group sub-cultures are devoted to the practice of collecting, ranging from bottle caps to railway carriages. Conferences are generally held to accommodate all different types of collectors: antique shows, sci-fi conventions, comic emporiums, etc. Collectors subdivision themselves into different collecting communities, often assuming quasi-scientific classifications like philatelist and bibliophile to describe their passion. These groups travail under an intuitive definition of the word "collection", though their collecting habits follow different social codes, different levels of interest and personal motivational factors. To understand the nature of collecting, a definition that finds a common ground between these different types of collecting is life-and-death.
A large percentage of the population includes "collecting" as one of their pastimes . What makes this an intuitive response is the apparent pandemic understanding of what "collecting" actually means. The simplest definition is one proposed by the American Heritage Dictionary, which defines collecting as "bringing together in a set apart". Clearly this definition is far too broad and all- encompassing to define Gundrey's "collectomania". Susan Pearce's definition of collecting is "simply that a anthology exists if its owner thinks it does:...
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