You are a budding topical collector, and you don’t know it yet. Let me explain.
Think about the people who fascinate you, favorite objects from your youth, places you’ve visited, or phenomena that make you curious. Now, reflect on stamps in your collection that match anything on that list of favorite things. Maybe you’ve picked up a few of these just because the subject of the stamp pleased you.
You are building a topical collection by gathering philately that makes you smile.
That’s how my topical collection got started just three years ago. Since then, it has grown into an engaging stamp hunt and a fascinating search for historic details. Topical collecting is more than just amassing stamps that share a common thread. It represents a subject personally important to you. Topical collecting stimulates the wonder and curiosity dear to every philatelist.
Since you’ve already started your budding topical collection, where do you take it from here? In this article I will share my own topical story, suggest ideas to build your topic, offer tips for researching your stamps, and explain how to expand the collection from topical to thematic.
My story
My primary topical collection celebrates typewriters on stamps. I love typewriters and I love to type. As a young girl, I desperately searched for entertainment to alleviate the boredom of my summer vacation following my fifth-grade school year. I came across my mother’s Royal portable typewriter (Figure 1) and her high school typing manual on a dusty shelf. Boredom solved! I decided to teach myself to type.
Figure 1. This typewriter, the author’s 1955 Royal Quiet-de-Luxe portable, inspired her topical collection. The vintage typewriter remains a treasured possession.
Each day I went through a few lessons in the book and spent the rest of the day practicing the skill. By the end of the summer, I was a sufficiently accomplished typist that I could produce correspondence for my mother upon request.
Years later I encountered a typewriter on a stamp. It rekindled all the memories of my autodidactic typing lessons and the joyous clacking sound of typewriter keys. I attacked the job of building this new topical collection much the way I taught myself to type: one lesson at a time. What I learned along the way may help you create a collection that brings you much satisfaction.
Building your topic
The beauty of a topical collection is that I can broaden or narrow my collection field as my interest and knowledge of my subject grow.
How many stamps and which ones should you collect? The beauty of a topical collection is that it is wholly yours. You’re the boss, so you can be as expansive or narrow in your collecting as you wish.
Just how many stamps are there in your topic?
The American Topical Association (ATA) has the answer. The ATA makes more than 1,600 topical checklists available to its members. If your topic isn’t listed among those hundreds, the association will work with you to create a custom checklist for your topic. The ATA’s typewriter checklist contains more than 100 stamps from 32 countries. Like all ATA checklists, the typewriter stamp list provides information to help me find and organize my stamps: date issued, the stamp’s denomination, Scott number, and a description of the stamp.
The ATA also brings together study units on dozens of topics. Joining a study group is a great way to meet others who share your love for your topic. For example, one of those affiliate clubs, the Graphics Philately Association, is a place for people who collect books, alphabets, manuscripts, printing presses, writing tools, libraries and . . . wait for it . . . typewriters on stamps.
The American Topical Association also publishes books to enhance one’s topical collecting knowledge. Topical Adventures: A Guide to Topical and Thematic Stamp Collecting shares details of how to think about, build and enjoy a topical collection. A second book, What’s First? From Abacus to Zebra: The First Time Topics are Depicted on Postage Stamps, offers fascinating facts about firsts in many topics. That’s where I learned that the first-ever typewriter on a stamp was issued in 1935 by Turkey (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The first image of a typewriter on a postage stamp came in 1935 when Turkey issued this semipostal (Scott B57), one of a set of stamps commemorating the 12th Congress of the Women’s International Alliance held in Istanbul.
Searching internet auction sites like eBay, Delcampe and HipStamp also helped me build my collection by searching the word “typewriter.” For international auction sites like Delcampe, I translated “typewriter” into 10 languages. The resulting searches of words such as “machine a ecrire” (French) and “schreibmaschine” (German) rewarded me with about 30 previously undiscovered typewriter stamps, covers and typewriter ephemera (Figure 3). If you want to see what others are collecting in your topic, internet display sites like Colnect (https://colnect.com/en) preview digital topical collections.
Figure 3. A 2007 Belgium minisheet (Scott 2260) offers a comical look at typewriters. My favorite stamp in the set represents romantic communication.
Collecting stamps on your topic, however, is only part of the fun. First day covers, as well as commercial covers (Figure 4) related to your subject, can add depth and interest to the collection.
Figure 4. This 1900 commercial cover franked with a red Washington (Scott 252) illustrates the unique silhouette of the Oliver Typewriter.
For example, I came across a 1961 first day cover for a pair of Philippine stamps that included a typewriter in commemoration of the Philippine Government Employees Association. The cover features a cachet that also depicts a typewriter (Figure 5). This relatively recent issue was very affordable, and I snapped it up.
Figure 5. A 1961 first day cover from the Philippines with typewriter stamps (Scott 845-846) features a typewriter in the cachet, which commemorates the Philippine Government Employees Association.
The following week, I found another first day cover for the stamps but with a different cachet. I soon discovered that the Philippines issued covers offering more than a dozen different cachets for these stamps. I am now collecting them and researching this employee association, established in 1945, just one year before the Republic of the Philippines gained its independence. I am curious to know the history of an organization represented by a typewriter stamp.
This example not only shows how covers add to a topical collection. It also illustrates the potential depth of topical collecting. I can collect every stamp and cover containing a typewriter. Another option is to collect only manual typewriters on stamps, only portable typewriters, only electric typewriters, or only typewriting machines for special purposes such as braille typewriters. The beauty of a topical collection is that I can broaden or narrow my collection field as my interest and knowledge of my subject grow.
And it will grow.
Learning is one of the most rewarding aspects of topical collecting. Delving into the subject matter to better understand what is depicted on the stamps you collect (Figure 6) excites the mind and opens new collecting paths.
Figure 6. In 2002, Japan honored cultural pioneer and physicist Professor Tanakadate Aikitu at his typewriter for his work in devising a system to make the Japanese language easier to read for Westerners (Scott 2841).
To facilitate this search, I’ve now gathered myriad books on typewriters, typewriter history and technological innovations. I’ve archived journal and newspaper articles on the topic, and I’ve bookmarked websites about typewriters. Along the way, I’ve learned some amazing facts.
For example, a 1925 report to the Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) Hospital submitted at the organization’s annual meeting featured a picture of its administrative office. In the foreground of the photo was a typewriter on proud display. This 271-year-old hospital, the nation’s oldest, touted to its constituents its utilization of this latest communication technology. The message was clear: If we employ the best technology in administrative spaces, imagine how powerful is our technology in the surgical theater!
As my search for stamps, covers and information about typewriters continues, I’ve morphed my topical collection into a thematic one. ATA’s Topical Adventures differentiates a topical collection, where every item depicts the topic, from a thematic collection in which items depict either the topic or knowledge about the topic. A stamp containing the image of a typewriter is topical. A stamp that shows the person who invented the typewriter is thematic.
I’ve developed the broader thematic collection through the addition of non-philatelic items and ephemera in response to multiple questions. Who used typewriters? When was the first commercial typewriter sold? Where did typewriter factories spring up? How did the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript feel about the typewriter? (Scholars say this author was Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), who referred to the machine as a “curiosity breeding little joker.”
In response to such questions, my thematic typewriter collection now incorporates advertising postcards (Figure 7), correspondence from typewriter companies and early typists, trade cards (Figure 8), stamp booklet advertising (Figure 9), metered postage strips (Figure 10), typewriter company perfins, poster stamps (Figure 11), typewriter ribbon tins, pictorial cancels (Figure 12) and even vintage typewriter keys.
Figure 7. This 1940 typewriter repair advertising postal card (Scott UY6r) harkens back to the good old days when a repairman would come to your door for just $1.25 no matter where you lived in the Chicago area.
Figure 8. A trade card (c. 1900) features the Hall Typewriter, first manufactured in 1887. Trade cards offer an interesting avenue to explore history of a stamp’s topic.
Figure 9. A 1935 booklet of King George V Great Britain stamps includes this typewriter advertisement for the Remington Home Portable Typewriter.
Figure 10. A 1937 meter strip specimen from Dutch East Indies depicts a Smith Premier typewriter.
Figure 11. A 1904 Italian poster stamp (cinderella) illustrates a Model 6 typewriter manufactured by the Williams Typewriter Company of New York. The stamp represents a global demand for typewriters.
Figure 12. My favorite typist, Snoopy, and his trusty typewriter make a perfect addition to the author’s topical collection with this typewriter pictorial cancel for Peanuts-themed stamps issued in 2018 by Germany (Scott 3024-3025).
I have created typewriter exhibits for the ATA’s annual My One-Page Exhibit Program, published articles about typewriter philately, and have developed a typewriter philately presentation that I’ve delivered to stamp groups.
Finally, in the category of You Never Know Where Your Topical Collection Will Take You, I received a recent message from a typewriter collector and shop owner in Philadelphia. He’d seen my presentation, “Exploring Communication Through Typewriter Philately,” archived online at americantopical.org. He told me he had no idea that typewriter philately existed! In the future, we’ll be collaborating on typewriter history workshops to encourage new generations of typewriter lovers. I have a second goal: to expose newcomers to philately and topical collecting.
I love typewriters, and I love topical collecting. You are sure to enjoy topical collecting, too.
Getting back to those fun stamps you’ve been saving, it’s time to start building your topical collection. Join a study unit of philatelists who share an interest in your topic. Pick up an ATA checklist to begin your stamp search. And then, be ready for surprises. Your topical adventure is about to begin!
Resources
American Topical Association. “What is Topical Stamp Collecting?” Accessed December 1, 2022. https://americantopical.org/About-Topical-Collecting.
Casillo, Anthony. Typewriters: Iconic Machines from the Golden Age of Mechanical Writing. (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2017).
Congrove, Jack R., Hamman, Dawn R., and Miller, Martin Kent, eds. Topical Adventures: A Guide to Topical and Thematic Stamp Collecting. (Greer, South Carolina: American Topical Association, 2020).
Gray, Jack. What’s First? From Abacus to Zebra: The First Time Topics are Depicted on Postage Stamps. Edited by Jack Andre Denys and John Hamman. (Carterville, Illinois: American Topical Association, 2018).
Howell, Joel D. Technology in the Hospital: Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Century. (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
The Story of the Typewriter, 1873-1923. (Herkimer, New York: Herkimer County Historical Society, 1923).
Zulueta, Francisco M. and Nebres, Abriel M. Philippine History and Government Through the Years. (Mandaluyong City, Philippines: National Book Store, 2006).
Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue (Sidney, Ohio: Amos Media Inc.)
The Author
Dr. Michele Bresso started collecting stamps at age 9. She collects countries (U.S. and Pitcairn Islands) as well as many topics. Bresso is a member of the American Topical Association Board of Directors, and is a director in the Knoxville Philatelic Society, her home stamp club. She is also a member of the American Philatelic Society, the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors, the American First Day Cover Society, the Graphics Philately Association, the Cats on Stamps Study Unit, and the British Thematic Association. She writes a regular column on thematic exhibiting for Women Exhibitors and has authored articles in many philatelic publications.