History of Stamp Collectors

Short after the issue of the first stamps the first collectors of stamps were found. First, most people laughed at these collectors. But soon they became more and more. The first collectors collected stamps of the whole world because there were not so much issues at the beginning. These stamps were stored in the most different ways. There were collectors who collected their stamps on a string or affixed their stamps on a wallpaper. This was not a good way collecting stamps. Therefore the first stamp books appeared. The stamps were glued with paste into the books. This was also not a good treatment for the stamps. The stamps finally could be handled with more care with the invention of the hinge 1889.

The first association for stamp collectors was founded 1856 in the USA: The "Omnibusclub". There were not only collectors of stamps but also collectors of bugs and so on. The first pure stamp association was the 1866 in the USA founded "Stamp Association".
The first german stamp association was 1869 founded in Heidelberg: "Süddeutsche Philatelistenverein".

"The Monthly Advertiser" was the first stamp magazine. It appeared for the first time 12/15/1862 in Liverpool


Famous Collectors and their Collections

• Dr. John Edward Gray claimed to be the first collector of stamps.

• We can find a lot of famous collections at royalties. The english royalty has the most famous collection with very much world rarities especially from Great Britain and its colonies.

• The collections of King Faruk of Egypt, of Czar Nikolaus III of Russia, King Carol of Romania were also well known.

The collection of Philipp la Renotière of Ferrary was the most famous private stamp collection.

• Ferrary started as a kid to collect stamps. His large property helped him to buy the most valuable stamps. A lot of dealers worked only for him and bought expensive stamps and collections all over the world. Ferrary lived in Paris before World War I. He thought to be a German. Therefore he had to flee to Switzerland when World War I started. France confiscated his collection. Ferrary died 1917.

• France auctioned his collection 1921. France got 6.000.000 Goldmarks for the collection. So this unique collection with the most seldom world rarities doesn't exist anymore.

Source
http://sammler.com/stamps/