On this site you can find lots of stamps that have been posted here because we or some of our cyberfriends did not know the full story behind them.
Initially, the aim was to post stamps here with an unknown origin. But over time, stamps have appeared whose origin is obvious, but do not seem to be listed in one of the standard catalogues such as Yvert et Tellier, Michel, Scott or Stanley Gibbons.
Still, we would like to avoid posting stamps with questions such as "How much is this worth" -- that is not the aim of the page.
Both of us are collectors of as many entries (as we call them) as possible -- we enjoy our happy moments when we finally find that stamp from that silly little village occupied by that ugly neighbouring country, with three overprints and an upside down watermark not to be found in any catalogue. Value is irrelevant to us -- neither of us spends more for a stamp than maybe a (small) beer's worth.
Fortunately, we have had many clues to our questions in the months that this site has been up, and therefore the solution rate is quite high.

We invite everyone to send us their scans of their mysteries: there's a good chance that soon you will receive an answer. And, of course, you are most welcome to help us in identifying our mysteries. Thanks a lot to all of you!!!

To decrease the download time for the page, we have decided to split it up into separate pages: each page has a total of ten questions. Although many of the older questions have already been answered, still some of them require more information. Check them all!

We would like to thank:

• the nice people at the "American Philatelist" magazine for having mentioned our site in their January 1999 issue and then again in their September 1999 issue;
• the nice people at "Jornal de Filatelia" in Portugal for having published in their March 1999 issue a long interview about our experience as webmasters of this site;
• the nice people at the italian philatelic magazine Cronaca Filatelica for the fantastic article about this site in their July 1999 issue.
• we heard that also in Finland a magazine wrote about this site, we don't know which magazine was it and when, thanks anyway. If you know something more about it, please let us know.
• A BIG THANK TO ALL OF YOU WHO READ THESE PAGES, CONTRIBUTED TO THE SITE EITHER WITH COMMENTS OR SENDING IMAGES OR SIMPLY THANKED US FOR HAVING BUILT THIS SITE.

  THIS SITE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU!

...these are Collestamps.about.com's words, not ours... and it's all thank to all of you who over the years contributed to this site's growth. Thanks a lot folks!!!