Integrating skills
Reading Collecting Stamps and Coins
Starting a stamp collection is easy and not very expensive. Before you start, you need to decide what kind of stamps you want to collect. Most people collect stamps that have something to do with what they are interested in: a certain country, a type of animal, a famous person or even a sport. Whatever you choose, you will find that there is a world of knowledge in stamps: you will learn about people, geography, architecture, history and culture.

Once you know what you want to collect, there are a few things you need. First of all, you need stamps, of course. Luckily, it is easy to get hold of them. You can collect stamps that come to you in the mail, ask your friends to let you have their old stamps, or you can buy used stamps. When you get a letter with a stamp on it, carefully cut out the stamp. Leave lots of room around the stamp so that you will not damage it. Put the stamp in water and wait until the water has dissolved the glue so that you can safely remove the stamp. Carefully lift the stamp off the paper and place it on a clean sheet of paper to dry. A stamp can get wrinkled and ugly when it dries, so place the wet stamp between two clean sheets of paper and put some books on top.

You do not need much equipment to collect stamps, but it is necessary to have a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass. The tweezers will help you to handle stamps and the magnifying glass helps you see details and discover tiny faults. It is also important to have a good album to put the stamps in.

For most collectors, the joy of collecting and learning about the items is the most important, but collections can become worth a lot of money. A collection becomes valuable if it is complete, that is, if it includes all the items in a series, or if it contains rare items. Stamps can also become valuable if there is something wrong with them. A Swedish stamp, issued in 1855, was printed on yellow paper instead of the green paper that should have been used. As a result, a stamp that had only cost a few pennies became worth millions of dollars. The only existing copy of the stamp was found by a young boy looking through his grandfather's collection. The stamp was sold to a collector in 1996 for $2.3 million!

Collecting coins is not quite as easy as collecting stamps, but beginners can start by going through the change in their pockets, that is, collect coins which are in circulation. Someone who wants to start a collection can also contact a club for coin collectors or ask a relative or a friend who collects coins. Experienced collectors usually have more than one coin of a certain kind and will not mind sharing the extra ones. They can also provide helpful advice about where to buy old or rare coins. Most collectors begin by collecting coins from their own country. A collection can be built around any theme, but coin collectors often arrange their collections based on where and when the coin was made.

As with stamps, you do not need a lot of special tools or equipment. You do need a safe place to store the coins. There are inexpensive albums that will protect your coins while still allowing you and your friends to enjoy them. You can hold the coins with your bare hands, but you should wear gloves if it is a valuable coin. Never touch the face or back of a coin. The dirt on your fingers will destroy the surface of the coin. Nor should you ever clean an old coin -- if you do, the coin will lose its value. You can clean ordinary coins if you wish: copper coins can be cleaned with vegetable oil and silver coins with common soap. After cleaning the coins, wipe them with a clean cloth. Never use any strong or dangerous chemicals.

Perhaps the most valuable coin in the world is the 1933 "Double Eagle". The coin was first issued in 1850 and was made of gold from California. The coin was changed in 1907 and was used until 1933, when the American government decided to take the country off the gold standard. People were no longer allowed to own the coin, and all the coins were brought back to the bank, where all but two were destroyed. The two coins that were left were kept in a museum. Some coins were stolen, but all of them were found by the police -- except for one! The last "Double Eagle" remained missing until 1996, when police officers managed to get the coin back in a secret operation. The government allowed the coin to be privately owned and it was sold to a collector for 7.5 million dollars.
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