Navigation Tips

If This Is Your First Visit:

I have built a series of dedicated landing pages containing links to all of the pages on the site, in addition to the navigation menus in the page header. These pages keep the pages organized and explain what is contained on each page. They follow a logical order, and help guide you through the site. After you have finished looking at the pages that cover the main topics contained in the page, and are ready to move on, you will see a series of links to other areas of the website. These will take you straight to that page, so that you can move seamlessly and fluidly through the site.

As you gain familiarity with the pages on the site, you will probably find the header navigation menus to be faster to find what you are looking for. However, both options are available to you at all times.

Searching For Stamps

I have designed this website to allow you to browse for your stamps with maximum flexibility. But, if you are new to the site, it will be useful for you to become acquainted with the way in which I have organized the material, and how you can find what you are looking for.

There are two primary ways for you to locate the stamps you are looking for:

  1. The search bar.
  2. The collections located under "Browse Stamps".

The search function on the site is intelligent, and is called a live search function. It will scan my item titles and descriptions for whatever keywords you have typed into the search. So, this is ideal if you are looking for a specific stamp. It will also return titles of blog posts and pages, so it is good if you are looking for literature on a specific topic. However, I must point out that a significant portion of my stock is not yet listed on the site, namely most issues released between 1935 and 1952, as well as those from 1973 to date. If you are looking for Canadian stamps from those periods, I very likely can help you, if you contact me to let me know what you are looking for. You can find an e-mail form on the "Contact Us" page, or can contact me through Facebook Messenger, by clicking the light blue link at the bottom right of any screen you are on.

Also, please note that my stamps are referenced by both Stanley Gibbons as well as Scott or Unitrade numbers. Generally Gibbons numbers are usually 100-200 higher than the equivalent Scott/Unitrade number, except for one single stamp in the 1990's where they converge, before diverging again on subsequent issues. Please note that for any search beginning with "Canada #xxx", the search engine will return results for both the Gibbons number and the Scott/Unitrade number.

However, if you want to browse from a group of stamps, it is best to go to the collections.

The collections have been organized into different groups as follows:

  1. By time period.
  2. By Grade.
  3. Specialized groups.
  4. Specialized varieties.
  5. By topic.

Each of these collections can be further filtered, by checking one or more of the check boxes located in the sidebar, where the item tags are located. Tags are simply a descriptor associated with items that allow them to be assigned to the collections. So, the issue name, topic, paper types, grade, and item type are examples of tags. Generally you will notice that in most collections there will be two types of tags: (1) time period and issue tags and (2) topical tags. The collection will display on the left hand side of the screen, a full list of tags for all the items that are displayed with that collection, giving you some clue as to what is included in the collection. At the present time the tags only display in English, but I am working with the developer of the translation application to get them all translated into each language.

Because of this, there is more than one way to browse for the same stamps:

  1. Back of the book material will be found in both the back of the book collection, some of the topical collections, the plate blocks and the collections for the individual time periods.
  2. So, if you are looking for back of the book material from a particular time period, it is probably best to go to the collection for that time period, and filter using the sidebar. But, you could also go to the back of the book collection and filter there as well.
  3. If you only collect back of the book and want to look at all of it, for all issues and want to see singles, plate blocks, covers etc., then the back of the book collection is your best bet.

I have set up collections for covers, booklet panes, booklets, coil stamps, precancels, proofs and plate blocks for collectors who want to focus on that material.

There are also separate collections for top grade mint stamps, VFNH stamps, varieties, re-entries, covers, first day covers and specialized paper and tagging varieties.

In addition to filtering, you can also sort the search results to display in a particular way. You can also select the number of items you want to see per page as either 24, 36 or 48 items, by clicking the number. Finally, you can toggle between grid view, which shows the results in a square grid, or list view, which shows one item per line, which will show more of the description. These options are all located just above the search results. By default, the collections sort by "best selling", show 24 items per page and show items in grid view.

The options available for filtering the collections are:

  1. Featured, which I will seldom use.
  2. Price: low to high and high to low.
  3. Alphabetic, from A-Z and Z-A.
  4. Oldest to newest and newest to oldest.
  5. Best selling, which is the default.

Alphabetic is your best bet when you want to keep the listings for a particular issue together. Oldest to newest and newest to oldest are based on when I listed the items, so they are good if you want to check out my new listings only.

Another Tip: Hovering your cursor over the picture for a listing will switch the picture to the back, so you can get a look at it before you decide whether it is worth clicking on the detailed listing. When you take your cursor off the listing, the image will revert to the front of the stamp.