Philatelic Covers of Sweden Online

One area of stamp collecting that I have followed is to collect envelopes with stamps attached that have been sent through the mail. This is called cover collecting since a collector collects the entire envelope or cover of the envelope. A philatelist is another name for a stamp collector. Hence the title of Philatelic Cover Collecting. There are several specific divisions of this sort of collecting.

There is First Day cover collecting category where a collector tries to get an example of each stamp on an envelope and cancelled the first day that stamp was made available by the post office. Th is is a large area of interest for many collectors. Here are examples of a few of these from my collection:

Another area of collecting is event cover or commemorative cover collecting. This sort of item has on the envelope some art work, a stamp which is usually related, and a post office cancel which ties or joins the stamp to the cover. Many of these covers are quite interesting and very informative. Here are examples of a few from my collection:

Commercial covers are my favorite. They are envelopes with stamps on them that are interesting and have seen postal use. Often these covers have higher value stamps which are harder to find. These higher fees pay for special delivery, airmail, priority mail, express delivery, or registry. There are collectors who seek each of these subcategories. Here are a few samples from my collection:

Then there are advertising covers. These envelopes have a commercial message written on them to advertise a product. These covers are highly desired. I don't have very many just because they are harder to find and thus more valuable. Here are a few samples not from my collection:

Airmail covers are quite collectable. I like airmail covers from Switzerland. I do not have many. They are not extremely valuable but some can be five dollars each or even more for the more difficult to locate. One subcategory is the Zeppelin Covers. That would be an envelope which were flown on the German Zeppelin balloon. I certainly do not have any of these since they are quite valuable and beyond my collecting budget. But I do have a few images of these covers to share with you not from my collection:

Stampless covers are also an interest of mine. Stampless because there is no stamp to show that a fee was paid to send them. Rather, an ink notation was made to show that the amount was paid. These are folded pieces of paper which have been sent through the mail with no stamp. They were often sent before stamps were available. Here is a short representative image of a few from my collection:

The category of foreign covers is perhaps my favorite. I like to imagine that each item started some where far away and then ended in my collection after traveling across the world. A collecting interest of mine is to gather a collection together of covers from as many countries as possible. These covers usually cost a dollar each so it is quite affordable. Here are some samples: