books on philately

Authors : Balchand and Jaya Pai 
Publishers : Children's Book Trust, New Delhi, India 
Cost : Rs. 20 
Year : Reprinted 1999 
ISBN 81-7011-810-7 

Smt Jaya Pai has given a brief introduction on how she started her stamp collection. She takes you from there to the variety in the Indian Stamps. The book is colourful and presents a picture of India's heritage through her postage stamps. This book is a dedication to the Indian Nation on the Golden Anniversary of its Independence. 

Author : SP Chatterjea 
Publishers : NCERT, New Delhi, India 
Cost : Rs. 26, 50p  
Year : Printed 1990 

Shri Chatterjea, a philatelist of international repute presents this hobby to the children in colour. This colourful book narrates the story of stamp, Indian postal history, how to collect, errors in stamps and some rare stamps. An excellent book if you can get hold of a copy. Most of the material on this web site is from this book. 
 

Author : Mathew Varki 
Publishers : Children's Book Trust, New Delhi, India 
Cost : Rs. 45  
Year : Printed 1996 
ISBN 81-7011-769-0 

A very good book for the beginner. This book is available in the market. The book has all that the book "Philately" has. An interesting addition is a World Identifier. The term means that some stamps have say BELIQUE written on them. The world identifier says that the stamp is from  Belgium. Tips for exhibiting a stamp collection is also a good addition. One can say a "must have" for a beginner.

Author : D Chakravarthy 
Publishers : D Chakravarthy, 1-C Gayathri Apartments, 302 James Long Sarani, PO Jokha,  
WB 743512, India 

This book gives a brief description of all the stamps released in India till date. Black and White pictures of the stamps are given for reference. A very good reference book for a collector of Indian Stamps. Material for these pages have been taken from this book.

Author : Manik Jain 
Publishers :  Philatelia, Calcutta, India 
Cost : Rs. 250  
Email : [email protected]  

A colourful catalogue of Indian stamps. The market values of the stamps is also provided. The catalogue covers Postal history, Indian Essays, Pre-independence and post independence issues. Definitely worth the money for a serious collector of Indian Stamps.

A beginners guide to stamp collecting is colourful 96 page book which has everything for the first time collector. The book is good starting point for any child or an adult beginner. 

A Focus on Stamps is another colourful 76 page book with lots of colour pictures to catch the eye. It covers stamp collecting in general and has chapters on how stamps are made, forgeries and fakes and  mistakes. The postal history  is beautifully presented through stamps.