Stamp Finder Main Page

Welcome to the Stamp Encyclopedia Stamp Finder. It is intended to help you systematically identify the country of a postage stamp or its service type. What you have may not be for postage after all. Still, some such stamps or labels often found in collections are or will be included.

The idea is that you will read a small bit of the inscription to figure out where it comes from or how it was used. Examples are given, but what you will find may not be the exact stamp or value you are trying to identify. The inscription is the key thing and the images are included for that purpose. If you need to pin down the stamp further, you can use the Stampworld site or use a printed or electronic worldwide stamp catalog: Michel, Scott, Stanley Gibbons.

So, let's start: First: what is the alphabet used on the stamp?

• There are no letters that seem to indicate a country
Click on the appropriate button. Does it show:

a person?:     a numeral/numerals?:      an animal, real or not?:      something else?:

• There is an overprinted image with no other text in it
Click here:

• There is only a surcharged new value, or a number suspected to be a value
Most of the time, these will be from the same country as shown on the basic stamp. Be aware that if the value is preceded by a + sign or a red cross, it is simply a semipostal of the country inscribed on the stamp. This will take you to a list where the country has definitely been changed. Click here:

• The letters are all in the Latin alphabet, in the characters shown below
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Click here:

• It's partly in the Latin alphabet
If you see any characters you don't recognize in the list above, for example: АРЕСПЧБЛИКА АԤСНЫ • Република Молдовеняскэ Нистрянэ • ΑΥΤΟΝΟΜΟΣ ΗΠΕΙΡΟΣ •

Click here:

• It's in Chinese characters only
Examples: •  •

Click here:

• It's in Arabic/Persian/Arabic-style script only
Examples: • •

Click here:

• It's in Hindi/Devanagari script only
Examples: •

Click here:

• It's in something else altogether:
Click here:

• WTF is this??!!:
If you have the country identified and still can't find the stamp in a catalog, this can help. Be aware that you might not have a postage stamp.

Click here: