Collecting Olympic Stamps

Published

Mar 06, 2014 Europe/London

When you want to put a different spin into your stamp collection, start focusing on Olympics stamps. As the name suggests, these are the stamps that were inspired by the Olympic spirit.

A Brief Background of the Olympics and Olympic Stamps

The modern Olympics started in 1896 and to commemorate the event, the Greek Post Office released a set of classical stamps. This was later duplicated in time for the 10th Anniversary games that was hosted in Athens. These types of stamps reappeared once again in 1920. There were also some stamps that were released in 1948. But the deluge of stamps happened in time for the Melbourne Olympics. During the 1980s, a huge number of stamps were made thanks in part to Juan Antonio Samaranch, a stamp collector and President of the International Olympic Committee. Samaranch decided to offer a part of his stamp collection to Olympic Museum located in Lausanne and he was also the one who inaugurated the Olymphilex 1985, also in Lausanne. These steps helped popularize the stamps and the organization made the necessary efforts to control the inflow of stamps in the market.
Stamps hosted in different Olympics tend to vary, and the stamps will often reflect the country hosting the games. For example, when Mexico hosted the games, it decided to show Aztec history. Australia took a different approach though with Kylie Minogue performing in the ceremonies!

What to Expect from Olympics Stamps

When you want to start a thematic collection of the Olympic games, keep in mind that you can always get inspiration from the temporary post offices that are set-up in Olympic venues. Usually, the information is not released to the philately community so it is up to you to discover what is up for grabs.
You can also get stamps from the postcards and mails sent by participants and guests of the games. Most enthusiasts will focus their stamp collection on a particular sport, and there are some who put a focus on the history behind the games. For the London 2012 Olympics, the development of stamps for issue also focused on candidate cities like Moscow, Madrid, London, Paris and New York. Participating countries also produce stamps that commemorate their participation and successes in the games.
If you want to start your own collection, it is best that you join organizations like the Sports Philatelists International based in the US, the UICOS of Italy and the IMOS of Germany. Collecting stamps inspired by the Olympics is a great hobby where you learn about history and meet athletes and fellow enthusiasts.