Notes on Early Stamp Collecting

«Women, it seems, were the earliest stamp collectors, using them to decorate walls, ceilings and furniture. In 1842 Punch magazine quipped that ladies of England 'betray more anxiety to treasure up Queens's Head than King Henry VIII did to get rid of them'.

[...]

By 1860 people of all ages, ranks and genders were to be found exchanging stamps, albums in hand, down Birchin Lane near London Bridge. The barterers of Birchin Lane attracted police attention. Surely such a peculiar mix of people swapping worthless scraps of paper down a back alley suggested involvement in something spurious or, at the very least, was evidence of alarming signs of mania?

[...]

Finding timbromanie a somewhat pejorative term, George Herpin, a French collector, coined the word 'philately' around 1862. Herpin put two Greek words together (philos + atelia) which combined meant a love of not being taxed, a reference to the innovation of pre-payment.

[...]

The first stamp catalogue appeared in France in 1861 −Alfred Potiquet's Catalogue des Timbres-Poste Crées dans les Divers États du Globe, listing about 1,080 stamps.»

Helen Morgan, Blue Mauritius: The Hunt for the World's Most Valuable Stamps