HipStamp was built from the ground up for stamp collectors, and that includes our proprietary search engine, which understands how stamp collectors browse and search. With that in mind, you'll find that most of your searches will work automatically and intuitively, to help you find the exact stamps you're looking for!

Interested in learning more, and/or knowing a few tips and tricks? Read on!

Searching for Items (the Search Bar)

At the top of any page on HipStamp, you'll find a search bar where you can "Search Items from All Sellers..." Here, you'll be able to search for keywords found within item listings, but there's also quite a bit of magic we've built in for stamp collectors.

Searching by Country & Catalog Number

If you're looking to search by Country & Catalog Number, you can do this directly from the Search Bar. Just enter in the Country followed by the Catalog Number. For example: United States #230

Once you've entered a Country & Catalog Number into the Search Bar our proprietary search engine will automatically detect that you're searching for a Country & Catalog Number, and provide you with the most relevant results. These results will be based upon the Country and Catalog Number fields set on each item listing on HipStamp. Additionally, don't worry if you enter in "United States", "US" or "U.S.A" - you'll see the same results.

By default, Country & Catalog Number searches will match against the Scott Catalog. However, you can easily search for different catalog numbers by prepending the Catalog initials directly before the Catalog Number. For example: Great Britain SG2

Searching for Multiple Country & Catalog Numbers

In addition to searching for a specific Country & Catalog Number, you can also search for multiple numbers separate by commas, and ranges separated by dashes, or a combination thereof. For example: United States #230,232,241-245

"OR" Searches

When searching by keyword, you can place the operator "OR" between any two keywords, to show results which match either. For example: First Day Cover Lincoln OR Washington

Wildcard Searches

When searching by keyword, you can match all words that start with a specific set of characters by prepending those characters with a star symbol. For example: British doc*

Note that our proprietary search engine will automatically return the same results for nurse, nurses, nursed, nursing, etc. if you just search for "nurse" so there's no additional need to use a wildcard search in such cases.

Negative Searches

When searching by keyword, you can exclude certain words by placing a minus sign directly in front of the word. For example, you can add -George to your search to exclude all items which include George in the title.

Selecting a Main Category

Once you've started a search, the next action is to filter by a main category. This is an important step because once you filter by a main category, you'll see a large number of additional filters that you can use to narrow down your search further.

Filtering Your Results

Once you've selected a main category, you can generally narrow down your results further, by the following options:

Condition

Centering

Stamp Format

Has a Certificate

Certificate Grade

Year of Issue

The following additional options are also available, regardless of if you've selected a main category:

Price

Show Only

Seller/Item Location

Ships to

Sorting Your Results

From the "Sort By" drop-down menu at the top of any search results, you'll be able to change the order of the results that you see, including based on Country & Catalog Number!