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Collecting Costa Rica

If this is the first time you have heard of The Society for Costa Rica Collectors, welcome to our website! SOCORICO is here to help you enjoy collecting the stamps of Costa Rica in every way we can. If you examine the rest of our site you will see that we offer a special catalog just for Costa Rica stamps, a newsletter with information on Costa Rica collecting, and even a free set of album pages to house your collection! In addition, we often have auctions of hard-to-find Costa Rica material and sell several books covering particular areas of Costa Rica collecting. We hope you will find Costa Rica collecting interesting enough to become a member!

If you are just visiting this site out of curiosity, you may wonder why you might enjoy collecting the stamps of Costa Rica. Although everyone has their own reasons for collecting whatever area they choose, here are eight reasons you might want to collect the stamps of Costa Rica:

  1. Costa Rica stamps illustrate an interesting philatelic history. Right from its first issue in 1863, the stamps of Costa Rica include interesting overprints, strange issues, telegraph stamps used as postage stamps, separate issues for a remote province, and a variety of bogus issues produced by both local and international scoundrels.

  2. Costa Rica follows a conservative stamp issuing policy. You won't have to collect five thousand stamps to get a complete collection! And Costa Rica doesn't issue "special imperforate sheets", limited-edition proofs, or other philatelic garbage made solely to get collectors' money. Sorry, no Elvis stamps or faces on Mars, either.

  3. The stamps of Costa Rica are affordable. Almost all our stamps are less than a few dollars and hundreds are only a few cents apiece -- take a look at the catalog. Yes, there are a few rarities that cost hundreds, but you can assemble a near- complete collection without ruining your budget.

  4. You won't have to buy an album to house your Costa Rica stamps. Elsewhere on this website you will see how you can download and print an album for your collection that contains spaces for every stamp issued by Costa Rica -- not for every minor variety or color shade, but all the major listing you will find in any catalog. Just print out the pages and put them in a three-ring binder!

  5. Modern Cost Rica stamps are topically interesting. Costa Rica has a rich cultural heritage and a diversity of wildlife found in few other places. Costa Rica stamps illustrate these many topics.

  6. Are you an advanced collector? Costa Rica has great opportunities for specialized research. We've published research in our newsletter for over 140 issues, and there are still questions to be answered.

  7. Costa Rica philatelic information is accessible. Our specialized catalog, our newsletter, and other specialized publications are all available in English. All are moderately priced, and many of the early newsletter issues are available on CD! And if you read Spanish there are a variety of Spanish-language publications as well!

  8. Costa Rica is great for collectors of postal history. You can get (at remarkably modest cost) items representing every era from pre-stamp covers of the Spanish era, the first issue, railroad covers, and even early airmail experiments.

Costa Rica collecting is enjoyable and affordable. Join us!

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