Find as much material about the subject as you can. A topical collection can include old and new stamps from many countries. It need not contain every stamp issued on the topic in order to be complete. An unusual and interesting collection can be put together without a lot of expense.

The choice of topic is almost endless. There have been stamps issued for every imaginable subject. The topic of birds has well over 8,000 stamps from which to pick. Mammals, with more than 5,000; ships with over 11,000, and railroads with over 7,000 and you can imagine how easy it is to construct a topical collection. One collector picked a smaller topic, baldheaded men, and put together a real "fun" collection.

Choose a topic in which you are interested. You will quickly find there is much material available. This will cause you to narrow your topical collection. If, for example, you choose sports, you will probably narrow down to one or perhaps two sports.

Topical collecting brings more challenge than country collecting because you will need to seek out your subject from the catalogs. You will also need to find out about your topic in order to make your collection more interesting. Checklists are available for many subjects, and will make your search less tedious and time consuming. Try to tell a story with your collection that will be interesting to other people