section_path: Modern mail/Collecting
section_name: Collecting
paragraph_text: Collecting
  
  Postage stamps are also object of a particular form of collecting. Stamp collecting has been a very popular hobby. In some cases, when demand greatly exceeds supply, their commercial value on this specific market may become enormously greater than face value, even after use. For some postal services the sale of stamps to collectors who will never use them is a significant source of revenue; for example, stamps from Tokelau, South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands, Tristan da Cunha, Niuafoʻou and many others. Stamp collecting is commonly known as philately, although strictly the latter term refers to the study of stamps.
  
  Another form of collecting regards postcards, a document written on a single robust sheet of paper, usually decorated with photographic pictures or artistic drawings on one of the sides, and short messages on a small part of the other side, that also contained the space for the address. In strict philatelic usage, the postcard is to be distinguished from the postal card, which has a pre-printed postage on the card. The fact that this communication is visible by other than the receiver often causes the messages to be written in jargon.
  
  Letters are often studied as an example of literature, and also in biography in the case of a famous person. A portion of the New Testament of the Bible is composed of the Apostle Paul 's epistles to Christian congregations in various parts of the Roman Empire. See below for a list of famous letters.
  
  A style of writing, called epistolary, tells a fictional story in the form of the correspondence between two or more characters.
  
  A makeshift mail method after stranding on a deserted island is a message in a bottle.