If you told me you were a “Philatelist” a month ago, I’d think you were a member of some political party I’ve never heard of. Now, since playing Stamp Swap, I’d be asking you what your favorite stamps in your collection are and if I can see them sometime. 

Short, sweet, and to the point, Stamp Swap, designed by Paul Saloman, published by Stonemaier Games, and art by Conner Gillette, is the latest board game about stamp collecting during a stamp convention. I had the honor and pleasure of playing this game both in its prototype phase and in its final form a few weeks before release, and I’m very much looking forward to bringing it to the table again.

Gameplay

Stamp Swap is an “I cut, you choose” tile-placement game where you draft stamps from a public pot and then place them on your board to score points. The game is divided into 3 rounds, each with 3 phases: Collect Phase, Swap Phase, and Show Phase.

During the Collect Phase, everyone takes turns taking 1 item from the public pool until they have six items. In the Swap Phase, you divide what you have taken into 2 separate personal piles, then everyone takes turns picking which opponent’s personal pile to take and wait for someone to take one of yours so you can keep your untaken personal pile. Finally in the Show Phase, you place your stamps in your stamp book then select which Contest (scoring objective) you want to attend for that round to score points based on your stamp collection and placement. At the end of the 3 rounds, there’s a Final Show objective that everyone scores, then the person with the most points wins. 

I won’t go into too much rules details since the rulebook is available online, but there are other intricacies like special rules that govern the round and dictate what’s in the pot, or your individual Specialist and Exhibitor that give you more even points or special actions.However, the above is pretty much the main mechanics of the game. 

Gameplay is simple and elegant. I absolutely loved that the teach is so fast and easy, you will get to playing very quickly. On top of that, the game itself is very fast. Since a half of the game is simultaneous play the game moves quick, even at the max player count of 5. Our average game time with 4-5 players was about 45 minutes and about an hour when including the teach but not including setup. With two players, we finished in about 30 minutes including teach and setup. Setup and put-away time is also super fast, thanks to the awesome insert included, but I’ll talk more on that in the Components section.

My favorite part about the drafting portion of the game is that you aren’t just drafting stamps, but the Exhibitor cards, Specialist cards, and first player token as well. This makes cutting your personal piles very interesting, especially when there’s a revealed Rare Stamp on the line. Some stamps appear in the pool face down, but the taker is free to look once they add it to their collection. took. There are Canceled Stamps and Faded Stamps as well, worth 0 or negative points respectively, which can be taken and used to try and bait out opponents in taking a certain pile. You can already see how strategy can be formed here. 

The flow of drafting, cutting, then placement makes for interesting pacing. There’s this feel of curiosity you get when picking and seeing what other people pick and how you want to score, then excitement/healthy anxiety you get during the person pile cutting and selection portion, that goes into a cozy-game feel of your stamp placement. 

The only difficult portions our group found was determining a group and a set, and what to do with the unchosen cards in the public pool. We didn’t find anywhere in the rules that said to discard the unchosen items in the public pool, so at first we thought the public pool continued to grow bigger and bigger, but that didn’t feel right. Luckily, I contacted the designer directly, who promptly responded and said to discard them. Determining groups and sets, especially when it came to the Show Phase, was a bit confusing during the first plays. We frequently had to consult the rulebook on how to score certain Contests.

Art 

Stonemaier Games never misses with their game’s art, and with a game where putting stamps in your book is the main game, it was hard to miss here. Conner Gillette did fantastic work on Stamp Swap. Every stamp is gorgeous. Upon punching the game, I took about 10 minutes just sifting through the stamps admiring the different animals, monuments, and other types of stamps included. And talk about those Rare Stamps, which are gold foil stamps that resemble chocolate.

Finally we saw a Rare Stamp that was a heart, which solidified they were chocolates. I believe the term “I’ll take the golden poop” was uttered during a drafting phase. 

The iconography was clear. There are only a few needed to know to play optimally, like Canceled Stamp, Color, Theme, and Points. Actually, I think those are the only icons in the game. 

Shoutout to the St. Louis Arch stamp. 

Components

The components of the game are high quality and fantastic, but that’s pretty much the Stonemaier M.O. Everything fits in the box nicely and neatly without fear of damage due to the insert. I love that the insert has the indent of what type of stamp goes in each compartment, makes setup and put-away a breeze. 

Each stamp is firm and nice to hold, but the Rare stamps are the real eye catcher. The gold foil on the stamps are wildly cool and really pop both on your personal board and during the drafting portions of the game. 

Final Thoughts

After 10 plays, I’m looking forward to playing it again. This is a fun, quick, easy to learn and teach game with a lot of charm, making this a great gateway game for new board gamers. It’s time-to-play sits in an interesting place. For 2 players, it would make for a good opener or closer game if you were doing other shorter games. A larger game group might have this in the lineup of other shorter games, but it’s probably not a main course. But I guess you can use the extra time to visit your local stamp shop and start a collection. 

Stamp Swap launches and ships on September 4, 2024.

Play if you like:
Short game times
Simultaneous Play
Quick to grasp rules

Just don’t expect: 
A “main course” game
Story based/campaign gameplay
To lick any of the stamps

Keeping in Collection: Yes!
Rating: 8.1/10