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The question of what is the most interesting area of philately to specialize in was a hot topic among philatelic writers before 1950. Collectors then had, for the most part, a broader based knowledge of their hobby than do collectors today. This was for two main reasons. First, there were far fewer stamps that had […]

As the number of distinct collectible stamp varieties passes a million and moves quickly toward two, the importance of catalog values has changed. There is nowhere near enough collectors with enough interest, time, and money to absorb all the newer stamps that come to market, let alone the enormous quantities of older material that is

Most of the pre-1940 listings for most counties in the Scott catalog contain many varieties. The “a” and “b” numbers are legion, listing subtleties of shade and perforation. After 1940, variety listings are seldom found. Most collectors think this is because advances in printing technology made for fewer varieties of more modern stamps. But this

The 1930 edition of the Scott catalog listed all the stamps of the world in one 1,700 page, 4×6, two column volume (today is six large volumes). Prices were interesting. The mint ten cent type IV of the 1857 US issue (Scott #34 mint) cataloged just $300. Today we know that there are fewer than

In baseball, small ball refers to the concept of scoring runs without big hits. All hitters are streaky, going hot and cold and though everybody loves to see home runs, what separates great teams from good teams is the ability to score runs with few or even no hits. In the 1960’s there was something

Regular readers of this column know that one of my pet philatelic peeves is that the Scott catalog listings of United States stamps is unnecessarily complex, and that that complexity makes our hobby less popular than it could be. To have made the types of the one cent 1851 separate major catalog numbers is silly.

Advertising is so pervasive in American society that it’s hard to realize that we are one of the few first world countries that never used them in philatelic issues for private advertisements. Advertising on stamps was first used by New Zealand in the late nineteenth century. Their “back prints” were government sold advertising printed on

We are offering a collection described as follows:   COLONIAL PHILATELY Most really comprehensive, worldwide collections are very strong in traditional philatelic areas, and this wonderful collection of many tens of thousands of stamps, housed in 11 clean and neat Master Global albums, is no exception. Germany, Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Latin America are all

Italian history is relatively little known in the U.S. Most of us have heard of Napoleon and Bismarck, Lenin and D’Israeli, but few know of Italy’s Victor Emmanuel II or Umberto and the fight to unify Italy.   As the western Roman Empire crumbled in the late fifth century, Italy became a series of principalities,