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The first stamp dealing Apfelbaum was Maurice Apfelbaum, who listed his occupation in the 1910 US census as “Stamp Dealer.” He began dealing when his son Earl was only four years old, and by the time Earl was ten, he had begun collecting stamps and was going around to dealer shops and bourses with his […]

Paper seems very much the same to non-collectors, and certainly, in the modern period, collectors have had to pay very little attention to issues caused by paper. The United States printed its first stamps on a very hard, thin paper and continued using harder, thinner paper until about 1890. After 1890, the American Bank Note

Great Britain issued the world’s first stamp, the Penny Black and GB stamps have always been among the world’s favorites. There are many rare Pound value early stamps and many watermark and plate variety rarities. But the rarest regularly issued Great Britain stamp is the two shilling brown of the 1880 issue  (Scott #56).  

German stamps have always been among the most popular of collecting specialties. The German Area is vast philatelically and has typically been broken down into sub-specialties. Few collectors, especially native Germans, attempt it all. The philatelic breakdown is as follows: pre-German Confederation-States collecting, 1870-1930 Empire, and Weimar Republic, 1930-45 Third Reich, and post 1945 Bundes

Originally, all philatelic expertization was done by individuals, who expertized stamps and covers in their own name usually as part of the professional service of selling them. The most famous three European experts of the nineteenth century- Gebruder Senf(the Senf brothers), and Kohler in Germany, and Thier in France were all merchant experts, who signed

Thirty years ago I wrote a book with David Lidman who was the stamp columnist of the New York Times. The book was called The World of Stamps and Stamp Collecting and it was published by Charles Scribners, Sons. The book was well received and we have now posted it on our website so that

Before he was overthrown and killed, Col Ghadafi of Libya kept something like $12 billion in currency in his bank.Apparently, Ghadafi is smart enough to realize that as soon as he ceased being a head of state his deposits in foreign banks would be frozen so that cold hard cash would be the only way

I am not nearly clever enough to do the Sunday New York Times Cross Word Puzzle. But being a stamp collector I am pretty much the go to person in our home for exotic geography, oddball Presidents, and significant events for say the year 1948. And beyond the pleasure of acquisition and completion this is

There are three things that every collector should do to maximize the return that they receive for their stamps when they go to sell, and I will address them in ascending order of importance. First, it is very important to have some figures on your stamp collection. Do you have records of how much you