John Apfelbaum

    Despite the common perception that stamp and coin collecting are very similar, there are very few collectors who do both. Among youngsters, maintaining both types of collections is more customary, but at higher levels, it is very unusual to find people who are passionately devoted to both hobbies. Maybe it is unusual for any […]

Imagine a company, which like the Scott publishing company, (so dominant in United States philately) is preeminent as its national stamp publisher. As well as issuing a general worldwide catalog, they are especially known as the publisher of the national specialty catalog which is used by nearly all native philatelists and millions of foreign ones. But in addition to this, they also

There are four major worldwide international catalogs (plus several smaller single area specialized catalogs such as Facit for Scandinavia and Zumstein for Switzerland, which are only issued for their home countries and whose publishers have no worldwide versions of their catalogs). German philatelists collect their stamps by the Michel catalog, which publishes a worldwide catalog in

The philatelic history of Albania  shows the effects of the domination of four nations on the Albanian people as well as the political aspirations of the Albania people themselves. As part of the Balkan area, Albania has had the misfortune to be subject to  political and military intervention by the Turks, the Italians, the Germans, the

Scott Publishing Company has been integral to collecting stamps in the United States. J. Walter Scott was one of the first stamp dealers, and his publishing company and catalogs grew out of the full service stamp dealing company that he ran beginning in the 1860s. Scott was an innovator, and the Scott companies were great

When an event has played out, it is often hard to see how it could have happened any other way. The first airplanes flew, but the limitations of early technology made them cumbersome affairs. Wing design was primitive, providing minimal lift. Materials that made up the plane were heavy compared to the structure they provided, and engines were weighty, generating

Probably no area of US philately has changed more over the last century than the collecting of US plate blocks. Ours was the first nation to collect plate blocks, and really is still the only country that does (Canadian collectors, UN collectors and Israel collectors have small plate block contingents, but these are derivative from

Certificates of genuiness grew out of dealer guarantees. Until about 1900, the pool of stamps that there was to collect was so small that the more reputable dealers knew them cold. True too was the fact that the great forgers of the twentieth century (Fournier, Sperati, and De Thuin) had not yet begun their work.

Back in 2013 On April 28 the cover photograph of the New York Times Sunday Book Review was the sheet of the 8¢ Willa Cather stamp. The stamp was used to illustrate a review of a new book of her letters.  Such a use of postage stamps by graphic designers is quite unusual today and, as the Sunday Times