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United States Local stamps were in use along with USPO adhesives until about 1861. The local companies were allowed to provide enhanced delivery and pickup service within cities (for businesses the Post Office usually delivered from post office to post office on intercity mail) and local companies provided the door to door service. There were […]

A guarantee can mean many things. A satisfaction guarantee means that the seller promises that if you are unsatisfied with your purchase he will refund your money and take the product back. This guarantee is standard with most American retailers. Buy a shovel from Home Depot, take it home, find out that you really needed

The United States Post Office was very concerned in its early years with the reuse of postage stamps. In 1867 when a decent salary was a dollar a day, first class postage represented 3% of an average person’s wage (equivalent today to about $6) so the appeal of reuse was real. Postal historians looking at

Collectors throughout philatelic history have argued over what they feel is our hobby’s most interesting and extraordinary item. Each collector has his own ideas and contenders for the honor have changed as collecting interests have changed over the the years. Ferrary felt the one cent magenta British Guiana was the most extraordinary. Perhaps it’s because

Stamp Exhibitions began in the United States in 1888 when a small exhibit of stamps was included in the Boston meeting of the American Philatelic Association. Before that, stamp meetings were largely trading events with no formal displays. In 1889, J Walter Scott (of catalog fame) organized the first major stamp exhibition at the Eden

Essays are designs for stamps that don’t get issued. If they are issued, these designs are then called Proofs. Essays come in two main types- design essays and production essays. Design essays are artist’s productions for proposed stamps. These designs may come as a result of an authorized postal authority stamp production process where artist’s

George Sloane, whose book I have been rereading this week, makes a point in a 1956 article that I have long wondered about. Why is it, he asks, that such a high percentage of Airmail invert stamps (#C3a) are damaged? Look in any auction catalog. Chances are two out of three that the Invert listed

George Sloane began the first of his weekly columns for Stamps Magazine nearly eighty years ago and his last over fifty years ago. People started collecting stamps in earnest about 1860 which means our hobby is about 150 years old . This places Sloane firmly in the middle period to early modern period of our

George Sloane was born in 1898 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Benedict_Sloane. By the time he was 23 he had a stamp shop on New York’s philatelic Mecca Nassau Street and by 1932 he was writing a weekly column for Stamps Magazine, a stamp weekly that occupied the position at the top of the philatelic literature heap in the 1930-1950