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Most collectors collect what they like for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the popularity of the area or the potential for financial growth in what they collect. Others collect whatever is the “hot” area hoping to ride the train of popularity to make their collecting not only fun but profitable. […]

One of the most exciting things in philately is when there is a new discovery of a major variety on a well known and avidly collected stamp. Such a find was reported in the recent edition of Linn’s on the ten cent Lindbergh stamp of 1927 (Scott #C10). This stamp sells for about $10 mint and

The Columbian Exposition set of 1893 (Scott #230-245) was the world’s first commemorative set, and it has become one of the most popular sets not only in United States philately but in the world. But this was not always so. Stamp collectors tend to be a conservative group (at least in their philatelic tastes), and

When one is avid about a field, it is common to set greater and greater challenges. This is the lure of Everest for climbers or of more and more difficult golf courses. I once knew a stamp collector who was also a fierce crossword puzzle enthusiast. He wrote puzzles in which the answers were all

The problem of what quantities exist of different classic stamps has been one of the great difficulties of philatelic research. Before the days of the Internet, nearly all classic stamps that were sold were not illustrated; so it was impossible for any census taker to know if he had counted a given specimen before. Counts

 Nassau Street 1905 Nassau Street runs six blocks in lower Manhattan near Wall Street. As a street and as a philatelic institution it is a microcosm of how stamp collecting and dealing has changed. Stamp collecting began to be an extremely popular mainstream hobby beginning about 1900 and stamp dealers opened their doors as stand

For years, philatelists have decried the lackluster philatelic marketing that the USPS has given to our hobby. New issues have been well designed and created with an eye for appealing to communities that would put the stamps away and not use them (which is, after all, the Post Office’s main goal). And the new issues have

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