One of the most idiosyncratic aspects of US philately is the collecting of plate blocks. Many countries have marginal plate numbers in the selvages of the sheets of their printed stamps. Most United States stamps that were printed before 1894 had plate numbers in the selvage, put there by the private printing contractor who printed […]
One of the great changes in our modern world has been the decline of specialty periodical publishing. In philately, the result has been very dramatic. Thirst years ago, the top ten stamp journals in the United States had nearly half a million subscribers. Today the top three (and because of the Internet there are only
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France came a bit late to stamps, perhaps because issuing stamps for the prepayment of postage was not a Gallic idea, and so the French were resistant. Still, it was nearly ten years after the success of the Penny Black and the benefits that prepayment of postage conferred before France issued her first stamps in 1849. She
The 1898 Trans Mississippi appeared to be a commemorative set issued to honor America’s expansion into the west. But its issuance served another purpose. It was hard to see at first why the 1898 Trans Mississippi set was made. The 1893 Columbian Exposition issue was widely criticized as being redundant in design and appearance and
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There are three factors that make a fine philatelist and a fine stamp collection. They are the same factors that the first collectors dealt with, and the Modern period has allowed collectors to face these issues in a new way. The first factor is access to material. From the first, philatelic material was widely diffused.
Philately’s Greatest Era Read More »
Some countries are so vast philatelically that collectors break them down into more bite sized units. Some philatelists try to collect all of the German area, but with over a million collectible varieties by the Michel catalog, the latest Lighthouse specialty albums for this country runs to over 25 volumes and has a retail value
In many ways, Swiss philately tells the story of Central European stamp collecting since 1970. Switzerland was one of the first stamp issuers, and, like the Postmaster Provisionals of the United states, the first stamps of Switzerland were issued by cities and states, rather than by the Federal Swiss government. Collectors esteemed Swiss stamps from the beginning,
Iran is not just a political pariah; it is a philatelic one as well. From an interest point of view, the stamps of Iran should be popular. The first issues, called the Lions (after the Shah’s royal seal) are interesting with many rarer shades and varieties and types. And the post-1930 issues are well designed
