Over the last two years, the Euro has been under constant pressure. First Greece and now Spain and Italy have seen investors reluctant to purchase their sovereign debt. The European Central Bank has devised a scheme to lend money to banks to purchase loans from these countries as they come due, but what this really […]
The first stamp issued in the world portrayed the ruling monarch of the issuing country (Great Britain Penny black). After that it became protocol to use the portrait of the ruler of a country on postage stamps or in the case of the United Sates to use a deceased president or statesman. Some countries without
A remarkable aspect of philately is that unpopularity breeds further unpopularity. It is truly unusual to see a good collection of nearly any South and Central American country. Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Cuba are exceptions, but for the other twenty or so countries that make up rest of the southern Americas, collections that are even
South American Philately Read More »
Robberies of stamp collections used to be a real problem. In the 1970’s a large ring of stamp thieves were caught. They had an APS membership directory with them that they were using to figure out who to knock off next. When I was on the Board of Directors of the APS in the early
Our Stamps Are Safer Today Read More »
Buying already made collections at auction might be one of the greatest bargains in philately. Next week in our public auction we have an interesting world wide collection.(4367) It is in several Scott International volumes of the kind that were so popular for world wide collectors thirty years ago. This collection was created over a
World Wide Collection Read More »
The unimaginable has begun to happen. After growing at rates approaching 100% per year the last few years, the market for better People’s Republic of China stamps has cooled and prices are down as much as 30% in the last few months. There are several reasons for this. First, the Chinese economy has definitely slowed
China Market Falls Read More »
Harry and Sally were an older stamp collecting couple that were already long established favorites at our shop when I started in the stamp business forty years ago. They had met in their youth at a local stamp club and though they each maintained their own collections (he was a GB collector, she saved Canada)
Philatelically, the postage stamps of the United States are probably the most interesting and complex to collect of any area. US Philately has the largest body (and most interesting and valuable) of Postmaster Provisionals, stamps issued before national postage stamps by local postal authorities (no doubt we lead in this area because our Federal system
US Philatelic Exceptionalism Read More »
Virtually any topic or theme can be collected. But of the collectible topics and themes, the most interesting are ones that go beyond the pictures of the stamps and tell a story that is bigger. I just came across an eight volume collection of Penguin philately. It consists of thousands of stamps and covers from over