Every United States collector wants the United States Graf Zeppelin set. Issued over 80 years ago the set was sold to pay the postage on zeppelin flights that originated in the United States. Zeppelin mail was intended to be an alternative to airmail and offered the ability to carry large quantities of mail on transatlantic […]
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I read today that Peter Holcombe has passed away. Peter was one of the dwindling few of world wide dealer/experts that used to be prominent in the hobby. Peter was born in England and lived the last thirty years of his life in Switzerland. For most of his life he was an active dealer but
Every country has peculiarities of its specialization. The Germans have coil numbers printed on the back of stamps and collect their coils in strips of eleven to prove that the stamps didn’t come from a sheet which was printed with rows no larger than ten. The French collect gutter pairs with plate numbers, called millisimes.
Lou Robbins also was inducted into the APS Hall of Fame this year and was another old time philatelist with whom I had a life long relationship. Lou was 98 when he died and had been living in assisted living for many years. Lou was primarily a stamp auction agent. A stamp auction agent in the
I opened my January American Philatelist yesterday and saw that F.Burton Sellers was one of the winners of the American Philatelic Society’s Hall of Fame award this year. Unlike baseball’s Hall of Fame which is for the living and dead alike, The APS’s Hall of Fame is only for deceased philatelists who have had a
Economic statistics in recent months indicate that Europe is slipping into recession. This is more or less government policy as the response to the Euro debt crisis has been austerity which has reduced demand and output and is now causing unemployment and recession. The effect of a European recession on the stamp market will be
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The Penny Black is not only the first stamp but one of the more fun stamps to specialize in. The stamp was printed in twelve plates and each plate had 240 subjects. As a security measure each stamp received check letters in the corners so that each of the 240 subjects of each plate are unique (the check
We are only a price increase away from seeing philately re-emerge as the kind of hobby it was when the baby boomers were young. This is my takeaway from several year end parties that I attended. In the course of conversation people asked what I do and when people hear that I am a stamp dealer the usual
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I don’t like to tout stamps as an investment because in reality most collectors don’t make money out of their collections (In the last ten years most stock investors didn’t make money either, and home owners got clobbered, so philatelists are in good company). But there is one stamp that I think if you were
A Good Investment Bet Read More »