In the 1980’s mint new issues from British Colonies and Western Europe were marketed extensively as good investments. The theory was that as the number of collectors rose the newer issues would rise in value similarly to the way that the issues of the 1950’s had risen by 1980. What the people who bought and […]
Wikipedia is one of the wonders of the Internet. Containing over 20 million encyclopedia style articles, Wikipedia has over 100,000 active contributors and is visited by tens of millions of readers each month. If you visit the “stamp collecting” and “philately” entries on Wikipedia you will see how cursory and elementary the articles are. For the most part
One of the hardest jobs in the world probably has to be generating news articles for Linns stamp magazine or any of the other weekly philatelic news journals. Is there really enough news to fill 64 pages with stamp news every week? Probably not. But Linns could do a better job of trying. The November
No News is Not Good News Read More »
As you sit around this Thanksgiving with family and friends waiting for the turkey dinner no doubt you have been wondering which American holidays are collected thematically and which aren’t. There are five main work holidays in the United States-Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Presidents Day has probably the most number
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The first issue revenues of the United States are some of the world’s most attractive stamps and would be far more popular among US collectors if it wasn’t for the perf, imperf, part perf problem. These stamps were issued to pay taxes on everything from bills of sale to stock and property transfers and the
United States First Issue Revenues Read More »
The world of philately is replete with euphemisms and misnomers. Some of them are deceptive. Most of them are silly. The American Philatelic Experization Service (the expert group of the APS) for many years marketed themselves under their acronym APES, never cognizant that in the competitive world of expertizing services one shouldn’t voluntarily place oneself lower on the evolutionary
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The value of most United States stamps have been falling over the last twenty years. And the CPI has been rising. Critics have claimed that the CPI overemphasizes increases in food, fuel and housing (until the last few years at least). We have not understood that price increases have been commodity driven and that many existing goods and non commodity
The Leaf Blower Index Read More »
Confederate States regular issues consist of fourteen Scott issued stamps that were issued over a period of four years during which the Civil War was fought. There are only two scarce stamps and both of these issues occurred when the Confederate States Post Office decided to change issues in 1863 . The new stamps were originally
“TEN” and The Frameline Read More »
Presidential topical collections in general are not very popular largely because there is so little philatelic material that has been issued for most Presidents (quick- name three stamps that have Garfield or the current Presidential flavor-Coolidge- on them or imagine any postal history with a Taft twist). The exceptions are Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR and of
Kennedy Thematic Collecting Read More »