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The APS show that was held in Richmond this past weekend was quite a success. The venue was attractive and the attendance was excellent. Dealers reported brisk sales and lots of interest. I always enjoy APS conventions and have only missed a few in the last forty years. When I was young, Apfelbaum was in […]

When it comes to matters of money, people vote with their feet. If a business or organization gives good value it will thrive. The fact that the membership of the APS has been declining has many factors but, most significantly, membership is not seen as important enough by many stamp collectors to spend $45 a

The annual APS convention (which is this weekend in Richmond) is held each year in August and it provides a good opportunity to look at some of the trends in our hobby over the last year. Organized philately has taken a hit as membership in the APS slid another 10%. If the society keeps up

We’ve just introduced our new web site and I invite you to take a look. It provides the usual selling tools (links to our auctions etc) but besides that it has links to Apfelbaums corner a series of articles that my grandfather wrote in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It has the Apfelbaum philatelic library- a

The American Philatelic Society annual convention, called Stampshow, will be held in Richmond, Virginia August 12-15. The APS has an annual meeting and convention each summer and moves the event around the country in an attempt to give geographical access to collectors who wish to attend. The APS has fallen on hard times in the

First issues of every country have always been popular with stamp collectors. Many collectors collect first issues of the world and there has always been a tremendous appeal to casual collectors to acquire the first issues of the countries that they collect so that the number ones and twos of most countries sell extremely well.

At any given time there are hundreds of thousands of stamps available for sale on the web. Stamp dealers are constantly selling their wares and of course like any merchant they need to replenish their stock. To obtain new inventory in other businesses sellers call up manufacturers and order new items. But we have no

Today I had a real treat. I worked on a collection in which the last stamp was put in the album in 1921. The Collector died in that year and his great grandchildren decided to sell the stamps this year. Collecting styles have changed over the years and working on this collection brought back memories

While it is true that an enormous amount of good philatelic research material is available online, millions of words of philatelic importance were written before the Internet was invented. Unlike academic disciplines with their well funded libraries and armies of grad student workers, most older philatelic literature and periodicals have never been scanned and many