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To be an attractive specialty, a country should have many different things. The stamp issues should be well designed and have a strict postal purpose and not be designed for collectors. The Goldilocks’ theory should be in play: there should not be too many stamps issued, and there should not be too few stamps issued—rather, […]

Before the late 1970s (and the advent of Federal Express and overnight delivery), the only way to move documents from one place to another was by post. Throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth century, the post was not only the fastest way to move documents; it was the only way. Ordinary postal delivery was fast.

WONDERFUL COLLECTION OF OVER 20,000 DIFFERENT TO 1940 IN A PRISTINE PAIR OF GIBBONS NEW IMPERIAL ALBUMS This wonderful completely intact collection was put together over decades and is in a pair of the best albums for British Commonwealth. The collection has strength in all phases from British Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and  America with

It’s hard to explain to those too young to remember the excitement of the space program of the 1960s. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 as the first man made orbiting satellite, there was a minor panic which soon developed into a space race. The rush to put people into space and onto

Various events in life can cause a flood of early memories. In Proust’s opus In Search of Lost Time, a 4,200 page series of reminiscences, the trigger for the memories are the taste of a cookie. Pictures often bring memories to mind, and that is why so many photos are taken and what made Kodak,

Between 1953 and 2004, a period of fifty years, the American Philatelic Society was fortunate to have three excellent Executive Directors. Under the APS bylaws, the overarching policy of the society is set by the President and the Board of Directors, but the Executive Director has the job of running the society and implementing policy

I just got back from the 2015 APS show in Grand Rapids. It was a very good show in a very nice venue, and I have two broad observations that I’d like to make. First, the show was very well attended, and the collectors that I saw seemed engaged and energetic about the hobby. The

Plate block collecting has long been one of the most popular specialties here in the United States. Many other countries have and have had plate markings in the margins of their sheets. Often these are plate numbers or inscriptions that might ordinarily be of interest. But only in the U.S. (and since WWII, UN and

There is one stamp that tops all the philatelic popularity polls as America’s most popular stamp. And it has done so for over a century. It is the $1 TransMississippi issue of 1898. As you can see it’s a beautiful stamp, carefully engraved. But the story of how it reached its pinacle of popularity has