There are three main conscious reasons why people collect anything and there are specific modifications of these principles about why they collect stamps in particular. First, collecting satisfies the desire to set and achieve goals. Stamp collecting is a particularly satisfying hobby in this regard in that, because of our extensive catalogs, collectors know what […]
The Impulse to Collect Read More »
One of the most important philatelic events of the early Twentieth Century was the issuance of long definitive sets by major countries that continue in use over a period of many years. The United States issued the Washington-Franklin set and in various forms this set dominated our mail for over thirty years. The same was
Special Service stamps tell you a lot about a country. How does a country view charity? If the feeling is that the government should encourage charitable contributions to specific causes then that country will issue a lot of Semipostal stamps. Larger countries with lots of distance between cities issued a lot of airmails and special
The first of the famous three stamp triptych of the 1920s-the Pilgrim set of 1920-has its centenary this year. These three sets- the Pilgrim set, the Huguenot-Walloon set and the Lexington-Concord set- defined the commemorative issues of the 1920’s and as with most commemoratives displayed the self image that America wished to project at that
Prices and the value of money are difficult to evaluate over time. Readers of Victorian novels know that in the late Nineteenth Century an income of about 150 Pounds a year was the minimum needed to live as a gentleman (Trollope says tartly “an embarrassed gentleman, yes, but a gentleman”). That was three Pounds a
Highest Face Value Stamp Read More »
Perhaps the greatest change in our hobby in the last 80 years has been in the quality of the product that we collect. Stamps have gone from miniature pieces of art that reflect the skill and technological prowess of the nation that issued them to being little more than a chit indicating payment of postage,
Production Values Read More »
By 1874 the system of international carriage of letters was a mess. Countries had to negotiate postal treaties with each other and most treaties called for cross payments where part of the postage of a letter was remitted by the sending post office to the receiving post office. This was confusing and difficult to keep
Universal Postal Union Read More »
Chile was one of the last South American countries to be colonized. With little gold or silver to exploit or passive Indians to enslave, the southwest coast of South America was not as attractive to the Spanish invaders as was the rest of the new world. Colonization came later when copper was found, and when
While Francois Fournier was a philatelic facsimile maker whose work fools only novices or collectors who have never seen the real thing, Jean de Sperati spent his life creating forgeries designed to undermine the most knowledgeable philatelists. Even his book that he wrote “Philatelie sans Experts” (Philately without Experts) shows his prime motivation was the