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 Ever Read More »
We live in a time different in many ways from all the times of the past. Perhaps the most significant difference is the ability for so many people today to have nearly instant gratification of most of their wants. Bored? Turn on the TV or pop in a video game or check out the tweets
Years ago I taught an evening class in philately at Temple University. The class was made up mainly of well educated people who were either getting back into collecting or who were, never having been stamp collectors, thinking of trying our hobby on for size. At one point after a few weeks the topic of plating
There are four broad categories of bearer labels that have been issued to indicate prepayment for a service or tax. They are postage stamps, revenue stamps, telegraph stamps and telephone stamps. Worldwide issues of these stamps vary but overall the number of postage stamps greatly exceeds the number of revenues, telephone and telegraph stamps. Indeed
Telephone and Telegraph Stamps Read More »
Worldwide postal services have tried numerous experiments over the years at increasing revenues. Most common has been the experiment of advertising with postage stamps. This experiment was first made almost coincidentally with the issuance of the first postage stamp. The Mulready envelope was issued together with the Penny Black as the world’s first piece of
Many collectors spend a great deal of money on their hobby and don’t have a great deal to show for It. Your money is yours to do with as you please (after all this is America) but most people take some satisfaction in getting their money’s worth when they buy something and, if not always getting
The Danger of Estate Sales Read More »
In 1960 when a young person started stamp collecting the situation played out like this. A parent took you to a stamp shop or the Minkus concession at a Gimbels or other large department store. You looked at several world wide albums and usually settled on a Harris Statesman Deluxe (or maybe a Citation)Â which had
Mounting stamps in albums has had four major phases in the 170 years that philately has been a hobby. In the very beginning, collectors were just saving stamps as a whimsical endeavor.There was no science to collecting and the earliest stamp savers would lick the glue on their mint stamps and place them in their albums (This is why
One of the earliest objections to Rowland Hill’s idea for a gummed label that indicated prepayment of postage was the fear that such a label could be soaked off and reused. A postage stamp is one of the simplest examples of a bearer certificate-anyone who possesses it can use it to mail a letter and