The engine of philatelic popularity and growth over the 170 or so years that philately has been a hobby has traditionally been the stamps of Central Europe-Germany and its numerous component areas, Switzerland, Austria and to a lesser extent Liechtenstein. In 1930 there were probably as many serious German collectors as there were in the rest of […]
The Future of Central European Philately Read More »
The three great scourges of humanity have historically been war, famine, and pestilence. Modern technology though seems to have solved the problems of the devastation of two of these. In the last two centuries over 100 million people have died in famines. But fertilization, irrigation and genetic engineering have today made famine more of a byproduct of
Before 1859 Romania didn’t exist in its current form and one of its component nations, Moldavia, was one of the first issuers of stamps. The famous Moldavia Bulls have been a favorite of philatelists since the beginning of our hobby. They combine the three characteristics that collectors most esteem-they were issued for purely postal purposes
There are three things that every collector should do to maximize the return that they receive for their stamps when they go to sell, and I will address them in ascending order of importance. First, it is very important to have some figures on your stamp collection. Do you have records of how much you spent?
How to Sell Your Stamps Read More »
The degree of difficulty of a philatelic specialty is determined by three components. First is the intrinsic scarcity of the material, second the cost involved, and third the number of specialized striations into which the field has been separated. Scarcity and cost are related. Scarcity is an intrinsic value related to the amount of material that
Life us a series of developmental stages and how we progress through them has a great deal to do with how happy we are with our lives. Philately too has developmental stages and how collectors progress through them is important in increasing the joy that we derive from our hobby. The earliest stage in stamp
Continue To Grow in Your Hobby Read More »
A good couple of years ago I visited an antique car museum in Norwich New York. I am not an old time car fan particularly and I went there with a relative who was. There was not much text to the exhibit, just 130 restored cars that were produced between 1904 and 1935 . Most