Probably no area of US philately has changed more over the last century than the collecting of US plate blocks. Ours was the first nation to collect plate blocks, and really is still the only country that does (Canadian collectors, UN collectors and Israel collectors have small plate block contingents, but these are derivative from […]
When an event has played out, it is often hard to see how it could have happened any other way. The first airplanes flew, but the limitations of early technology made them cumbersome affairs. Wing design was primitive, providing minimal lift. Materials that made up the plane were heavy compared to the structure they provided, and engines were weighty, generating
Scott Publishing Company has been integral to collecting stamps in the United States. J. Walter Scott was one of the first stamp dealers, and his publishing company and catalogs grew out of the full service stamp dealing company that he ran beginning in the 1860s. Scott was an innovator, and the Scott companies were great
Scott Publishing and the Promotion of Philately Read More »
Commemorative stamps are often issued for anniversaries. The first United States commemorative set was the 1893 Columbian Exposition issue. This set was sold in conjunction with the World’s Fair type exposition that was being held in Chicago that marked the four hundredth anniversary of the European discovery of the New World. Later US commemorative sets
The Coming Centennials Read More »
The philatelic history of Albania shows the effects of the domination of four nations on the Albanian people as well as the political aspirations of the Albania people themselves. As part of the Balkan area, Albania has had the misfortune to be subject to political and military intervention by the Turks, the Italians, the Germans, the
There are four major worldwide international catalogs (plus several smaller single area specialized catalogs such as Facit for Scandinavia and Zumstein for Switzerland, which are only issued for their home countries and whose publishers have no worldwide versions of their catalogs). German philatelists collect their stamps by the Michel catalog, which publishes a worldwide catalog in
Comparing Catalogs Read More »
Imagine a company, which like the Scott publishing company, (so dominant in United States philately) is preeminent as its national stamp publisher. As well as issuing a general worldwide catalog, they are especially known as the publisher of the national specialty catalog which is used by nearly all native philatelists and millions of foreign ones. But in addition to this, they also
Despite the common perception that stamp and coin collecting are very similar, there are very few collectors who do both. Among youngsters, maintaining both types of collections is more customary, but at higher levels, it is very unusual to find people who are passionately devoted to both hobbies. Maybe it is unusual for any specialty collector
Overlap Between Coin and Stamp Collecting Read More »
If you like stamps and stamp history, working on old collections is one of the most interesting things that you can do. We recently purchased a collection that had been made in the 1930s and had been passed down through the generations with considerable care, if not interest, on the part of the new owners.