Hobbies come in many types from knitting to horse shoes. Philately is categorized under the broad range of collectible hobbies. But philately is unusual in that it has been a very popular hobby for over 150 years and is still going strong. Most collectible hobbies enjoy a brief period of popularity, like Franklin Mint Commemorative […]
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To paraphrase Winston Churchill, stamp hinges are the worst form of mounts, except all others. Peelable hinges were a revolutionary innovation when they first became commercially available about 1920. Before that, hinging was done by using some old stamp selvage or gummed paper, and the results are hideous. Gummed paper never comes off of mint gummed
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The 1895 Scott catalog was a hardbound edition of over 500 pages. The Scott catalog began as J. Walter Scott’s price list, and by 1880 had grown into an annual catalog that listed all the stamps of the world that had been issued to that time, whether Scott had them in stock or not. By
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The Ryukyu Islands are a long archipelago off the main islands of Japan. Settled at an early period, the Ryukyu’s independence from Japan is proven by the linguistic difference between the Japanese and Okinawans. Though written with many of the same characters, Japanese and the several languages of the Ryukyus are very different linguistically (and
Apfelbaum was founded as a stamp dealing company over 100 years ago in 1910 and has been owned and operated by my family since Maurice, my great grandfather, started the business. We opened our first stamp shop in 1930 and held our first auction in 1940. When we first began selling stamps, postmen delivered your
One of the pleasures of modern electronic communication is that it costs nothing per word to move. A short sentence costs the same to send as a dense file
The opinion makers in philately held a serious discussion in the 1930s about what direction they hoped the hobby would go. By 1930 there was already a wide enough body of stamps issued for most countries that collectors were already beginning to lose interest in collecting collateral philatelic areas like cut squares, postal stationery, and
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The Washington Bicentennial set is over 80 years old. Issued to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the first President’s birth, the set was issued on January 1, 1932. It has always been a popular set and has more or less been the breaking point between modern and classic US philately. Stamp issues before 1932 include the
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Raymond Weill, who died ten years ago at the age of ninety, was a dealer in the very old time tradition. He and his brother Roger joined their father in their New Orleans stamp business in 1932. Although Weill began as a full range stamp dealer, his business very quickly moved into the higher end
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