Many people have very strong political opinions. Their positions seem reasonable and well reasoned to them and they have trouble understanding how any thoughtful person could come up with a different opinion. Even people with less strong views on the issue of whether or not our society is going to come to an end if […]
The Effect of the Election on Philately Read More »
Coin collecting has been dominated over the last fifty years by third party grading issues to the point where few serious numismatists buy non-graded coins. Eager grading services have tried to push into philately hoping to enlarge their fee base. So far it hasn’t worked. Some collectors have become enamored of graded stamps but most
Graded United States 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
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 »
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
Cuba is one of the few philatelic areas that has quadruple specialist appeal. Before 1898 Cuba was a Spanish Colony, and there are over a hundred different stamps that were issued by Spain for use in their colony including the first issues which are interesting because they were issued for use in both the Philippines
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
Albert Gross lived in a small house in a neighborhood outside of Milwaukee. He had come to the United States from Germany in the early 1930’s as his very left wing views (he had been a Communist) left him prey to Hitler’s hatred. He worked at Schlitz which, for those of you who are too
A recent article on the BBC addresses an issue that has been of interest to philatelists for over a hundred years. I wrote several weeks ago about auctions versus direct sale. This new article adds to the discussion by referencing several psychological studies. The question that was being addressed was whether people got better deals
Auctions versus Direct sales part II Read More »