Philatelic history suffers from the fact that stamp collecting is not an academic discipline. Academic history is a constant process of evaluation and reevaluation of sources, previous historic writing and conventional understandings. Several of the latest award winning histories of the early American Colonial period that I have read present quite a different spin on the […]
Philatelic History Read More »
Libraries had a problem. Books and periodicals continue to be printed at an ever increasing pace, far faster than space can be built and afforded. What could be done so that a library could maintain as complete a collection of books as possible, continuing to acquire new material and without having to get rid of old.
Go to Ebay and run through fifty or so better US commemoratives that are offered for sale from the 1893-1930 period. This was the era in which the United States produced our stamps through a printing process known as flat press printing. In flat press printing most of these issues were printed in large sheets of
Ubiquity of Reperfing Read More »
A popular specialty of fifty years ago is well worth considering. It is collecting the early stamps of Great Britain by check letter. The Nineteenth Century stamps of Great Britain were mostly printed in sheets of 240. This was done because most of the stamps printed were one penny stamps which, in the pre-decimal period
Ecuador .Messrs. Whitfield King & Co. have sent us complete sets of the 1892 stamps for those unhappy South American Republics who have delivered to Ecuador.Messrs. Whitfield King & Co. have sent us complete sets of the 1892 stamps for those unhappy South American Republics who have delivered themselves into the hands of the enemy
Early Philatelic Manipulation Read More »
Imagine the year 2100. You are starting to collect stamps and have progressed beyond the latest chip hologram issues and are beginning to acquire the stamps of the early twenty-first century. You get all the self adhesive issues, paying special attention to see that none of the adhesive has yellowed with age and that none of the die
What will happen to gum? Read More »
Mankind has done pretty well against our competitors in the animal kingdom. Wolves know their place and there are no armies of bears that we need fear. The few thousands of people per year that animals kill are largely accidental attacks driven out of fear or an attempt by the animal to protect its turf or from
For many years there was no relationship between the price of stamps and the price of gold. The value of gold, in currency terms, was fixed by national governments whereas the price of stamps was left to rise and fall with the market. Gold was decoupled from currency in 1971. The next ten years saw
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died last month. Armstrong was a true American hero, and yet the way that he handled fame was uncharacteristic of our time and speaks to how different people handle success. Many people seek fame and bask in it. But Armstrong realized that though he had an