Until about 1980, philately was one of the most toxic of hobbies. Collectors used watermark fluid in great quantities. Novice and intermediate collectors used it to determine watermarks, but advanced collectors and stamp professionals used it to determine quality of stamps and whether stamps were repaired. Watermark fluid works as a wetting agent which shows […]
How history is remembered is one of the best ways of determining how a people wishes to understand itself. Currently we are in the midst of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and this conflict, and the way that it is taught and learned and understood tells us much about ourselves in the early 21st
In the past fifteen years two emerging economic giants have seen their stamps become very popular and shoot up in price-Russia and China. And in each case among the best performing sets from an investment point of view have been the sets of the founders of those two states- Lenin and Mao. The last ten
For most of the last century the greatest stamp auction company in the world was Corinphila. Housed in Zurich, Switzerland, Corinphila had one or two auctions a year. But what auctions they were! The philatelic auction model in Europe was different than it is in the United States. For reasons relating to tax laws, there
Life is an arc with childhood the beginning and old age the end. In our earliest years our potential seems boundless and time stretches on forever. As we age we must come to grips with the realities of life, our limitations, situation and our luck. Philately helps people with the psychological issues that they face as
One would think that all members of a team would want that team to succeed. Or that all politicians in a nation would want that country’s economy to thrive. Or that all philatelists would want to see our hobby and their subset of the hobby increase in popularity. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case
Collectors Who Want Our Hobby to Fail Read More »
A major difference between European and American philately is how collectors in those areas view the signing of stamps. Signing stamps on the back, usually with a handstamp and usually in ink, began in the late Nineteenth Century in Germany as a dealer identification marking. Dealers would sign the stamps that they sold and such
The history of philatelists mounting stamps in their albums has four phases and does not really represent progress. The earliest stage, beginning about 1850 when people first began collecting stamps, to about 1880 was the period where stamps were simply gummed down in albums. If the stamp was mint, the gum on the back would
Mounting Problems Read More »
Ken Martin, the executive director of the American Philatelic Society, is a kind and capable man and a very good friend. So it is with good humor that I point out his article in the June American Philatelist. Ken mentions that the APS “only lost 10%” of its members this year and is down to just over