Grace and Calvin Coolidge were considered generous and gracious people. But little did they realize that the invitations that they sent out in 1927 had more than just the significance of being able to have cocktails with the President. On the White House stationary that was used for this invitation the President used a rare […]
A Valuable Presidential Invitation Read More »
Remember how you organized your day was in 1970. Your clock radio alarm went off and you listened to a bit of news or some music while the percolator made coffee. The morning newspaper was at the front door and you read that before going off to work. At your office you did your professional tasks
When Collectors Buy Stamps Read More »
Nobody has yet improved on Adam Smith’s version of capitalism. Put different companies and concepts in the economic arena and the invisible hand will pick the most efficient idea and the one that, at its price, most people want to consume. But for the invisible hand to work, the competition has to be fair. And for
The Althing is the parliament of Iceland and is considered to be the oldest Parliament in the world (though whether this is “continuous” or not is subject to some dispute). But the Icelanders are rightfully proud of their Parliament’s longevity and have publicized it on two 1930 sets which commemorated the one thousandth anniversary of
Iceland Parliment Read More »
One often sees discussions concerning repairs on lower priced stamps. While collectors do need to be careful about repairs and alterations it is important to remember that stamps are repaired for a reason and that reason is so they can be sold as non damaged items at higher prices than they would be otherwise. Thus repairing a stamp is
Our modern philatelic trend of specialization has been partly the result of a world wide glut of new postal issues that have made most collectors unable and unwilling to collect worldwide stamps. Another less commented on change in collecting habits has come from this overabundance of new issues too. It is the increasing emphasis on
Numerical Stamp grading Read More »
Life changes. It evolves both at the macro level, over generations, and at the micro level within a single lifetime. One of the nicest things about aging is observing the little changes that occur over a lifetime and seeing how those changes create new understandings that becomes the starting point for new generations. This happens
What is Different From Fifty Years Ago Read More »
Collectors either esteem or denigrate the earlier stamps of British Commonwealth and they do so for the same reason. From about 1890 to the QE II period (1953), the stamps of nearly all the Commonwealth colonies are the same-small stamps with a portrait of the reigning monarch (either Victoria, Edward, George V or George VI)-distinguished by stamp collectors
Colonial Differences Read More »
Like most predictions, philatelic prognosticating is one-third fact based, one- third interpretation of those facts and one-third hope and wishful thinking. That said I
Another Reason Stamp Prices Rise Read More »