Philatelists have always referred to items they don’t want or need, or which are in specialty areas that they don’t respect as “garbage”. But there is one rare philatelic item that has a trashy past and is called the “Garbage Card” or “full face McKinley”. After President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, the Postal Service […]
The story of philately over the last twenty years is the story of the Internet and of EBay. Its hard to quantify EBay’s philatelic success (as they keep their numbers for each of their divisions to themselves) but its clear they offer millions of lots per year to hundreds of thousands of buyers on behalf of tens of thousands of sellers. EBay
As children, girls collect somewhat less often than boys. But as adults, women collect stamps far less frequently than do men. And when they do collect, they tend to do so less avidly and more idiosyncratically. In the lists of competitive stamp exhibitors, women make up a very small percentage of Gold Medal winners, a
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There are two broad types of collectors and they correspond to the two broad types of readers that there are. There are readers who, when they begin a book, must finish it before they can go onto reading anything else. It matters little how much they are enjoying the book they are reading. Once begun,
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The Postal Service has announced that it is closing down many mail processing centers, laying off tens of thousands of workers and slowing down the delivery of mail, all in an attempt to stem the losses that have occurred in hard copy mail delivery as a result of the revolution in electronic communication. This is
Let’s suppose most people had too much money and needed so badly to lose some of it that they offered courses in how to lose it. I can’t speak of what they would teach when the course concerned non philatelic areas, but when the subject came to stamp collecting there is no doubt that the
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One of the most popular stamps of the Nineteenth Century is the black stamp honoring President Andrew Jackson that was issued first in 1863 and then again in several grilled forms over the next few years. The black Jackson, called the Blackjack by collectors has been popular for several reasons. First it has never been
One of the things that many collectors pay too little attention to is the albums that they put their stamps in. Nice attractive well made stamp albums cost money and many collectors are loathe to part with hard earned coin of the realm for anything but actual stamps. That’s fine if that’s what you want
During the late 1970’s and the height of the inflation driven stamp market there was a crazy person who pretended to be a stamp dealer who came regularly to our auctions. Rob Redstone was about 30 and dressed dramatically, talked loudly and always was making phone calls which we felt were calls on which there