The best part of the news that the United States Post Office is going to be issuing stamps honoring living persons is the effect it should have on our hobby. This has two aspects. First, and less obviously, it shows that even with the technological advances that have made postage stamps less important, the Post Office remains […]
Post Office Goes Live Cont. Read More »
For all of its history the Post Office has had a tradition (then a rule) that prohibited living persons (and the recent dead) from being pictured on postage stamps. The rule required a ten year grace period after death before being on a stamp except in the case of deceased Presidents, who were eligible immediately
Post Office Goes Live Read More »
One of the earliest objections to Rowland Hill’s idea for a gummed label that indicated prepayment of postage was the fear that such a label could be soaked off and reused. A postage stamp is one of the simplest examples of a bearer certificate-anyone who possesses it can use it to mail a letter and
Mounting stamps in albums has had four major phases in the 170 years that philately has been a hobby. In the very beginning, collectors were just saving stamps as a whimsical endeavor.There was no science to collecting and the earliest stamp savers would lick the glue on their mint stamps and place them in their albums (This is why
In 1960 when a young person started stamp collecting the situation played out like this. A parent took you to a stamp shop or the Minkus concession at a Gimbels or other large department store. You looked at several world wide albums and usually settled on a Harris Statesman Deluxe (or maybe a Citation) which had
Stamp Dealers travel quite a bit for business and as a young man I did my share. One evening some thirty years ago I was visiting some clients in upstate Pennsylvania to purchase their stamps. It was getting late and as usual I was getting lost. I decided to look for a hotel and the closest one
A Remarkable Coincidence Read More »
As we start the fall ,the stamp market is really pretty good. The economic difficulties of the last five years now have faded from affecting philately too seriously. Prices of more ordinary material is weaker but overall nice properties still find ready buyers. And most importantly, the long made predictions that aging baby boomers would
The State of the State Market-Autumn 2011 Read More »
Many collectors spend a great deal of money on their hobby and don’t have a great deal to show for It. Your money is yours to do with as you please (after all this is America) but most people take some satisfaction in getting their money’s worth when they buy something and, if not always getting
The Danger of Estate Sales Read More »
Worldwide postal services have tried numerous experiments over the years at increasing revenues. Most common has been the experiment of advertising with postage stamps. This experiment was first made almost coincidentally with the issuance of the first postage stamp. The Mulready envelope was issued together with the Penny Black as the world’s first piece of