Martin Chuzzlewit is one of Charles Dickens’ earlier novels. Old Martin is a very unappealing character, avaricious and sneaky, and in speaking of him Dickens remarks that in some people there is a naivety or duplicity of cunning, by which he meant that often cunning people believe that they are the only ones who operate that […]
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Recently we bought a collection from a life long collector that wasn’t the greatest we ever have handled in terms of value, though it was worth quite a bit. It wasn’t the most scholarly collection we have ever bought, though the collector was a very good philatelist. And it wasn’t the most aesthetically appealing collection
Another area of catalog inconsistency concerns shades. Generally speaking, Scott lists all shades of a stamp as minor (that is “a”) numbers. If a stamp is issued in rose, the major catalog listing is for rose and all of the shades of rose from dark rose to scarlet are listed as minor numbers. Only when
About twenty years ago I had an appointment to see a widow. Her husband had died a few months before and had told her that his stamp collection was worth very little but that she should call me and have me look at it during my next trip to her area. When I offered her
When it is found in family and friends, inconsistency can make make a person’s life miserable. But when found in our hobby, it adds spice and interest. Pictured above is one of my favorite stamps because of what it tells us about our hobby and the mercurialness of the editors of the Scott catalog. It
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In the 1930s, Earl Apfelbaum spent two days in his office in Philadelphia each week and four days driving through the small towns in mid and upstate Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. He would visit customers, bringing stamps to sell and would always be on the lookout for collections to buy. Apfelbaum has maintained
Philatelists want several things in an area in which they decide to specialize. They want availability. It is no fun to collect a country or sub specialty where there is little material available and the game is all search and no find. They want affordability. Unless you are Midas (and he lived in the pre-stamp
The philately of Spain breaks down into three main phases. The Nineteenth Century stamps are more of a distinct specialty than they are in most countries stamps because there are so many of them and so many are rare. There are nearly 300 face and denomination different stamps to 1900 not counting varieties and while
The scarcest US commemorative in mint condition is the 10c orange perf 10 #404. Fewer of the higher value dollar denomination Columbian and Trans-Mississippi were issued than #404 but far more of the 10c were used on commercial mail and thus used and lost to collectors. Here’s the story: For many years leading up to
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