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Seigniorage is the profit that governments make on securities that they issue, on which they don’t pay interest, and that are retained unused by the public. Cash in mattresses represents a form of seigniorage and, more than anything else, old face value postage stamps held by collectors do as well. The money that collectors have […]

The pricing ratios between mint stamps and used stamps for most nineteenth century issues are out of kilter and should change in the years ahead. Take the case of Great Britain stamps. On average, the catalog value in Scott for any stamp between 1860-1900 is about six times higher mint than used. But mint stamps

The future of stamp collecting will be influenced by two great positives and one serious negative. The negative is as follows: Stamps (and postal communication in general) are increasingly irrelevant to our world. Letters with stamps on them are getting rarer. Electronic communication gains a larger market share each year. It is likely that even

Hobbies are successful when they allow a diverse group of participants to engage in an activity where they can find enjoyment. Over the last 150 years, philately has been one of the world’s most successful hobbies, having millions of devotees. To be successful a hobby has to offer many things. It must have differing levels

There are only a few indispensable philatelic books and at the top of every one’s short list is “Fundamentals of Philately” written by the stamp collecting brothers L.N (Leon Norman) Williams and M(Maurice) Williams. The book was first serialized and then was published twice by the American Philatelic Society (1971 & 1990). It is 880

The United States Postal Service has always had a rule that stamps can only picture persons who have been deceased for longer than ten years, unless they are a deceased President who can be commemorated upon death. This rule grew up informally throughout the nineteenth century and was probably related to the American republican (small

The first stamp ever issued continues to be one of the most interesting. Over 68 million Penny Blacks were issued and a higher percentage of these survived than with later stamps as most of them were used on folded letters (where the letter portion is written and then folded under so that the paper forms

It has long been predicted that the maturing of the Baby Boom generation would usher in an era of great philatelic popularity. Citing philatelic and demographic trends, the theory was based on the fact that serious collectors fit a certain profile (men 55-75) and that the maturing of the Baby Boom generation meant that there

Most philatelists don’t have stamp insurance. They hope that their collections won’t be stolen and that their homes will never be affected by fire or flood. And in most cases they are correct. The rate of home burglaries is low and even if your home is robbed, unless you are a known collector, and the