Many endeavors have disputes over who are the greats in the field. Baseball aficionados have argued for decades over the greatest players and teams. Complex statistical analyses have been devised that can be used to compare players from different generations to each other. Others statistics rate the comparative values to their teams of pitchers versus […]
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It is a love of stamps that takes the collecting impulse that is found in many of us and transforms the person into an ardent philatelist. The collector reads all he can about the hobby and, in the typical trajectory, goes from a more general type of collecting to specializing. The philatelic experience involves searching (dealers stocks,
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The fear of the counterfeiting of postage stamps made for a large number of Nineteenth Century printers’ trade offs. The gold standard of anti-counterfeiting technology was line engraved (called intaglio) printing, which, for a special anti-forgery bonus, usually included lathe work. This type of printing rose off the paper and produced a fineness of design that
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Until about 1950, philatelists were quite content hinging their stamps. The first stamp mounts in the United Stateswere Crystal Mounts, marketed by the H E Harris Company. They were not created because collectors wanted (or could be convinced they wanted, which is they same thing) a better way to mount their stamps. Rather Crystal Mounts
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In the 1970’s and 1980’s the stamp business underwent a shift. The traditional stamp store began not to work very well as a philatelic sales model. At the time dealers thought this was because it didn’t make sense to have a store front for which the vast majority of people who passed by had no interest, and
One of the worse views of humanity is summed up in Leo Durocher’s famous line “Nice guys finish last”. Durocher was a major league baseball shortstop and manager and its not clear what in his life led him to this philosophy. Durocher was famously not a nice guy. He was a drinker, passer of bad checks, womanizer
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Until 1970 the stamp market in the United States was mostly determined by the domestic market alone. Virtually all stamps, both US and Foreign, that were sold in this country were sold to domestic buyers. International travel was unusual and expensive, there was no Internet, and American philatelic auctioneers didn’t send many catalogs overseas. 1970
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Traditionally, most collectors of United States stamps have collected in a similar fashion. They collected the stamps after 1930 mint and in Very Fine NH condition. From 1900-1930 they collected mint as well but usually were content with hinged stamps and often lesser centering as well. Nineteenth Century was largely collected used by the vast majority
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One of the more unknown and interesting areas to collect is the Koban issues of Japan. Unlike the first two Japanese issues which have been extensively forged (actually faked #1-8 of Japan are about ten times more common than the genuine, and forgeries of the second Japanese issue, called the Cherry Blossoms, are ubiquitous too),
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