Confederate States philately has always enjoyed enormous popularity. The stamps are interestingly printed, served a real postal purpose, and the story behind the stamps has real philatelic appeal- large nation, rent by discord, one section withdraws from union to preserve the ability to own human beings as property, the other side fights to retain the […]
Confederate States Read More »
The first country to issue Official stamps was Great Britain. It did so at the same time that it issued the first stamp, the Penny Black. But Great Britain was scooped in one major aspect of Official stamps by the United States Post Office, and that was in the issuance of Departmental Officials— Officials for
Great Britain Departmental Officials Read More »
The stamp business used to have what economists call high barriers to entry. It took a lot of knowledge, a lot of capital, and years of advertising and satisfying customers to build a good mailing list and a good stamp business. When the Internet became the preferred method of buying and selling in philately, there
It’s Still Difficult to Become a Stamp Dealer Read More »
Most philatelists, and especially most stamp dealers, see a dichotomy between traditional stamp collecting and the collecting of stamps on covers, which has come to be called postal history. Years ago, the best dealers and collectors of covers and postal history came up from the ranks of traditional philately. It was only after someone knew
Postal History vs Stamps Read More »
There are four tiny European states that maintained independence into modern times, more as an historic quirk than for any other reason. As Europe progressed through the centuries, hundreds of principalities and smaller sovereign units that had existed were merged into the German, Austro-Hungarian and Italian Empires at the end of the Nineteenth
Each Country has quirky collecting habits related to how their stamps were printed and to the marginal markings that originally contained printer’s information or advertising. Israeli collectors collect their stamps with tabs, which are inscriptions that appear in the margins and which are collected attached to the stamps themselves. French collectors collect milliseme pairs, which are margin pairs with
One of the more ironic things about specialized philately is that collectors are far more likely to collect older issues in a highly specialized degree than they are to collect more modern stamps in the same degree of detail. Penny Blacks are specialized by plate number. There were 12 plates- each of which can only be
Specialized Modern United States Read More »
The specialty area of United States Revenues may be the most fertile collecting specialty for collectors. Scott lists the general issue revenues which are interesting enough. But it is in the field of the specialty revenues where collectors have had the most fun. There are specialty Revenues for everything from Perfume Tax Stamps to Consular Office Revenues (which paid the tax
Revenue Stamped Paper Read More »
Probably the best philatelic magazine that is published anywhere in the world is the “The American Philatelist”, which is the monthly journal of the American Philatelic Society. Over eighty pages each month, the magazine serves partly as a member bulletin. But the real interest each month is the numerous detailed articles written by members, mostly about their
American Philatelist Read More »