Monthly Archives: February 2012

Occupation stamps are war time issues that are printed by an occupying force for use in the territory of a conquered area. As such, they are usually quite popular in the country that did the occupying, as sort of a jingoistic memory, and quite unpopular in the country that was occupied, reminding them of their weakness and pain. For example, the Japanese issued hundreds of occupation stamps for their military conquests of East Asia during WW II. These stamps are rarely collected by native Chinese, Burmese or Filipino collectors. But they are avidly sought out by native Japanese. Indeed, when dealers list them in their catalogs they are listed under the issuing country (in this case Japan) as that is where the real interest lies.

 There is one exception to this rule is the Germans. They collect the WW II Occupation of Germany more avidly than do any of the occupiers and are especially assiduous in collecting the Soviet Zone Occupations. Partly

In the last ten years two main areas of philately have seen substantial rises in prices and popularity- Russia and China. But the increases have not been all in straight lines. Rather, for a period prices rise substantially, and then fall back either with general economic weakness or because of market demand. What has been interesting in the case of these two areas is that each time prices have fallen back a bit a strong cadre of American collectors have stepped in to buy, propping up prices and using the market lull to add these foreign stamps to their collections. This is a very healthy phenomena for the long term price structure of these two collecting areas. All of the so called "best bet" investment areas (for example, United States stamps or British Commonwealth) are strong not only because of intense internal demand but because philatelists world wide desire these stamps and are trying to obtain them. It's not as if there aren't enough Chinese or

The 1950's were the beginning of the modern period in philately. The overarching history of our hobby is a triad-the classic period from about 1850 to about 1910 defined by world wide collectors studying and accumulating their stamps with scant regard for quality (and even little attention to genuineness). Then there was the middle period, 1910-1950, defined by increasing philatelicazation of the hobby (with items created solely for collectors, such as First Day Covers, becoming popular), increasing specialization and the beginnings of a philatelic "establishment" (ie societies and national news magazines). And finally, there is the modern period which began about 1950 and continues today and has seen increasing specialization (most collectors collect only one country or even part of a country).

 Our hobby has become less social, originally because of magazines and direct mail, and now because of the demise of clubs and stores and

It is really hard to give most general collectors a picture of just how rare most foreign revenue stamps issued before 1945 really are. Let me put it this way. In terms of volume of stamps, we sell hundreds of millions of individual stamps per year. And of that hundreds of millions perhaps only a few thousand are Foreign pre 1940 Revenues. And here is a little group- Italian Colony Revenues-containing stamps that we have never before offered. Italy was late to the colony game. The world's first great colonial power, Spain, was already weary of the exercise and retained only a fraction of its original colonial hoard before Italy was an active colonizer. And Italy largely played around the edges, administering larger cities and coastal areas of places like Libya and Ethiopia, unlike the British and French who vied to occupy entire continents. Even the regular postage stamps of the Italian Colonies are hard to find. Pictured above are a small group of late Nineteenth and

Pessimism and philately have always seemed like stamp and tong-they just go together. Visitors to stamp clubs in the 1970s will all tell you stories about how the old timers then talked about the "good old days" and predicted the demise of philately. But as Mark Twain said in a slightly different context, reports of our hobby's death have been great exaggerated. The editor of Linn's, Michael Baadke, had an interesting and eye opening article in the January 30, 2012 of Linns Stamp News which he was kind enough to provide a link to. The article references a Wikicollecting.org study that places philately as the most popular of all the collecting hobbies. Badaake then goes on to some statistical analysis and finds that membership in the APS today on a per capita basis  is about twice as great as it was during the supposed philatelic heydays of the 1960s. This statistic is all the more meaningful as in 1960 membership in

There are two major European cities that share a history of constant political change. Danzig in the north is at the border of the German and Russian areas of influence and has changed political affiliation many times, with incarnations as Polish/Russian dominated, German dominanted and independent. In southern Europe, Fiume is a philatelic entity at the northern end of the Adriatic sea which has formed a border between the Austro Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Italian area of influence. Fiume too has seen major political changes.  In the post Napoleonic period, Fiume was part of Hungary, which operated under the jurisdiction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Fiume was the major port for the Hungarian section of the Empire. WWI saw the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Fiume was wrested from Hungary and given to Italy to administer (Hungary was left without a port and without a navy which created the anomaly that the WWII era leader

Revenue from the sale of stamps fund many worthwhile projects. Early in the twentieth century, the first philatelic exposition souvenir sheets were issued to help pay for some of the world's first stamp shows. Most European countries today issue semipostals, stamps with a charity surcharge, to fund the work of the Red Cross or to fight cancer. And many smaller third world counties subsidize their government budgets with profits from the sale of stamps to collectors. America has been lax in using funds from commemorative stamp sales to fund worthwhile projects. Perhaps our secular tradition makes it difficult for quasi government organizations to get involved in charity work which is traditionally seen as the bailiwick of religion. Or perhaps we are such a fragmented society that we can't agree on which charities, if any, are worth government funding. But a diverse constellation of interest groups lined up over the Junior Duck Stamp