Monthly Archives: May 2012

Broadly speaking, there are two types of philatelic items-those that are offered frequently and are readily available, even though their price may be substantial. And the second type of philatelic item is one that is rarely offered and of great rarity, even though the price may be quite modest. An example of the first would be a US #1. This is a supremely popular stamp-the first issue of one of the world's major philatelic countries. It's a bit pricey because of its popularity but a collector would have no trouble finding one. Right now, our company has fifteen for sale ranging in price, depending on quality, from $130 to$250 and on EBay right now there are over thirty. This stamp, and even Airmail Inverts at $150,000 fits in this category, is readily available to any collector who has the money and desires it. The second category are stamps that are far more elusive-stamps like many of the Italian Offices or Portuguese Colonies or early St Pierre and Miquelon. The list of stamps in

Throughout philatelic history, writers have been predicting the next great philatelic area-the next specialty that will take off in price. Predictions are usually founded on one of two criteria that predict the supposed increase in the popularity that the stamps will undergo. Either the economy of the country will take off creating a pool of desperate collectors eager to buy the older issues that you should have put away (if only you had listened to the prognosticator). Or there is some intrinsic not fully understood rarity factor that collectors will ultimately discover and make them eager to buy stamps that you (had you listened to the prognosticator) should have put away in quantity. The problem with predictions is that they tend to be very accurate in hindsight and and we tend to forget all the ones that haven't panned out. For the last fifty years Brazil was always going to be the next best country. The economy was going to boom and 120 million Brazilian collectors would enter the

Before it became the holiday that commemorated Americans who have defended their country in war, Memorial Day celebrated the end of the Civil War. It was felt by many of the former Confederate States that Memorial day was a Northern holiday that commemorated the North's victory in the Civil War and for many years Memorial Day was not celebrated in the South. Throughout the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century there were markedly different feelings about the Civil War, its causes and its aftermath. The philatelic fallout from this was the establishment of two national philatelic organizations-the American Philatelic Society and the Southern Philatelic Society. Both organizations were established in the 1880's and collectors who wanted to join philatelic organizations were never so plentiful that either stuck solely to its geographic roots. Members from all over were welcomed in both societies but the fact that there were parallel organizations was a hold over from the Civil

When I was first coming into organized philately some 40 years ago there was a charming older woman named Wendy Williams. Wendy was about sixty then, worked in one the records offices in Philadelphia, had been married, was now divorced and had no children. Whatever club meeting you went to in the Philadelphia area in those days you were sure to see Wendy. On Mondays, she was at the Frankfurt club, on Tuesdays in Springfield and on and on. An avid stamp collector could have coffee with Wendy pretty much every day of the week. And she was not an idle hanger on. I believe at her hay day in 1975, she was, at the same time, Secretary Treasurer of three clubs and Vice President of two more. She ran the hospitality committees of almost all of the clubs she belonged to, was membership chair of several others and was auctioneer at several more. Once when the plumbing got stuffed up at one club... but I exaggerate. Everyone loved Wendy. She was stamp mom to us younger collectors and

There is an unfortunate hobby arc that goes like this. A wealthy person decides that he wishes to be an enthusiast, buys an enormous amount of gear, and loses interest before he has gotten any of the real enjoyment out of his new whim. This is the fly fisher who has all the latest Orvis gear or the guy with the 120" projector screen in a private home. In philately, this shows itself in the new collector who buys a large set of very beautiful and expensive matched hingeless specialty albums, fills them with thousands of the mostly more basic stamps and loses interest in our hobby before all the real fun begins. For the great pleasure of philately is the chase, searching for difficult to find material and slowly creating a fine collection from which you learn and derive joy. But these ephemeral collectors provide a benefit for other collectors in the sense that plankton provides a benefit for whales. They create a constant stream of fine, barely used specialty album collections

Historians mark two types of dates in history. There are dates like 1066, the Norman Conquest of Britain, which are known at the time to the players involved to be significant dates in which vast changes have occurred. And there are dates such as 1054, which marks the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern church of Constantinople. The two churches had been feuding for years and 1054 marked a dividing point that is largely a  historian's construct. As the schism was a process, the date for it could have been fixed either a century or two before or after. Had any real attempts at reconciliation occurred, 1054 would be meaningless to us now. We have such different types of dates in philately. 1840 is our Genesis, for really there is no philately without stamps and 1840 marks the date of the first postal issue. But I think 1990 will come to be known as a seminal date in US philately, perhaps

Before the advent of the Giori Press, which allowed easy multicolor printing, the United States Post Office issued primarily single colored stamps. This was because bi color stamps, under the traditional engraving process, required different runs through the press for each color. This was time consuming and created "registration" problems, that is problems of the colors aligning correctly one to the other. But other, more disastrous, problems, such as inverts, could occur. To 1960, the United States issued less than 20 bi colored stamps. The first were the higher values of the 1869 with two of the three values being known inverted. The next issue was 32 years later, the 1901 Pan American issue and two of these values are known inverted. And of course there is the famous 24c Airmail invert. I have never seen what would be a wonderful thematic collection-bi colored engraved US stamps. First of all, all of the stamps are affordable (without the inverts) and so is completable, the

Most collectors feel that specializing in a single country qualifies them to state that they are a "specialist" when it comes to their philately. But many collectors go even further than just one country and collect a single issue such as the Washington Franklin issue of the United States. Some go even further than that and collect the plate numbers and plate number blocks and some go even further than that and collect initials that are found in the side corner margins of Washington Franklins. These initials are a form of accountability markings to let people know after a stamp was printed who was responsible for handling the plate. There are three types of initials found on these stamps (in case you were wondering whether these issues could be specialized even further). There are Printers Initials that are found in side margins and are the initials of the printer who last printed from that sheet. There are siderographer initials which are usually found in the lower left corner margin of

When EBay first began to gain in popularity some ten years ago, there were predictions that it would ultimately mean the demise of mainstream stamp dealers. Events have played out rather differently. On any given day, the philatelic part of the EBay empire has over two million stamp lots listed for sale in either the stores or at the auctions. This number is both EBay's success and its weakness. This number makes it very difficult for collectors to establish rhythm with any one seller. What has been the traditional philatelic relationship between sellers and buyers is impossible to develop with EBay. Traditionally, collectors have made the majority of their purchases from one or two dealers. Once a collector establishes that he likes a dealer's offerings, quality, prices and service, the collector tends to maximize the efficiency of his time by going to that dealer's website first. Collectors have found what consumers in general have found-that unlimited choice presents almost no choice

Bullying, the cruel treatment of someone who has caused you no harm, is not just limited to political candidates and school boys. It intrudes in our hobby as well. About twenty years ago there was a very prominent and wealthy United States collector-Jerry. Jerry came to our office once to view an auction and the way that our office was set up in those days was that I could hear most of what went on in the auction viewing room, although I couldn't see in nor be seen. We had a young man working for us then who had a slight mental disability. He was sweet and hard working and eager to please but he was mentally a bit slow. Anyway, he wasn't getting auction lots fast enough for Lord Jerry and Jerry verbally lit into him with one of the most offensive verbal tirades I have ever heard, yelling egregious insults at this young man who was too slow to respond and needed his job too much to do so in any case. To my eternal shame I sat in my office and did nothing.