Monthly Archives: July 2021

There is no more valuable substance in the world by weight and volume than original gum. Consider - the gum on a thousand mint US Ten Cent 1847s if miraculously removed, commingled and weighed would total about an ounce. And the value of such gum on the stamps is $20,000 for each stamp according to the latest Scott catalog (the difference between an" og" price and a "no gum" price) which makes our magic ounce of og worth a cool $200 million (a US #31 has a $23,500 premium for og making a thousand of them worth $235 million.) And og is increasing rapidly in value. The price of Nineteenth Century stamps with original gum has far outstripped the price of the same stamps without gum over the last twenty years. And this is for a substance that is invisible when you mount your stamps and requires the utmost care so as not to compromise or damage. And that is when you are fortunate enough to have bought og in the first place. I can't tell you how many certificates from ten or more years ago I h

A good while ago (pre Covid times, when people would travel) I spent some time with the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, the government agency that operates under the Department of Homeland Security to make our air travel safer. TSA has a variety of hard to understand rules about what you can and cannot take through security when you fly on a commercial airliner. The rules often seem arbitrary and changeable though to give TSA the benefit of the doubt, they are probably responding to Intelligence intercepts alerting them to dangers that would be counterproductive to inform the public of. If you are like me though, you have brought to security "forbidden items" by accident which you have to toss away or, in the case of a bottle of fine champagne I had to toss recently, donate to the TSA party fund. Several years ago I had my favorite pair of stamp tongs in my briefcase, a pair that I had had for over twenty years and which had the exact right tension and fit for me as well

In the 1980's mint new issues from British Colonies and Western Europe were marketed extensively as good investments. The theory was that as the number of collectors rose the newer issues would rise in value similarly to the way that the issues of the 1950's had risen by 1980. What the people who bought and sold these new issue investment portfolios didn't realize was that the cause of the rise in price of the earlier material was because insufficient quantities of 1950's and earlier material had been saved and not that demand was so much greater and would continue to increase. The increase in price in 1950's material was not a demand pull increase but rather a supply push as, because of World War II most of Europe and Britain were unable to afford expensive new issues during the 1950's and were catching up in the 1970's and buying those issues then.

 The people who invested heavily in the 1970's

The first issue revenues of the United States are some of the world's most attractive stamps and would be far more popular among US collectors if it wasn't for the perf, imperf, part perf problem. These stamps were issued to pay taxes on everything from bills of sale to stock and property transfers and the initial plan was to issue revenue stamps for each type of transaction. But from the first this proved impractical and any of these revenues could be used to pay any kind of tax (I've seen regular issues stamps too-specifically #65, 68 and 73- used on documents to pay taxes). In the rush to get these stamps to users at the start of the Civil War they were sent imperforate or sometimes part perforated though the intention all along was for the issues to be perforated just as the postage stamps of the time were.

 Here is the problem with this issue. All are known perfed and many were also issued imp

The world of philately is replete with euphemisms and misnomers. Some of them are deceptive. Most of them are silly. The American Philatelic Experization Service (the expert group of the APS) for many years marketed themselves under their acronym APES, never cognizant that in the competitive world of expertizing services one shouldn't voluntarily place oneself lower on the evolutionary tree. And perhaps the height of  tastelessness is the euphemism "Closed Albums" for philatelic obituaries. I mean really! But this phraseology, though tacky, is harmless compared to the assault on language made by philatelists in minimizing faults and exaggerating quality. "Expertly Restored" is favored when the seller is attempting to foist off a repair as a genuine item.  A repaired stamp is considered damaged and must be sold as such, usually at a great discount from the perfect price. But oddly, "restored" covers are acceptable in the postal history world with many of the best covers having had extensi

Confederate States regular issues consist of fourteen Scott issued stamps that were issued over a period of four years during which the Civil War was fought. There are only two scarce stamps and both of these issues occurred when the Confederate States Post Office decided to change issues in 1863 . The new stamps were originally printed with the denomination in letters rather than in numerals. The history of having the denomination of stamps written in letters rather than numerals is one of generally short issues and low press runs. Postal workers hate them. Post office work has always combined high volume with stress and monotony which can be an unpleasant combination. Not being able to readily determine the denomination on the stamps on the envelopes presented to them slows postal workers down. It was for this reason that the denomination was changed to numerals and the TEN variety had a short press run. The "Frameline" varieties were varieties where framelines were drawn between the