Monthly Archives: January 2022

The Arab spring which started out so peacefully with the change of the governments of Egypt and Tunisia took a turn for the more violent when NATO was involved in the overthrow of the Libyan government. Libyan stamps have begun their fourth phase. First, there were the issues of the Italian Colony of Libya which issued over a hundred different stamps before 1951. After WW II and the Italian occupation, there were the Independence issues which were issued from 1951-1969. In 1969, Muammar Gadaffi staged a coup and became the sole ruler of Libya for over 40 years until he was overthrown last summer. Libya has a large geographic area but a small population and is largely desert and had a largely nomadic population until oil was discovered. The oil wealth of Libya is enormous and hopefully will not be squandered under the new government as it was under Gadaffi. I have always been partial to Italian Colony stamps. They are very well printed and hard to find without being terribly pricey. From an

Color and shades are one of the most overdone areas of our hobby. During the earliest years of collecting, before 1900, there were simply not enough new stamp issues for the amount of time that collectors had to devote to our hobby. Collectors then parsed and refined their specialties and one way to do this was by shade. Collecting this way ignores the reality that certain colors, blues and reds especially, degrade and change over time especially depending on exposure to light or air. What we call different shades today are often due merely to different handling criteria on 100 year old stamps that may have well been printed next to each other on a sheet. When significant shade variations exist, they should be saved and studied. When different printings at different times produces different shades then of course they should be saved. But just two anecdotes to end this post. Many years ago I did a year long study on the three major shade differences of the United States 3c 1851-the ordinary

Postage Dues are one of what are called special service stamps, that is stamps issued for special postal purposes. Such stamps include Parcel Posts, which are stamps intended to be used on packages, Officials which are stamps used on government mail and all of the array of Newspapers and postal tax stamps that grace the back of each country's catalog listing. All major countries, with the exception of Germany, have issued Postage Due stamps and they are unusual as they are more of an accounting device than a real prepaid postal label which is what other postage stamps and special service stamps are. Postage dues are issued to facilitate internal post office accounting and to let the carrier know that there is money to collect on delivery. The United States issued more Postage Dues than all but a few countries and the Postage Dues of the United States present a difficult and pricey challenge. It is an odd fact of US philately that our special services stamps-our Postage Dues, Officials,