John Apfelbaum

There was a time in our hobby where you couldn't really call yourself a collector unless you belonged to a stamp club. Thousands of clubs existed in this country and, in Philadelphia alone, in 1970, a collector could go to a different stamp club meeting five days a week. There were over twenty clubs in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, meeting once a week or twice monthly, or, for a few of the more high brow clubs, monthly alone. And Philadelphia paled in comparison to Chicago which had nearly forty clubs in its prime. Stamp clubs served as social networks and a place to see stamp friends and talk about stamp issues. Each club had it's own character, generally driven by force of personality of a few long time members. A club could be gossipy or scholarly. Some tried to have regular guest speakers or exhibits to facilitate serious philatelic conversation. Others were coffee klatches given over to gossip and reminiscing. And most clubs had trading desks where collectors could bring their d

Tom Wilson had been a customer of ours for years when he called us to come and see his collection that he was ready to sell.Tom and I spoke on the phone and set up an appointment for me to come to his home in Chula Vista, quite a ways from my Jenkintown office, but, for a collection the heft of Tom's, well worth the trip. We set up a date and time and as I was saying goodbye Tom asked "how will I know it is you when you come to the door?" I replied lightly that since I was probably the only one with whom he had an appointment that day to see his stamps, when someone showed up and rang his doorbell, it was probably me. It didn't reassure him. I said that he and I had spoken on the phone scores of times, that I knew his birthday because his wife had often called to arrange philatelic presents and that, though we had never met, my voice and my driver's license should be enough to convince him of my identity when I arrived. "We need a password" he said. I thought he was joking. But after a

There have been thousands of competitive stamp exhibits that have been prepared and displayed over the last century. These collections take years to develop and many hours to mount, describe and write up. They are then put up in frames at a stamp show, seen by a few score people and, on average, exhibited a dozen times before the owner doesn't win enough awards for his interest to stay piqued. Modern technology has created a great philatelic possibility. Over the last ten years millions of scans of stamps and covers have appeared on the Internet. Collectors now could easily put together a Virtual Exhibit, consisting of stamps and covers that pertain to the theme of the exhibit but which the collector doesn't own and many never have actually seen except as scans. In favor of this proposal is that it appeals to what exhibitors have long stated was their main philatelic goal- creating a philatelic exhibit that uses stamps to tell a postal or historical story that is both compelling and complete. C

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 of Hungary was a former naval

When I started in the stamp business in the late 1960s there was still active a large group of professional philatelists who had been political refugees from the 1930s. These were people who had escaped Germany and Eastern Europe and had come to the United States, often by very circuitous routes. All had a story and most appeared to be alive only because of the most fortuitous of circumstances. Stamp Dealers had a better survival rate from the Nazi final solution than did many other professionals and this was because they were less reluctant to pick up stakes and leave, and so got out earlier while there was still time. Most professionals deal in a language and culturally specific skill (a German lawyer or Polish accountant is unemployable in the United States in the often lucrative profession in which he was trained) and most business men have their investments in unmovable plant and equipment. But stamp dealers are more mobile. But rearranging his stock to fewer, scarcer items a dealer c

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 col

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 of Hungary was a former naval

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 program. He

Luxembourg is a small and wealthy country located between France and Germany. In 1940, Luxembourg was on the invasion route that Nazi forces took to overrun France and the government of Luxembourg was quickly overthrown. As they did for most of the countries that they occupied, the Germans quickly issued Occupation stamps. The most remarkable thing about the German Occupations were the abundance of philatelic items that they produced. The Third Reich in the early WW II period seemed to do three things particularly well- quickly overrun their enemies, round up Jews and other undesirables for extermination, and create philatelic occupation covers. The cover here was made by a Nazi philatelist who sent the Occupation stamps on a registered cover home. The Germans were ( and are) a nation of stamp collectors and much WW II related occupation material exists as momentos sent home by Hans to show where he had been. And the war in the early years was easy for the German Army as it met little re

The decade of the 1940's was defined by WW II. The totality of the war experience is hard for Americans today to understand. Currently, we have been at war for over ten years with most of the impact for most Americans being the character of the nightly news. WW II required a total mobilization of America. Every man between the ages of 18 and 35 was subject to the draft and most were in the military. Rationing existed for nearly everything and most drivers got a gallon or two of gas a week and no tires. In 3 1/2 years America mobilized and fought a two front war projecting military might around the globe and defeating two powerful enemies at once. It was perhaps the greatest military feat in history and the war's effect on American philately was profound. Most people didn't have time for stamps. Workers were working overtime and the huge military effort took millions of men of prime philatelic age out of the market. Worldwide, the massive destruction of Europe made stamp collecting go in

Economic theory extols the virtue of trade and many anthropologists credit trade with being among the human inventions that most advanced civilization and material wealth. Stamps facilitated trade as their invention and use made communications easier, and ease of communications is one of the conditions that improves trade. Throughout the Nineteenth Century it was agricultural products that were the most traded and tobacco was one of the most widely traded and transported agricultural commodities. Tobacco was addictive so its market was ever expanding and unresponsive to changes in taste and fashion. Tobacco grew only in certain climates far removed from Europe where it was needed and tobacco required little care after harvesting making it an ideal crop for transport and trade. Rats didn't eat it and it could be stored for a long time. The letter illustrated above ( and we scanned the folded letter and then opened it out so you can read it) is an example of the kind of interrelatedness o

Most special stamps relate to postal use and postal purposes. Stamps such as Airmails are higher denominated stamps and the extra revenue is used to defray the cost of the class of service that is being used. But War Tax stamps are a different animal entirely-they are a country using its postal service to generate revenue for another purpose, in this case war funding. The first War Tax stamps were issued by Spain in the late Nineteenth Century and War Tax stamps have been issued as late as 1974 in Bahrain. But by far the most significant use of War tax stamps was in the British Commonwealth for raising revenue for WW I. Most of the Colonial issues are overprints, but Canada produced different stamps for War Tax one of which is illustrated here. They way War Tax stamps produced revenue was that after a certain date all letters had to bear a tax stamp in addition to the postage stamp and all revenue from the sale of the tax stamps went to the war effort. The United States had a tidier solu

Among the most interesting specializations in our hobby are the stamps of Canada and especially the issue of 1880-1890 that are called the "Large Queens". The name that philatelists have given this set refers to their physical relationship to the set of stamps that came after them. These stamps are large-the next issues was much smaller. Large Queens have several interesting philatelic points going for them, primarily the fact that there are so many varieties to collect. The stamps themselves are well printed and attractive and the varieties ensure that a specialist never comes to end of items to acquire. There are perf varieties and paper varieties, especially three of the stamps being issued on Laid paper (all of the Laid paper varieties are rare). There are watermarked varieties as these stamps were issued on paper as it could be purchased and for different printings that sometimes meant paper that was watermarked. And there are shades galore. In fact the 15c value is printed in a c

British Honduras was the only Colony in Latin America, British, Spanish, Portuguese or French, that wasn't set up to extract silver or gold or produce the eighteenth and nineteenth century agricultural equivalent, sugar. British Honduras was an extractive colony of a different kind-it was set up to harvest timber. Some of the finest trees in the world, especially mahogany, grow there and the British had received economic rights to the Colony as early as 1783. British Honduras then was run as a massive timber camp, with slave labor of course, though timber is less labor intensive than sugar and required a smaller population. The population of British Honduras never exceeded 30,000 and the ratio of slave and Indian to white was about ten to one. This has made legitimately used British Honduras stamps of the nineteenth and early twentieth century among the most difficult to find in our hobby. The stamps are well produced and have many elusive high values and have the added interest of being

Suppose you were a fellow collector of my grandfather Earl Apfelbaum in the 1920s. The probability is that you would be a world wide collector with perhaps a single country concentration. You would have a hardbound Scott album or a McKeels album as Minkus and Harris were still years in the future. You mounted your stamps with hinges and the prevailing philatelic dispute was not over "hinged" versus "never hinged" but over whether the new fangled invention of peelable hinges was worth the additional price (previous to the invention of "peelable glassine hinges", hinges took off most of the gum if you could remove them at all). The Scott catalog was one volume in less than 300 pages and for your $2.95 you got a listing of all the stamps in the world in a hardbound volume. Everyone belonged to a stamp club and the better clubs set up "catalog clubs" where everyone put in a penny or a nickle a month so that the club could purchase a new volume of Scott each year. Philately was far more soc

Chile is one of the two wealthiest countries in Latin America with Uruguay. The country lies along a narrow strip of land along the west coast of the South American continent bordered by the Andes mountains on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Chile's climate ranges from some of the driest hottest deserts to frozen Antarctic landscapes. It's wealth is multidimensional based on mineral wealth including copper, and great agricultural produce including fruits and wines. Philatelically, Chile is fairly simple though the country is an interesting one to collect. The first issues (the imperforate Columbus heads) are very specialized and Scott lists different printings with the same plates as different stamps which is more specialized than most people need. But after that the stamps are pretty straight forward and not very expensive though not easy to find. Chile has long had one of the more conservative stamp issuing policies and even today the Chilean post office issues only about twen

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