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In all fields there are mantras that people repeat over and over as what would propel them and their organization to the top. In business, the holy grail is exporting to China (you know 1.5 billion people all of whom will soon need your widget), in higher education it is the prospect of eas(ier) college […]

Today there is only one national philatelic society

Philatelists in earlier generations grew up with a wealth of publications and literature that makes many of today’s collectors envious. The Internet has meant that one can read about stamps any time for free, but the quality of what is written has diminished significantly with the decline of print publications. Forty years ago, stamp collectors

My elliptical broke last week. I called the service company, and the next day a service person came out who took apart the machine and told me that the parts were largely worn and needed to be replaced and that he thought that the machine wouldn’t be worth repairing. A couple of painless phone calls

US First day Covers began in earnest about 1909 and, more than anything, were the brain child of a young Philadelphia collector named Philip Ward. Ward went on to become a major US collector and dealer (in those days of the turn of the last Century, poor liquidity in the stamp market forced many prominent collectors

One constant issue that lifelong philatelists have with their collections and an issue about which their families have much to say is about the amount of space that a stamp collection takes up. For many collectors, a lifetime in philately means they have assembled their early worldwide collection (which often runs to many volumes), several

Hobbies come in many types from knitting to horse shoes. Philately is categorized under the broad range of collectible hobbies. But philately is unusual in that it has been a very popular hobby for over 150 years and is still going strong. Most collectible hobbies enjoy a brief period of popularity, like Franklin Mint Commemorative

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, stamp hinges are the worst form of mounts, except all others. Peelable hinges were a revolutionary innovation when they first became commercially available about 1920.  Before that, hinging was done by using some old stamp selvage or gummed paper, and the results are hideous. Gummed paper never comes off of mint gummed