Presidential topical collections in general are not very popular largely because there is so little philatelic material that has been issued for most Presidents (quick- name three stamps that have Garfield or the current Presidential flavor-Coolidge-
Philately has many collectibles. Stamps are obvious; covers are stamps on envelopes and are derivative from the stamps themselves. And Proofs and Essays are precursors, coming before (and sometimes instead of) the stamps that they are associated with. As all of these types of philatelic material are related to the official issuance and use of…
Ken Martin, the executive director of the American Philatelic Society, is a kind and capable man and a very good friend. So it is with good humor that I point out his article in the June American Philatelist. Ken mentions that the APS “only lost 10%” of its members this year and is down to just over…
Imagine a company, which like the Scott publishing company, (so dominant in United States philately) is preeminent as its national stamp publisher. As well as issuing a general worldwide catalog, they are especially known as the publisher of the national specialty catalog which is used by nearly all native philatelists and millions of foreign ones. But in addition to this, they also…
Unbeknownst to a mass of collectors, one of the major changes brought about in our hobby as a result of the Internet age is greater democratization. In the pre-1900 period, philatelic organizations didn’t count for much- there were few of them, and they had few members. The American Philatelic Society began to become powerful in the…
Probably no stamp has shot up in value more than the 1980 PRC issue for the Year of the Monkey. Originally this new issue sold mint in the US for under a dollar and the last one we sold brought over $1500. Two factors have brought about this huge rise. The well known reason is…
The desire to collect is innate and probably relates to the gatherer instinct that separates humans from other primates. But in a world in which one can collect everything from antique barbed wire to Victorian pocketbooks, why do people collect stamps? The answer, I think, comes down to three factors: community, size, and orderliness. First,…