From the category archives:

Stamp Collecting

The Europa Stamp That’s Not From Europe

April 29, 2012

This interesting piece, issued by Gabon in 1968, is highly unusual. The Europa, or CEPT emblem, from 1967, appearss on this souvenir sheet, released to honor West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.  This emblem is rarely seen on stamps from countries which are not Europa members. When the first Europa stamps with a common design were [...]

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Philippines Stamps Keep Stamp Collectors Guessing

April 1, 2012

It’s one of the charming curiosities, one of those quirks captured in the pages of the Scott Stamp Catalogue.  One stamp is assigned the number 657 and the next number is 804. Each stamp was released in 1959. So what happened to the 146 stamps in between? The country in question is a country that [...]

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The Genius of Czeslaw Slania

May 15, 2011

Czeslaw Slania is widely acclaimed as the greatest engraver of postage stamps of  our generation. When he died in 2005 at the age of 84, the prolific native of Poland who took up residence in Sweden in 1956 had engraved more than a thousand stamps. As a young man, Slania employed his considerable skills forging [...]

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The Mystery of Canada’s Dazzling Bluenose Stamp

March 29, 2011

On a January day in 1929, and we’re not 100% certain exactly which day it was, Canada released  this 50 cent stamp depicting the schooner Bluenose. When the stamp was placed on sale, either on January 6 or January 8th, it was immediately acknowledged as extraordinary. It is not hard to find a stamp collector [...]

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A Gorgeous Cover from Bolivia

March 3, 2011

Here is one of many reminders that fascinating postal history for stamp collectors continues to be created every day.

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After the Floods

February 28, 2011

In 1961 Colombia released a set of stamps to honor a nurse who died in the autumn floods of 1955. These were not semi-postals, but postal tax stamps.  And in this case, the tax was mandatory. All mail in Colombia was supposed to include these stamps during the month of November, 1961.  They depicted a [...]

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85 Years Between Stamps

January 16, 2011

Mayotte is one of those countries that doesn’t quite fit in… it is not exactly a French Colony and not exactly part of the Comoro Islands. But as far as stamp collectors are concerned, Mayotte is fascinating. Geographically, Mayotte is indeed one of the Comoro Islands, located in the Indian Ocean off the east coast [...]

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A Merry Stamp Collecting Christmas

December 19, 2010

Christmas has long been a popular topic for stamp collectors, and one of the strangest Christmas stamps of all was released by Peru in 1961. It is not the prettiest of stamps and terribly manufactured… the ragged perforations are not exactly festive. But what makes this Peruvian stamp notable is that it could only be [...]

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When Stamps Spread Hatred

August 21, 2010

Stamp collecting is as good a pastime as any to brush aside the cares of the world.  Stamp collectors are easily lured back to distant eras and off to distant shores by stamps that unlock the imagination. But even stamp collecting cannot completely quarantine the cares of the world.  This stamp from Iran, which turned [...]

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A Stamp Show Staged in Difficult Times

July 5, 2010

When stamp collectors gathered in Zagreb, Croatia late in the summer of 1943, the country was a puppet of Nazi Germany.  But the Croatian Philatelic Society staged an exhibition in Zagreb and released two stamps to commemorate the occasion. The semi-postal depicted St. Mary’s Church and Zagreb’s Cistercian Cloister as they appeared in 1650.  Two [...]

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