The Stamp Dealer Who Broke the Mold

January 3, 2010

By all accounts this giant of a stamp dealer should have been serious and dour.   After all, there probably wasn’t anyone stamp collectors could better expect to answer a question or give a good piece of advice.
But Robson Lowe was jovial, genuine with his friendship, and delighted to share his considerable knowledge.   When he passed [...]

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Understanding U.S. Postage Stamp Prices

January 2, 2010

As with all stamps, the value of U.S. postage stamps is determined by supply, demand, and condition.
Almost every stamp dealer in the United States has had something like this happen.   There is a phone call from somebody who has inherited a collection of US stamps.   These stamps are in full sheets, well protected, and in [...]

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A Stamp Dealer’s Reflections

January 2, 2010

The first stamp dealer’s store I ever spent any time in is wrapped in memories that gild reality with a richness that is probably lacking.   But sitting on that swiveling stool at the counter of the stamp store in Brockton, Massachusetts was akin to sitting on a throne.
That was where I saw a compact kingdom [...]

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Stamp Dealers and Stamp Collectors Basked in Golden Days

January 2, 2010

In 1947, when stamp collectors and stamp dealers commemorated the 100th anniversary of America’s first postage stamp, the city was New York, the show was CIPEX,  and our world was obviously a much different place.
When you walked along Fifth Avenue, men wearing hats were commonplace.   So were stamp dealers and their shops. Each was a [...]

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Are You New To Stamp Collecting?

January 1, 2010

Welcome… stamp collecting has been called “the hobby of kings and the king of hobbies.”   If you’re interested in learning a bit about stamp collecting for beginners, a good place to start is with this thought.
You collect whatever stamps you want.   Stamp collecting for beginners starts off as whatever you want.
If you want to collect [...]

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The “Klaipeda” Overprint

January 1, 2010

You may have a tough time identifying this stamp.  Don’t feel badly,  because following World War I the Allied Powers had a tough time figuring out what to do with the country it comes from.

The stamp is from Memel, originally part of Prussia but heavily Lithuanian.
Following the war,  Memel was detached from Germany and administered [...]

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The World’s Greatest Stamp Collector

January 1, 2010

Was Sir Edward Bacon really the greatest stamp collector of all time?  Any list of our hobby’s top five philatelists would probably include his name.
Even if Sir Edward’s status as a great collector is disputed, the collection he assembled is unquestionably in a league of its own.  Bacon was the first curator for the Philatelic [...]

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The Strange Saga of the World’s Most Valuable Stamp

December 31, 2009

When I was growing up in stamp collecting, it was the British Guiana 1856 one cent Magenta that fired our imaginations as the rarest stamp in the world.

Today, the honor goes to the 1858 Sweden Treskilling Yellow, which sold for 2.5 million Swiss Francs in 1996.

It is a member of a series of five definitives [...]

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The Value of Old Postage Stamps

December 29, 2009

A good place to start when it comes to determining the value of old postage stamps is to define what “old” really means.
Stamps have been produced since 1840, and stamp collecting has been a major hobby for almost as long.  It is not difficult for a collector to find stamps from the nineteenth century, and [...]

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Stamp Collecting Values

December 29, 2009

When it comes to stamp collecting, the value of stamps is more important to some collectors than others.
When collectors ask me “What is the value of such and such a stamp?” I usually tell them that three factors determine what a stamp can be bought and sold for.

Supply
Demand
Condition

These are the three factors in the time-honored [...]

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