Stamp Column Archives

The Glassine Surfer Column Archive

This column originally appeared in the American Philatelic Society's monthly magazine, "The American Philatelist." Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

June 2000

It used to be that after I sent my column off to State College each month I would wonder where I would find another batch of stamp sites to match the ones I'd just reviewed.  Some months it was indeed exceedingly difficult, but lately, perhaps since the beginning of last fall, we've been blessed with wave upon wave of excellent stamp sites.

It may simply be that altruistic stamp sites lag behind the rest of the Net, and we're just now coming into our own.  But I'll leave the reasons for this to those more apt to ponder the imponderables and instead opt to revel in the moment and the joy of discovery.

On the other hand if the stamp collecting is beginning the spawn it's own web, then I'd better invest in an industrial strength keyboard.  

Stamps A-Z

Bill Senkus says his stamp site, "Alphabetilately," is for beginners and non-collectors, but there's something here for every hoarder,  philatelist and armchair dreamer.

"Alpabetilately" offers 26 glimpses of different aspects of stamp collecting, arranged alphabetically of course.  For example, "B" is for bisect, and is a page with 11 detailed illustrations and accompanying text, while "Z" is for Zeppelin and gets the same treatment.

Each letter is a well written and illustrated, complete with references with the emphasis on telling an interesting story about stamps.  As a book, it'd be an excellent inspirational armchair reader.

Senkus' exhibit was first designed to help promote Pacific '97, the ninth World Philatelic Exhibition in the US.  Since then it has grown and soon will soon be available as a published book.

The writer/webmaster Bill Senkus (APS, USPCS, BIA, ATA, CJRRU) is a computer analyst/programmer in San Francisco, who collected in school and resumed later in life.  Today his main topical focus is trains. Not to mention he now has 26 smaller individual collections.

"Alphabetilately" is an excellent introduction to the hobby for any non-collector and just good entertainment.  As Bill says, "I suppose the most important thing to me about the web site is that it should be fun." And it is.

Alphabetilately
http://home.att.net/~alphabetilately/index.html

The Collectors Club

The Collectors Club of New York City is an American philatelic institution going back to 1896.  Its membership rolls reads like a "who's who" of American philately:  John W. Scott, John Luff, Hiram Deats, Charles Mekeel,  Alfred F. Lichtenstein, Theodore Steinway, Alfred Caspary, Col. Green, and Harry Lindquist.

The club now has a contact website where you can check up on news, special events, their schedule of meetings and philatelic presentation and check the contents of their bi-monthly journal.

The Collectors Club
http://www.collectorsclub.org

New Zealand's Chalons and More

Alfred Edward Chalon's 1838 portrait of Queen Victoria was well known thoughtout the mid-1800's and was used as the model for the stamps of many British colonies for decades, including New Zealand's first postage stamps.  It's also the name by which they're known.

This site by Garry Law is a great introduction to these classic New Zealand issues, showing design elements, listing catalog numbers and showing the basic value, colour and perf/imperf variations.  There are also scans of other uses of the Chalon portrait and the stamp's design in other colonies and modern commemoratives.

Besides the usefulness, value of the site's content and it's obvious appeal, Law's background design on his web pages is the perfect compliment to his site: the large star watermark of the Chalons.

Garry Law's grandfather was an importer in New Zealand and that started him off collecting when he was a boy, and today Law is a New Zealand civil engineer.  

Law's Chalon site is a virtual collection, and one of his "vanity" web sites, where he e-publishes what interests him.  Two of his other sites focus on cars and tiki, which are talismans of New Zealands aboriginal Maori people.