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 Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

July 2003

Technically, they say Trillian is a multinetwork chat client that supports docking, multiline edit boxes, buddy alerts, multiple connections to the same medium, a powerful skinning language, easy importing of your existing contacts, emoticons, logging, global away/invisible features, and a unified contact list, etc.

I started using version Trillian version 0.74, which tells me that the full bodied release is yet to come, but as Trillian is free and without adware hijackers, it's a solution that might suit many of us. Download and setup are fairly painless, and the learning curve quite flat.

Trillian
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/trillian/index.html

And if you think the name is familiar, it's just a copyrightable misspelling of trillion, somewhat in the same vein as google, which was derived from googol, a 1 followed by 100 zeroes.

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Inverts

In philately, when two color plates meet top-to-bottom, a perfect error is born, and sometimes a lax pressman will unwittingly and unknowingly sire a world-class rarity such as the Inverted Jenny.

Inverted center errors are probably the most striking for the craftsmanship and beauty of the issue remains intact. While mis-perfs may mangle a design, the 180 degree misalignment of the frame and center simply turns the whole thing upside down, proving that stamp production is only as good as its weakest link, and unlike color errors of perf varieties, inverted centers catch the eye of even the most casual visitor to the post office.

So, the superstar of errors ought to have it's own website and now it does. The Inverted Center site is a non-commercial site for the collection and exchange of knowledge about inverted center stamps, where you're invited to browse, share, and enjoy these perfect errors.

Site layout is simple: stories, world inverts, my collection, auction realizations, and some links. Webmaster Joseph Camilleri says the site is a work in progress, which as every Webby knows is always an understatement given the Web's expanding realm and our predilection to rake over the coals for another gleam or glimmer in the dark, and Camilleri is especially interested in feedback to help expand the site and in collecting more information and scans of non-cataloged inverted centers.

The webmaster is an operating engineer in NY who started collecting as a child and returned to philately about two years ago. Born on Malta, Camilleri's first love was the classic issues of Malta and his recent quarry is inverted centers.

The Inverted Center
http://www.invertedcenter.com

As all you Web-a-holics know, your spelling counts on the Web, and never more so when you're dealing with the vagaries of American and British English. "Color" and "colour" may mean the same thing to you and me, but on the Web they'll take to you different places. In our case, Camilleri has two "centers" or "centres," essentially the same but one is Commonwealth-friendly.

The Inverted Centre
http://www.invertedcentre.com

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Topical Surprise

Some sites are like 900-page encyclopedias, others are as glitzy as trashy magazines, but "Dan's Topical Stamps" was as welcome a surprise as finding a "National Geographic" about my childhood hometown.

Though the bulk of the site is about maps on stamps, many other topics are touched upon, including the Bayeux Tapestry, fictional detectives, illuminated manuscripts, Martin Luther, and M. C. Escher. Each is presented as a sheet nicely illustrated and annotated in a simple, easy-to-read manner.

If you're thinking about presenting your stamps on the web and were concerned about not having the the high-values of a set or the rarer color variety, see Dan's site and how pleasant a site can be when the stamps are allowed to speak for themselves.

Maps on Stamps
http://sio.midco.net/danstopicalstamps/

This is definitely a site for armchair reminisce and reading, so break out your laptop, and while you're in a serendipitous state of mind, check out Oddly Shaped Stamps. There are rounds, triangles, bottle-shaped, butterfly-contoured, and other oddities at Ann Mette Heindorff's site, which is part of her larger online entity about art on stamps. Lots of good stamps to see and share, especially with the younger stampers.

Oddly Shaped Stamps
http://thematicalstamps.school.dk/frame_OddStamps.htm

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Glassine Surfer

The Glassine Surfer archive is online along with other stories, help, and categorized links to stamp collecting sites. We also host the Sociable Stamp Society chats online on Sunday evenings at eight o’clock eastern.

The Glassine Surfer
http://www.glassinesurfer.com

Thanks for supporting the “Glassine Surfer.” Remember to help your fellow stamp collectors and support your local clubs. See you online.