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 Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

August 1999

PeopleNet

The 'Net started as a cold gray military research tool, and in the last four years bloomed from hobbiest toy to economic necessity.  But why is grandma and grandpa along with everyone else surfing the 'Net?  Why is the new medium of the new century so popular?

On a warm summer night my mind meandered among the near and far, and I thought that above all else and like nothing else, the 'Net does something the other media don't: The 'Net connects people.  The 'Net brings a stream of friends and acquaintances from all over the world home to us down a two-way interactive highway of e-mail, bulletin boards, chat rooms and web sites.

And added to this communal experience, the 'Net gives everyone incredible choices of what to see, what to participate in and with whom to communicate regardless of geography, all the while making information ubiquitious and affordable, which I thought was not bad at all.

But added to this, the 'Net gives everyone a global voice, which if used irresponsibly or for ill, can be dangerous.  But I remembered that bad things only win in the absence of good, and as long as good people support each other, good things will prevail.

I then meandered back thinking that the 'Net was above all else all about people, little more and nothing less, and I had faith.

Sights to Sea

Two philatelists have teamed up to create a virtual stamp album called "The Postage Stamps and Postal History of the New Hebrides: 1853 - 1957."  Martin Treadwell in New Zealand and Roland Klinger in Germany have put together a well-balanced, nicely researched and somewhat astounding site on the philately of these islands.

Treadwell's focus is the island's postal history and Klinger's is the stamps.  A typical entry shows the enlarged stamp along with catalog numbers from four publishers, known print quantities and then appropriate annotations, and the postal history displayed is rich and varied with detailed write-ups.

This site intends to chronicle the history of postal service in the New Hebridies from the mid-1800s up to mid-1950's and succeeds wonderfully.

The Postage Stamps and Postal History of the New Hebrides at
http://members.tripod.de/NewHebrides/

The Klinger-Treadwell team linked up through the 'Net, as did the creators of the online Musuem of US Essays and Proofs, Schwartz and Zerbonia, and for the record the islands are now Vanuatu.

The Danish West Indies also have their own online reference site.  Torben Mel  Jørgensen's Bicolored and Provisional Danish West Indies site is another fine example of an in-depth online reference gallery.

It features stamps, die proofs, plate proofs, reprints, forgeries and fakes with an emphasis on the technical facts of design and printing.

Jørgensen is a member of the Danish Philatelic Federation and Copenhagen Philatelic Club, and the site also hosts newsletters of the Danish West Indies Study Unit, a specialized group of the Scandinavian Collectors Club.

As all virtual things, this is a constantly growing work in progress with plans to update as necessary to accommodate discoveries and additional listings.  

The Danish West Indies at
http://home0.inet.tele.dk/mehl/

For the record these islands are now the Virgin Islands.

A Little Sum-mer

CalcAnt is a Windows freeware utlity that combines a small word processor with a calculator.  Input numbers with the numeric keys and CalcAnt displays a running tape like a calculator.  Type in your notes, and it acts like a word processor, and you can intersperse the two.  Then you can save it to a text file or print it.  Could be a handy way to total up APS sales book page tallies.

CalcAnt from SFR at
http://www.sfr.de/fra_download.html