Stamp Column Archives

Glassine Surfer September 2002

Webstamps 101

Summer's gone and winter's coming on. The kids are back in school, and it's stamp time again. If you loaned out an "AP" or two, or if you just joined APS, here's your chance to catch up on some Websites. September's column is a look back at the best Web sites we have covered here since last October.

It's time to revisit those sites of real value that have come across our screens over the last year, and it's time to thank those independent philatelic Webmasters who are spreading stamps around the WWW for you and me. (If there's one column you should tear out and stick under your keyboard, this is it.)

Portals of the World

The Library of Congress runs "Portals of the World," a directory of countries and local Web sites that offer direct access to resources within that country. It's not complete, but it's a great port of call for any surfer, especially us delving into foreign country details.

Portals of the World
http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html

Power Reporting

This  small site was set up as an online research source for journalists and is a very handy and easy-to-use directory for those standard research items we all need from time-to-time. The taxonomy is done by "beats" and covers such topics as "computers," "education," and "history."

Power Reporting
http://www.powerreporting.com/

Virtual Stamp Club

The Virtual Stamp Club is an online meeting place and stamp bulletin board. The forum covers US and Canadian stamps, clubs and societies, and many others. Each category is a collection of many discussion threads with more added every day. The VSC covers just about everything stamps, and its strength is the people who frequent its discussion list.

Virtual Stamp Club Forum
http://forums.delphiforums.com/stamps

Two Exhibitions

If you're interested in Internet stamp exhibitions, where virtual stamp exhibits are published on a Web site, this site's Webmaster invites you to visit his online versions of two of his exhibits that he took to the Peach State stamp show.

U.S. Air Mails and First Flight Covers
http://www.stampvault.net/airmail.html

Fly like an Eagle
http://www.stampvault.net/exppri.html

San Diego Exhibiting Workshop

There's a philatelic exhibitor's workshop in San Diego whose Web site will show you some of the in's and out's of stamp exhibitions. There are tips and online examples of exhibitions, rules and forms, links to related societies, exhibition articles, and information about competitions.

San Diego Exhibiting Workshop
http://www.franadams.com

Album Weeds

We learn more from failure than from success, and likewise studying forgeries will help us know and appreciate genuine stamps all the more. Ferreting out a stamp's bona fides is a practical way to learn the why's and how's of stamp collecting, and here are a handful of sites that can get you started.

The Simplicity of Basic Forgery Detection
http://www.gotstamps.com/forge.htm

Luxembourg Stamp Forgeries
http://www.luxcentral.com/stamps/LuxFakes.html

Princely States Report
http://princelystates.com/ForgeryFile/index.shtml

Hawaiian "Numeral" forgeries
http://www.hawaiianstamps.com/nuforgery.html

Stamp Forgeries
http://wvnvaxa.wvnet.edu/~roman/Forgery.html

Scout Stamp Fakes & Forgeries.
http://www.sossi.org/fakes/forgeries.htm

APS Releases Serrane Guide
http://www.stamps.net/newswr29.htm

Europeanstamps.net
http://www.europeanstamps.net/articles/index.asp?ID=29