Stamp Column Archives

Glassine Surfer September 2003

And when in London, drop into the "Great Britain Decimal Stamp Book Study Circle," for a pint. Their philatelic study is about juggling eight or more ever-changing stamp production factors and matching them to places, dates, and usages. Makes Rubic's cube look like tic-tac-toe.

Great Britain Decimal Stamp Book Study Circle
http://www.gbdsbsc.kabsi.at/

But the bulk of new (and improved) stamp sites has been in the topicals or thematics. I guess since postal services started printing for collectors, people are more likely to see the scenes of sports-on-stamps or space-on-stamps, then Italia or Canada written by the margin. Though I'm not a topicalist, I love a good story, and these sites tell some great stories through stamps.

Czeslaw Slania's legendary stamp engravings encompass decades, hundreds of issues and a few dozen nations, and through his work Ann Mette Heindorff tells a story of a great artisan on a tremendous site

Czeslaw Slania's Engraved Stamps and Banknotes
http://slaniastamps.school.dk

“A Selective History of Science on Stamps” is a brilliant online teaching resource that's colorful, entertaining, easy-to-use, and authoritative and tells its story through philately, introducing a hint of a treasure hunt in turning up science on stamps.

A Selective History of Science on Stamps
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/sel/exhibits/stamps

To see how stamps are just part of the story to some topicalists, stop into "The Atlantic Cable." The main page is a menu of the resources to everything on the subject with a deep stamp section that covers markings, stamps, and usages.

Atlantic Cable
http://atlantic-cable.com
The link the stamps is a quarter of the way from the top.

Staying in the water as long as possible, the Ships on Stamps Website a hub for all things maritime related to stamps and postal history. The layout takes you through the site easily, showing you the ropes philatelic salts need to know.

Ships on Stamps
http://www.shipsonstamps.org/

Golf's a natural topic for a stamp site (they both have links), and the "Golf on Stamps" site is a simple one-page affair site with two downloads; one of bogus golf issues, and one of legits. In their rush to sell topicals, some printers churn out fake/bogus thematic stamps, so a list of dubious paper can help a collector, though I would guess the next step is golf-on-bogus-stamps.

Golf on Stamps
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/j.dewar/Default.htm

The game of kings at "Chess Stamps" has navigation in English and French, and a nice presentation of all chess stamps from 1947 through 2002, where each issue has it's own page listing. This webmaster loves stamps and chess, and it shows.
There's a deep array of chess stamp links, and a special fan section about
Alexandra Kosteriuk, the Women's Vice World Champion.

Chess Stamps
http://www.faulquemont.com/phil1.html

Rose Chess Stamps Online Catalogue
http://www.tri.org.au/chess/catalogue.html

"Dan's Topical Stamps" is like one of those short story anthologies you can't put down. The focus is maps on stamps, but other philatelic topics include the Bayeux Tapestry, fictional detectives, illuminated manuscripts, and Martin Luther. Drop in and see how pleasant a stamp site can be when the stamps can speak for themselves.

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

"Oddly Shaped Stamps" appeals to the carnival sideshow side of human nature. Lots of good stamps to see and share with young collectors, who will wonder why the stamps are bottle-shaped and butterfly-contoured.

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

And then in a league of its own comes the Missionary issue of Hawaii and an addition to the "Post Office in Paradise" detailing the so-called Grinnell stamps, which are either genuine stamps with a marvelous provenance and immense value, or just ersatz stamps.

Grinnell Missionaries
http://www.hawaiianstamps.com/mi_grinnell.html

Web Watch

Unfortunately, the stamp boom on the Web has also led to a stamp boom among devious sellers on the Web, so that with so many stamps, limited catalogs, packs of fly-by-nighters, and unenforceable laws, buyers may feel they're at the fate's mercy.

A group called SCADS has a Website that tries to combat shady selling tactics by educating the philatelic community about issues such as fakes and forgeries, alterations, scams, and shill bidding.

SCADS: Stamp Collectors Against Dodgy Sellers
http://wwww.scads.org

A related Web page is a listing of fake stamps offered through eBay.

http://www.slingshotvenus.com/stamps/fakes.html