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 Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

September 1998

["What's it all about?"]

The web is a vast, mutating world cross-road in your den, a buzzing party line, a CB, a magazine, a newspaper and all-night satellite TV all rolled into one, multiplied and squared.  It's a thousand million servers humming 24 hours a day seven days a week from SF, USA, to the PRC and the UK, down to .BR and .SA and in every town in the USA, and each site is but a small stream trickling into a great river of information, then drawn down into some dark vortex on the tides of web currents.  

There are thousands of stamp sites and there are thousands of online resources to help us find out what we want to know, faster than ever before.  And though this column can't cover each site, I'll help you use the web more intelligently and hopefully more productively.  I'll help sort out the web so you can use it like a perf gauge, and add these sites to your stack of catalogs and "American Philatelists".

I'll alert you to web software that will help you locate, organize, retrieve and store information on your PC.  I'll point out non-philatelic gems stocked with useful information for philatelists are investigators who love to poke into nooks and crannies, and of course, I'll highlight what's new and exciting at philatelic sites.

The Glassine Surfer is a small column of web lore, surfing tools, info and data, URLs, trends and changes, philatelic reminisce, occasional commentary and half-time pep talks, somewhat informal, sometimes anecdotal, always informative and hopefully easy to digest and in the end tries to put it all in perspective with a smile.

Well, we all know where all these good intentions get us, so let's get on with it.

2
[Sherlock Vs. the X-Files?.]

Stretch your mind a little and play Sherlock Holmes.  This collector has a stack of UPOs (unidentifed philatelic objects, i.e stamps) crisply scanned for your enjoyment with clear, informative text, but he doesn't know what they are.  There are about 100 labels, overprints, forgeries and oddball, strange stuff to mull over.

The site is "Collecting is Nuts" by Rick Scott at
<
http://home.att.net/~rickscott/Unidentified/Unident.html>

3
[Young Minds Wanna Know]

How does a letter in Auckland, NZ, get from the corner post box to Aunt Gemma in Swansea, UK.?  Well, New Zealand post has the whole story online for youngsters to see and read, and quick loading animated graphics show the story.  Maybe it'll inspire someone you know to learn more about stamps.  Maybe even you.  Click to start the story and have fun along the way!  

The site is "Journey of a Letter" by The New Zealand Post at
<
http://www.nzpost.co.nz/nzpost/features/>