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 Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

November 1999

Knock on Wood

Couch potatoes take root on Thanksgiving.  Two football games, a four-day weekend, pies, puddings, gravy and mounds of left-overs increase the relative gravity of most living rooms, and force the All-American potato deep down into the cushions of the couch with more G's than anything NASA ever designed.

It's only natural.  Outside the wind howls, and the sky sulks.  Another year is passing away, and this time maybe the whole 20th Century. (The 21st century chronologically starts in 2001, but it's better for the economy if we agree to commercially end the 20th in 1999.)

So who could blame me for looking up frmo my book of forgotten lore to give thanks to some 52,000 people with whom I'm happy to have the pleasure of sharing our philatelic passion.  It never gets better than that.

Easter Eggs

No, I haven't scrambled my holidays.  It's turkey time, but did you know you have Easter Eggs in your PC?  Easter Eggs are harmless bits of programmer whimsy hiding in PC operating systems and software, and like rabbits they seem to multipy on their own.

It starts late at night when tired programmers slip small bit of code into the mega program their working on.  Later if you enter the right keystrokes or mouse clicks, the hidden Egg is revealed.

Some are simply harmless screens that pop-up after a series of peculiar keystrokes.  A common one is a list of software designer credits.  A few take shots at Bill Gates courtesy of some of his Miscoserfs, and some seem, well, pointless. But all-in-all they are just for fun

Microsoft Easter Eggs at
http://microsoftsoft.about.com/msubEasterEggs.htm

Computer Hope at
http://www.computerhope.com/eggs.htm

Easter Eggs at
http://www.eeggs.com/

Auction Services

Auctions have become a popular retail outlet for small retailers and may replace the brick-and-mortar, mom-and-pop specialty shops in the future. So, knowing the ins and outs of auctions is good for all you shopping, not just your stamp collecting.

AuctionWatch.com doesn't sell or broker items.  It's a source for autction-related services, resources, and information for beginner or pro.  It is a good place to learn about online auctions, the good, the bad and the in between.  They have some news, and site reviews, spotlights and opinion columns, too.

AuctionWatch.com
http://www.auctionwatch.com/

Stamp Auction Central doesn't auction off stamps.  It just helps you find the auctions you're looking for. Participating brokers pay to list their upcoming auctions on the site, and it's a good service for buyers, sellers and brokers.

Visitors can run down the calendar, check the firms' offerings and click to their website, or check the large directory of stamp auction firms and related services.

The firms listed are broker auction firms dealing in stamps, many of which are well-know entities, not the seller-buyer bidding web sites such as Ebay.

Stamp Auction Central
http://www.stampauctioncentral.com/

Auction Escrow

Escrow is well-known to anyone who has bought a house.  A third-party holds the cash, until all the terms of the agreement are met, then it sees that the principals get their due.  Auction escrow is the same, and is now available online.  

If you use a seller-buyer bidding site, you must contact the seller directly, telling them you want the money escrowed.  Buyer and seller must show the escrow company that they agree on the buyer's inspection period, when the money will be held by the escrow company, and other details.  

Usually, the buyer sends the money to the escrow company.  Escrow then tells the seller to ship the item to the buyer.  The buyer checks or authenticates the item and if it's the real McCoy, the buyer has escrow send the money to the seller.  It's assurance, especially when dealing with strangers and money you can't afford to lose.

Iescrow.com at
http://www.iescrow.com/

Free: StarOffice

Sun Microsystems has been battling Microsoft for a long time, most notably over the Java programming language.  Sun has now upped the ante in the battle over office productivity software, a lucrative field that Gates and company have dominated with Microsoft Office.

Sun acquired the Star Division Corporation, a German firm, and "StarOffice," an office suite of appications similar to Microsoft Office.  Knowing that it would be hard to get people to switch from MS to Sun with his ticket prices and knowing market share is everything, Sun is giving StarOffice 5.1 away for free to individual private users.

StarOffice offers word processing, a spreadsheet, a graphic design and presentation programs, database access, a HTML editor, and a mail/news reader, not to mention an event planner.

StarOffice 5.1 is a free 64K download to private individual users.  The download takes from four to five hours, depending on your configurations, but if you cannot handle the download time, the CD-ROM disk costs about ten bucks for processing.  

A significant feature of StarOffice 5.1 is that it's compatable with Microsoft Office's suite of applications.

StarOffice 5.1
http://www.sun.com/dot-com/staroffice.html

Japan Online

Japanese art is highly regarded, and so are their stamps and rich philatelic history, but when Americans visit Japanese sites with their Western alphabetic browsers the text is only undigested code.

If you want to read the online Japanese characters, you'll need to add some extras to your browser.  A good place to start learning what and how to make your browser Japanese compliant is at the University of Virginia and University of Pennsylvania Japanese Text Initiative.

Japanese Text Initiative
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/

Start at "Accessing Japanese Character Texts..."  Another good page to check on your codings is "Jeffrey's English-Japanese Dictionary Server."  It's a little page something like a Rosetta Stone.  The whole process isn't very hard, just something new to learn.  But if you use IE5 be sure to set View/Encoding to "auto select."

Japanese<->English Dictionary - Gateway
http://enterprise.dsi.crc.ca/cgi-bin/j-e

You'll see the text, though it won't make sense unless you know Japanese.  But whether or not your machine displays Japanese, you can check out these stamp sites, which are in English.

You.Net is the Japanese Post Office's homepage in English that features a new issues section, along with a post office guide.  The English-site is a poor cousin to the home version, but hopefully it's not a static situation.

You.Net
http://www.postal.mpt.go.jp/new-eng/index.htm

The Hokuriku Post Office shows off its local stamps, two sets and a single. Since 1989 post offices in Japan's prefectures have chosen their own stamp designs for their local issues.

Hokuriku Post Office
http://www.post-hokuriku.go.jp/topics_e.htm

The Japanese government's online Communications Museum has a very helpful section, "The History of Posts," in which they recount the issuance and usage of stamps in the county, and a gallery of their issues dating back to 1994.

Communications Museum at
http://www.iptp.go.jp/museum_e/history/

"Beautiful Japanese Stamps" is a simple site with a few galleries arranged by theme, such as International Letter Writing Week, New Years stamps and gift sheets, and Philately Week.  It's a quick and easy way to get a overview of the nation's issues over the years.

Beautiful Japanese Stamps at
http://www2.biglobe.ne.jp/~iwaoka/stamp/stamp.htm

The Japan Philatelic Society Foundation in Tokyo has a bilingual site with information on the society's work, local clubs and associated groups.

Japan Philatelic Society Foundation at
http://yushu.or.jp/e_index.html

"The Trains" is Masashi Kominami's title for his English language railroad topical site, which has boxcars of scans of worldwide and Japanese trains on  stamps.

The Trains at
http://www2.biglobe.ne.jp/~venus/menu_e.html

And one of my favorites is Horst Mueller's "Koban Collection," lavishly illustrated with examples on cover and annotated as necessary.  Even if you don't collect Japan, you have to appreciate the large, clear scans and the knowledgeable write-ups.

Horst Mueller's "Koban Collection" at
http://www.geocities.com/~horst_mueller/koban.htm

Consumers Online

The Web has been a boon to many businesses. Billions are changing hands, and they attract the usual crowd of slippery characters, so take a few moments to leran to protect your online wallet.

These sites are not limited to stamp collecting, but cover the whole realm of information about consumers online that you need to be aware of.

Scam Busters
http://www.scambusters.com/

Consumer Net
http://www.consumernet.org/

Of course if you're dealing with a stamp transaction over the Web you may want to check on the other party's APS membership, online.

APS
http://www.stamps.org/aps/services/verify.htm

On the lighter side, outlandish web pranks have become epidemic, and bidding sites like Ebay are no exception.  Where else can a merry prankster offer a kidney or a Stealth Fighter for sale.  Take a look at this website for a collection of dubious auction items.

What The Heck at
http://www.whattheheck.com/ebay/

Ho-ho-ho

And as we get closer to the Yuletide, you may need some pointers for doing some of your shopping online.  I would suggested that you visit "Online Shopping."  They don't sell anything.  It's a resource center for just about anything to do with shopping online, what's available, where to buy, how to pay for, alerts, and all the rest.

Online Shopping at
http://onlineshopping.about.com/

FIP Evaluations

The Fédération Internationale de Philatélie conducted its first evaluation of stamp collecting websites from 66 applicants.  Eight FIP panelists in four teams then set out to review the applying sites, and when work was done, the FIP had 37 two-star sites, 17 three-star sites and six carrying the banner of "Top 5%."  There was also a "FIP Best Philatelic Web Site."  

Reviews are instructive and guidance helpful, but the FIP applicant fee may have dissuaded many collectors from applying.  The list of award winners is at the Philatelic Computing Study Group website.

Philatelic Computing Study Group Web Site at
http://www.west.net/~stamps1/pcsg/pcsg.html

The FIP at
http://www.f-i-p.ch/

Alta Vista

Another company, another battle: same strategy.  Alta Vista is a Web portal, trying to get away from its search engine and reinvent itself as something like an Internet America Online.  (Did you think AOL was 'Net-based?  It's a private network with access to the Web.)

Alta Vista would like you to stop paying for Internet access and sign up for FreeAccess.  Simply put, you download their little file, install and then click on the icon to get to the 'Net. Free.

The catch is "MicroPortal." It's a pop-up window that is active and "always on top" when you use FreeAccess.  It's a set of content buttons, like "finance, "news," "sports" and "travel," along with an ad banner window.

In addition a "health meter" tracks your connect time, and users have to click on one of the buttons or banners before it runs out or FreeAccess disconnects.  The meter seems to run for close to an hour.

FreeAccess is handy to have if you and your laptop are going on a trip, or for anyone on a budget.  In a pinch, in an emergency, you'll love it.  I had to use it while writing this column when my local $20 a month ISP's DNS went down for the day.

FreeAccess at AltaVista at
http://microav.com/