Stamp Column Archives

Glassine Surfer December 2003

Canada is a continental country. It's bigger than most, and though the prairie provinces may take exception to the notion, there's a lot of empty space between Toronto and Victoria. Binding the citizens together as Canadians was always a struggle, aided by Canada's trans-continental railroad and finally CBC radio.

It's no wonder then that Canada's national archives has embraced the Web to help tell their story to everyone, no matter how far away from the archives they live, and their postal archives on the Web is perhaps one of the very best.

The latest addition to their on-going illumination of all things Canadian and philatelic is a database of Canadian and BNA (British North American) stamp creators and designers, which is a broad category that includes printers and employees, artists, and engravers.

This voluminous section is searchable by keyword and by surname, along with an alphabetical index. A typical listing outlines the person's career vis-a-vis stamps and design in general, along with a photo and relevant dates. Then there are links to the relevant stamp issues and other artwork.

Searching for engraver and designer John Hay, for instance, leads you to his bio page with links to his stamps at the archives. Each stamp listing, in turn, then leads you to Searching for engraver and designer John Hay, for instance, leads you to his bio page with links to his stamps at the archives. Each stamp listing, in turn, then leads you to documents related to that issue.

In all, there are more than 1,700 stamps and information on these stamp creators, but as this work is about "people," it's actually part of ArchivaNet, the archives online research arm but well integrated to the postal archives.

ArchivaNet: Biophil - Stamp Creators
http://www.archives.ca/02/020155_e.html

The Canadian Postal Archives
http://www.archives.ca/08/080608_e.html

And those of you who'd like to combine stamps with your venture north of the border may want to check out information on the four-day Royal 2004 stamp show in Halifax at the end of May. The site is down the street from the Citadel and very near the city's waterfront district, a nice way to experience a wonderful city while immersing yourself in your hobby.

Royal 2004 Royale
http://nsstampclub.ca/royal/

And after you visit the postal archives in Ottawa, drop down to DC and see what your tax dollars have been up to. The National Postal Museum in Washington, DC, has been hard at work using their Web space to reach out to surfers on the Web, which is probably the best philatelic use for any tax money.

The web site contains six online exhibits, a curriculum guide for grade school teachers, a really well-presented intro to stamp collecting for the beginner, an extremely wide-ranging and useful set of further resources, and an quiz in the activity zone.

National Postal Museum
http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/index.html

"Of Bridges and Stamps" is the title of a French website that any eager topicalist will enjoy. The heart of the site is the sommaire section, wherein bridges are classified by the type of span (wooden, covered, railway, steel arch), bridges and cities, important people, and bridges in art.

Each section type then presents maxim cards, stamps, covers, along with technical data of the type of bridge, bio, location, etc., along with subcategories where appropriate.

My French is so-so, but I had no trouble rambling through the site and picking up a few pointers, much the same way as I do when I'm in Quebec.

Of Bridges and Stamps
http://timbresponts.free.fr

The Universal Postal Union and the World Association for the Development of Philately (WADP) have developed a stamp numbering system and are presenting it on their joint website.

The WADP members are the Universal Postal Union, International Federation of Philately,International Federation of Stamp Dealers Associations, International Publishers' of Postage Stamp Catalogues, Stamp Albums and Philatelic Publications Association, and   International Federation of Philatelic Journalists. They've all been concerned about the spurious sales of fraudulent stamps, privately printed and foisted upon the unsuspecting as legitimate country postage stamps.

The WADP Numbering System (WNS) is fairly simple. Each country has a double letter code, and each issue gets a number based on how many other issues were released before it that year, followed by a period and two digits for the year of release.

The WADP only has numbers for stamps issued by member countries starting in 2002, but using the above rules any stamp collector could generate any country's complete historical issue of stamps. The rub may come trying to designate 1847, as opposed to 1947, as the year's place has but two digits.

World Association for the Development of Philately (WADP)
http://www.upu.int/wadp/en/index.html

The WADP Numbering System (WNS)
http://www.wnsstamps.ch/en/

Web Watch

In the old black-and-white movies, con men peddled snake oil door-to-door and bilked widows and orphans out of their savings, though I'm not sure how much they could have saved. These guys soon realized they could pick up a phone and make a lot more money. They operated, what they called, "boiler rooms" and got out of town before the victims could figure out what happened.

This M.O. has simply morphed its way onto the 'Net with tech savvy scamers, mass spam attacks, and outright dishonest and illegal scams, but if the federal government's inability to stop even unsolicited phone calls is any barometer, curtailing online fraud will simply be deemed too hard to stop.

A few months ago, an online report detailed how easy con men were working their craft on eBay, the Web's premier auction and storefront site. From the report, apparently there's very little downside to those with the technical expertise, which actually doesn't seem to be very techy at all.

In the story the scammer and friends claimed to have bilked Net users for about two million dollars without any prosecutions pending. I have to think that these loose-lipped fellows are just amateur savants and that the real illegal activity is much more closely guarded.

Given this, "buyer beware" is probably more important than ever to us, especially if you're out buying from entities that could be no more real than their phoney e-mail address.

EBay thief reveals tricks of the trade
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/957191.asp?0bl=-0&cp1=1

I won't get on the soap box, but one day I imagine some state attorney-general will sue someone for not applying due diligence to safeguard their customer's private credit information and to verify and weed out the usual suspects. Until then, "caveat emptor."

Sometime in 2005 Microsoft plans to release an entirely new operating system that now has the working title of Longhorn. Beta versions are being tested as we speak and already rumors are spreading about issues from compatibility and integration, to anti-trust and bundling, as well as apparent pluses (security) and minuses (security).

Nothing is carved in stone and everything is subject to change, but there's already a massive amount of non-MS Internet presence for Longhorn. For a quick peak at events beyond the PC horizon, this online FAQ should do nicely. If you need more, do a keyword search and check you online news sources.

Longhorn FAQ
http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/longhorn.asp

Apparently the name derives from a resort bar near MS HQ in BC.

Tools

One of the many labyrinthian Longhorn topics is the matter of OS and IE integration. There was a court case over this during the Clinton presidency, which seems to have been forgotten. Rumors now hint that there won't be a serious issue of integration because the OS and IE won't be stand-alone components but unseverable parts of the whole.

Coupled with this is a wary suspicion that the old browser may not be continually patched up to cover up security holes to insure a big Longhorn drive to market dominance. Of course, the notion goes, MS will issue patches for a while so new PC buyers won't junk everything and turn Apple.

In any case, you should seriously consider a lifeboat, a non-MS, PC-friendly browser that will still work on those older MS OS. I assume that all will work out in the end, but should the MS Titanic spring a leak, I'll fire up the newest version of Opera.

Opera is a slick PC browser now with version 7.20 in release. It's an extremely advanced bit of independent software that closely mimics everything IE does, while adding many terrific features IE doesn't.

Seven point two is available free of charge with a sponsored advertising banner in the top-right corner of the user interface, or you can treat it like your pet and license it.

Opera is fast and claims to be "The Fastest Browser on Earth." But when coupled with its mouse gestures, search, and tabbed windows it's probably the most innovative and user-friendly browser available.

Opera
http://www.opera.com/

Customize Opera
http://my.opera.com/customize/

Stroud's Consummate Winsock Apps List was around when the Web began and it's still a very good source for that little tool you need in a pinch, or a great place to wander around, if you're the type who likes to rummage through tool bins. It's one of those places where you never know what you'll find, and there's not a lot of messy ads, and page clutter to slow you down.

CWSApps - Stroud's Consummate Winsock Apps List
http://cws.internet.com/

HTML-Kit is a very easy way to ease yourself into learning some html, if that's what you're looking for. It's full-featured and can be used to create, edit, preview and publish Web pages quickly and easily. It's also handy to have around, even if you're somewhat advanced, for those times when you're looking for help with some bothersome code.

HTML-Kit
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

If you haven't noticed, it's becoming harder and harder to find the sites you want using those trusty, old search engines. It seems that whatever keywords I type in the first page of results is a list of online storefronts with little or no information about whatever it was I was hoping to find out about.

When I try to uncover someone's new website, the trouble's worse because the search engines often take months to index the new website, if at all. That leaves us with the philatelic word-of-mouth network, so if you've come across a website that you think we all should know about, please e-mail me.

When e-mailing me for the first time, please put "GS" in the subject line along with your topic. I bulk filter my incoming mail for spam
because I have to and don't want to mistakenly delete your message.

Glassine Surfer

You can browse the Glassine Surfer column archive online along with other stories, help, and links to stamp collecting sites. We also host the Sociable Stamp Society chats online on Sunday evenings at eight o’clock eastern. Just click on “chat.”

The Glassine Surfer
http://www.glassinesurfer.com

Thanks for reading and support your local club. See you online.