Stamp Column Archives

Glassine Surfer December 2004

The last time we talked about stamp sites was June, and there are many to take a look at. Forgive me if you've been left high and dry the last few months, but online basics and security are important tech considerations for us all. Now, however, we're back in the saddle again with philatelic sites to visit and we'll begin right away with a crop of new ones. By the way, if you've got a site that your fellow members should be aware of, post me at .

1847 redux

One of the beneficial aspects of publishing on the Web, and that's what a website truly is, is that changes, additions, and deletions can be done according to the webmaster's schedule, which means we don't have to wait months or years for a philatelic volume to be completed, edited, and revised. A webmaster can go live with an initial portion of work and continue to supplement it as time goes on. It's the method used at Post Office in Paradise and what's happening at 1847USA.com.

Back in early 2001 I mentioned Bob Allen's 1847USA site, which at the time was already broad and deep in content, covering identification of the 1847 classics, 1869 Pictorials, the Banknotes and Baby Banknotes, the Columbians, the 2d Bureau Series, the  Washington-Franklins, and the 1922 - 1931 definitives. His page-linked Washington - Franklin Worksheets was and still is a very helpful tool.

Since then the 1847USA has grown. With the support of his wife and his daughter's Web skills, Allen has included guides to plate layouts, watermarks, flat plates, rotaries, offsets, secret marks, and other essential classic US topics, but there are plans for more.

Allen plans to add plate layouts for most of the US stamps through the 1940s to help educate the average collector about of which stamps are possible candidates for re-perffing straight-edges), and he hopes to explain the reasons for plating through illustrations of the types of the one- and three-cent 1851 stamps.

Beyond that, if that weren't enough, 1847USA will be adding complete air mail, special delivery, and postage due identifiers and he's tackling the limitations on presenting color varieties.

Allen developed the site to shine the light of US philatelic education onto the Web, and as he says, "The task did not seem so daunting in those foolish, formative years and, although I now know it is a task that will never be complete, my patience has been rewarded as I watch it grow."

During your Christmas holidays stop in and enjoy both of these two great sites. They go hand-in-hand.

1847USA
http://www.1847usa.com

Post Office in Paradise
http://www.hawaiianstamps.com

1909

How about a stamp site devoted to the Abraham Lincoln Centennial Celebration, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibtion and Sec. of State William H. Seward, and the Hudson River and Robert Fulton's "Clermont"? There is such a site and the obvious connection (to collectors, at least) is 1909. They were all issued that year, and curiously in perf and imperf form.

Steven J. Stratford of Wisconsin hosts a terrific site on just these three commemoratives that combines great graphics, solid philatelic details, and easy Web handling.

Here, you'll find the various perforations and varieties explained and clearly shown, ranging from Attleboro and Brinkerhoff perforations, to pre-folds, smears and varnishes. It's also a site where there's a good page on the pockets that the coil emissions were packaged in for vending machine sales.

Rounding out this excellent stamp research resource is a bulletin board, the host's want-list, a page of links and references, and a sign-up page for the US1909 mailing list.

You're starting point to all this is the pop-down menu up in the upper-left of each page. Handy, convenient, and unobtrusive, you could easily overlook it in your rush to the displays on the site.

US1909.com
http://www.us1909.com/

Faux Swans

On the forgery front, the Western Australian Forgeries site offers a thirty page exhibit of "Forged Swans of Western Australia" by Jeff Trinidad, who was award a bronze medal at Swanpex 2002 held at the University of Western Australia.

WAF is one of those sites that invites you to sit down, click, learn, and enjoy. The very simple navigation is thirty thumbnail pictures that lead to large (1276 x 1754) .jpg scans from the exhibit, rendering all the stamps in sharp detail and color.

Essentially, there are dozens of examples of Spiro and Fourier forgeries, as well as a few Peter Winter examples, available for viewing for comparison, and the site offers an opportunity to learn and recognize these forgeries, see an exhibit we most likely would never had had the chance to study, and a lesson in effective Web design. As all the information is on the exhibit pages, there's little reason to clutter the presentation with navigation menus, tables, and the like, and such sites are a refreshing break to return to non-hyperlinked reading material.

Western Australian Forgeries
http://www.jystamps2000.com/WA-Forgeries

Alabama Precancels

In a similar educational vein, Charlie Adrion of Rochester, New York, has compiled the "Alabama Precancel Catalog & Guidebook" and made it available in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format for free.

The catalog is organized by town and then by stamp catalog number. Each precancel is pictured, along with a list of reported precanceled emissions grouped by definitive sets in chronological order. Clear, concise, logical, and easy to follow, even for a precancel newbie like myself.

In the work, you'll find a handy identification guide showing commonly mis-identifed precancels side-by-side, which then reveals their minute differences, but Adrion's work is 152 pages and 10.8 megabytes so choose your download wisely.

Adrion's catalog is currently available at precancels.com's literature page, under Literature and scroll down to "Other Precancel Works." Once there, scroll down to the Alabama catalog.

Precancels.com
http://www.precancels.com

Direct link - Alabama Precancel Catalog & Guidebook
http://www.precancels.com/literature/Alabama.pdf

Stamp Census

Sometimes it's hard to explain why a certain stamp can be worth so much, when for all intents and purposes a valuable find and a common dupe look the same at first and second glance, and it's well neigh impossible for non-collectors to fathom how they can be valued so highly. Everyone knows the rule of thumb about supply and demand, but often what most of us are missing are figures on the supply.

Well, Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries provides an easy way to grasp just why values can be so high by delving into their research folders and revealing what the philatelic world's supply of certain issues actually is. They have a section on their site called "Census Information," where the numbers come together. Though limited to 1861's, Bank Note special printings, 1908 coils, and the like, there's a wealth of choice information here.

For instance, the census of Scott# 423C, the blue five-cent compound perfed (12 x 10) Washington with the 190 watermark (single-line "USPS" horizontally spanning four to five stamps) is listed at $18,500 in the Scott US Specialized 2005 catalogue.
Siegel's census lists it as twenty-two used singles, and one used pair, which to me makes the catalog price understandable. Likewise, the two-cent Harding, rotary, perf eleven clocks in at $42,500 in the Scott Specialized '05 with Siegel accounting for only 43 recorded examples.

This is the sort of information a collector could spend hours poring over, so be prepared to take notes.

Census Information
http://www.siegelauctions.com/enc/census.htm

Food for Thought

In the neverending and voracious quest for more and more stamp reading matter, writer Gary Griffith's site is a main course. Griffith is, of course, the well-known philatelic correspondent, author, and specialist, formerly of "Stamp Collector" and "Linn's Stamp News" and "Scott's Monthly" with handbooks such as "United States Stamps 1922-26" to his credit.

Broadly speaking, site content is divided among three categories; Washington-Franklin Index, Stamp Production Articles, and General Philatelic Articles. Each category is a simple index of authoritative and nicely presented stories. Titles in the Stamp Production category include Double-Line Watermarks," "The Spider Press," and "Early Perforating Machines," while General Philatelic Articles contains such articles as "The Hudson-Fulton Issue of 1909," "The 15-Cent Invert of 1869," and "The 10-Cent 1847 and its Sperati Forgery."

The site is simple and polished, but it's brilliance is its superb material.

Gary Griffith
http://www.ggriffith.com/stamps.htm

Map24

I use online maps more and more. At first they always seemed too slow, too tedious, and difficult to master, but lately I've been using Map24 which is an online mapping site unlike the others with which we're all familiar.

The mother company not only covers the USA but also Canada and everything in western Europe, but it's not what it covers so much as to how it presents the maps and information.

At the start page, you'll probably be directed to either North America or Europe depending on where you're sitting. You can choose your language and continent from any page. Then the first thing you might want to do is type in your home address to see how this site operates.

Map 24 shows its map on the right-hand side and after you enter your address the map will automatically zoom down to a tight street map of your neighborhood with your address in the middle. Then click the maximize and minimize icon in the upper-right of the map, and the map will pop-up from the page. Maximize it again and it will fill your entire screen, but have no fear all the map controls are on the left.

You can zoom in and out, undo, quick in and out, print, etc. without losing your visual reference on the map. I think I played for about an hour the first time I used it. Now, should you want to move about the map, just click to the left of the right of the map and the map will scroll in that direction. It's a nice easy way to check out what's over the next hill without long waits for a new map version to load or refresh.

If you set up a free account, you can save settings and favorite address searches. There are other bells and whistles, but the ease of use is enough for me now to be happy.

Map24
http://www.map24.com/

Glassine Surfer

The Glassine Surfer archive is 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 the “Glassine Surfer” and support your local club. See you online.