'Be for Bush' Stamp Contest

While surfing around, I came across the winners of the Blogs for Bush B4B (Be for Bush) stamp contest which was held several months ago.The design shown above came in second although I thought it should have been the winner. But no matter what your politics, you have to admit it's a nice piece of philatelic art.

To see some other winning designs, click here.

To thank a soldier, sailor, airman or marine wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, click here.

U.S. Department of State 'Post Reports'

If you are looking for an up-close and personal look at the history, geography, demography, and political organization and communication/mail services of a particular foreign country or city, the U.S. Department of State's Post Reports might be a good place to start.

Written for government employees and family members assigned to diplomatic missions abroad, Post Reports provide background information about living, housing, and health conditions, as well as recreational, cultural, and employment opportunities for family members in the host country.

For the Post Reports homepage, click here.

BULLETIN - Mail delivery halted in New Orleans

Hurricaine Katrina

Due to Hurricane Katrina , the New Orleans Processing and Distribution Center suspended all operations at noon on Sunday. Retail and delivery services will be suspended on Monday for all offices in ZIP Codes 700, 701, 703 and 704.

Mail delivery in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida has also been affected.

For more on this, click here.

Gibbons offers searchable new issue and topical database

International stamp dealer Stanley Gibbons has a searchable database of new issues and topicals on their website. Formerly known as Stamp Cafe, it's easy to use, has pictures of the stamps, and is supposedly up-to-date.

On the site Gibbons points out, "As many enthusiastic collectors will be aware, there is often a gap between the release of a new stamp issue and its publication in magazines and catalogues. The new issues area has been designed to address this problem."

For each stamp there is technical and background information. Surprisingly, there is no way (i.e. shopping cart) I could find to purchase a particular stamp, set, or series.

To visit the Gibbons new issue and topical database, click here.

American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors

Exhibiting your collection can be both a challenging - and rewarding - aspect of the hobby.

Founded in 1986, the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors is a worldwide organization of stamp collectors who exhibit their collections competitively and work together for the betterment of philatelic exhibiting and judging standards and practices.

One nice benefit of membership is that they offer a critique service. As you develop new exhibits, they can be evaluated (through the mails) by experienced judges, free. Only cost is a photocopy of your exhibit and postage.

AAPE membership is open to all philatelists who love, and participate in, the world of stamp shows.

For more information on AAPE, click here.

Also, if you are interested in learning how to exhibit, click here for Fran Adams' San Diego Exhibiting Workshop site.

A town named 'Stamps'

Did you know there is a town named Stamps in Arkansas?

It's not very big. Only 2,131 people according to the latest census.

Stamps was the childhood home of author Maya Angelou, and was depicted in her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Anyone think of some other 'philatelic' town names - real or imaginary? I think there should be an Album, Alabama; Tongs, Tennessee; and Hinge, Hawaii.

Best name gets a one-year subscription to Scott's Monthly Stamp Journal. Send your ideas to donschilling@worldnet.att.net. Deadline for submissions is midnight, Friday, September 2.

For more on Stamps, Arkansas... click here.

Topicals on stamps

Each week Sarah Perelli-Minetti of Bakersfield, California features a different subject on her website, Topicals on Stamps, which link to various on-line collections.

Some of the topics I found of interest included wine, books, and deafness (a subject near and dear to my ears) on stamps. I also discovered a new topic I had never heard of before called "Zemstvo."

A tip of the tongs to Ms. Perelli-Minetti!

Click here for the Topicals on Stamps' Topic of The Week.

Encinitas Senior Stamp Club

David Montag, 84, and the Encinitas [Calif.] Senior Stamp Club got a nice write up in today's San Diego Union Tribune.

In the article, Montag recalls the day he received his first packet of loose stamps as a boy. It was like finding treasure, he said. From then on, he looked for stamps. In college he would skip class to meet the janitor before he dumped the mail. At his first job, Montag set aside part of his lunch money every day so he could buy a few stamps at the end of the week.

For as much pleasure as Montag has received from stamp collecting throughout his life, the hobby is just not what it was, he said. Interest has waned. There are so many stamps and they are expensive. Many must be bought in sheets, instead of singly, which deters young hobbiests, he said.

To read the entire article, click here.

I'm on jury duty

I've got jury duty this week. I'm surrounded by judges and lawyers so I thought I 'd post this collection of famous lawyers on U.S. stamps so you could be surrounded too.

To purchase this and other great gifts for your favorite lawyer, click here.

Philatelist predicts comeback for hobby

For Gulab Israni, philately is more than just a hobby

‘‘It is a passion that I think would leave me only when I die,’’ said the former navy officer, who started collecting stamps at the age of eight.

According to an article on Chandigarh Newsline (Chandigarh, India); Israni's wife, an avid orchid-grower, and his three sons and a daughter have never shared his love.

‘‘My children do not want to own my collection, but I am sure their children would love to possess them. The craze for philately will certainly stage a comeback after 25 years from now,’’ he said.

To read the entire article, click here.

To visit India via stamps, click here.

Boat mail

Letter carrier Carl "Butch" Gonyea, who delivers the mail by boat, is greeted by Charlie while making rounds in Lake Placid. Charlie knows that Gonyea carries dog biscuits on his route. (Photo courtesy Times Union)

TimesUnion.com reports that, "Neither rain nor sleet nor snow keeps Butch Gonyea from his appointed rounds. He does have to dodge the occasional water skier, though."

According to the on-line article, for the past 32 years Gonyea has been a waterborne postman. He's one of a handful of private contractors in New York and other states who deliver mail by boat.

Philatelically speaking, boat mail is referred to as "paquebot," which is French for "packet boat."

His route, which takes about two hours, consists of about 40 "camps,'' which are actually elaborate summer homes, along Lake Placid. Some are on islands while others along the shore are reachable only by boat or footpath.

Click here to read the entire article.

For more on 'paquebots, ' click here.

Philatelic Group of Boston

Paul Bourke, president of the Philatelic Group of Boston, and some other stamp collectors got a nice write-up in yesterday's MetroWest Daily News of Framingham, MA. The story also ran in the Weston Town Crier.

Bourke was quoted as saying, "We are all historians. In a real sense, every individual collector is a little museum." For Bourke, the markings on an envelope provide valuable glimpses of postal history that show how international mail was shipped, delivered and paid for.

Founded around 1930, the Philatelic Group of Boston comprises 70 collectors who meet monthly in the Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History in Weston, MA.

The group's web site has some interesting member exhibits including one on Washington-Franklin domestic and foreign postal history.

To read the rather lengthy article, click here.

To visit the Philatelic Group of Boston's website, click here.

To go to the Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History website, click here.

Trinidad and Tobago artist/collector holds US patent on her stamp art.

Artist/stamp collector Maria McPharland believes, "A postage stamp is probably the most beautiful artifact a country has to offer."

Yesterday, Ms. McPharland was the subject of a feature article in the Trinidad and Tobago Express.

Thanks to a friend's insistance, she holds a US patent on what started out as a Christmas present. According to the article, when Ms. McPharland started creating her philatelic works of artwith around a thousand stamps.

Her themed pieces include: 'Birds of Trinidad and Tobago,' 'Wildlife of Australia' and 'Images of Czechoslovakia.'

To read the article and see Ms. McPharland with some of her creations, click here.

For more on Trinidad and Tobago, stamps and history, click here.

A perplexing philatelic puzzle

Philatelist and historian, Bob Ingraham of Canada poses a perplexing philatelic puzzle on his phenomenal website, Ephemeral Treasures.

Take a close look at the stamp (Scott #11) shown above. What appears to be a crease running down the right-hand side actually is something else entirely.

Bob got it in a trade on a tiny cover measuring only 11 X 6.5 cm. He says, "It was several months before I got around to looking closely at it. When I did, I realized that I had what collectors of anything call 'a find'. "

See if you can figure it out.

Give up? Click here for the answer.

An unusual first day cover

I recently received an unusual first day cover (shown above) which was sent to me from the APS StampShow in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Since it had no cancellation, the only way I knew it was a first day cover was by looking inside.

There I found a note thanking me for my support of the APS Building Fund and letting me know, "First day covers with only a single stamp paying presorted and bulk rates are extremely unusual. Most covers use more than one example of the stamp or add other stamps to reach the first-class rate."

Yeah, but it doesn't have a cancellation.

So I called Ken Martin, director of APS shows and exhibitions, and asked him, "How in the world would anyone know it' s really a FDC with out a cancellation?#$@!"

He admitted it was a bit vague but was nice enough to send me Postal Service Form 3600-P which certifies that 4271 pieces were mailed by the APS from Grand Rapids on August 5, 2005 - the first day of issue of the non-denominated 25c American Eagle stamp.

So there you have it. A first day cover with no cancellation. Go figure.

A philatelic 'first'

1937 stamp (SC 796) honoring Virginia Dare - a first in more ways than one.

On this day in 1587, Virginia Dare became the first white child of English parents to be born in America. She was the daughter of Ananias and Elenor Dare, members of Sir Walter Raleigh's ill-fated colony that settled Roanoke Island on the North Carolina coast.

The Virginia Dare stamp shown above was issued on August 18, 1937, at Manteo, N.C., near the site of the original colony the stamp. President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested that the stamp be square— first for a U.S. issue — and that the color be baby blue. He also gave it a five-cent face value, which made it useful for air mail overseas.

Since no trace remained of the colony when the relief expedition reached Roanoke in 1591, the child's fate is not known.

To see more philatelic firsts, click here.

Free club certificates and exhibit awards

Free certificate you make yourself from dyetub.com.

I recently came across a great web site that allows you to print out some nice looking certificates and awards. It's called dyetub.com.

Don't ask me where they got the name.

I thought these would be perfect to give out to old and new club members when they join or renew... or as exhibit participation awards.

You can also have fun and give yourself a Ph.D. (Doctorate of Philately) to hang on your wall at home or at work. With a couple of your favorite stamps it's a real conversation starter.

To go to dyetub.com site, click here.

Cars on stamps

The New York Times ran an article in their automobile section yesterday about cars on stamps and the new America on the Move: 50s Sporty Cars set (shown above) being issued Saturday in Detroit.

Ray Cartier, executive director of the American Topical Association, is quoted as saying there are more 100 auto-themed stamps from the United States and 2,600 from foreign countries.

Stamps portraying cars go back to 1901, when the United States issued the world's first stamp showing an automobile. The stamp (SC 294) depicted a battery-powered taxi in Washington, D.C. with the Capitol building in the background.

To read the New York Times article, click here.

To learn more about the American Topical Association, click here.

Return to sender

Returned mail cost taxpayers close to $2 billion a year.

Here's a couple interesting interesting factoids, I came across this morning...

"30% of all US mail contains addressing errors."

"Every year 32% people change their email addresses."

According to C.TRAC information solutions of Strongsville, Ohio, the US Postal Service handles 6-billion "undeliverable as addressed" (UAA) pieces each year and results in slowed delivery, non-delivery, returned mail, and mail delivered to the wrong address.

Undeliverable mail costs close to 1.8 billion dollars per year to process. Costs are passed back to mailers and consumers in the form of rate hikes.

Besides having a wrong e-mail address, non-delivery of e-mail relies largely on overcoming hurdles such as:

• Blacklisting - Certain domains and IP addresses are refused delivery by the recipient email server.
• Greylisting - The initial attempt to deliver is rejected, and subsequent attempts are accepted. This is particularly effective in the fight against spam as spammers typically only try once to send a mail.
• Tarpitting - The email system takes longer to accept each subsequent message, resulting in high volumes of mail to the same domain taking days to deliver.
• Throttling - The email server will only accept a certain number of simultaneous connections from any particular mail server

For more on non-delivery of snail mail, click here.

For more on e-mail non-delivery, click here or here.

Mail art

An example of 'mail art' by artist Rudd Janssen. Other examples can be found at the Internation Union of Mail Artist web site (http://www.iuoma.org).

Yesterday the International Herald-Tribune had an interesting story about various packages and other objects which are sent through the French postal system. Dubbed 'mail art', even the postal clerks even take an active interest in the packages.

'Mail art' (or correspondence art) is art sent through the post office (or these days via e-mail). It encompasses a variety of media and methods including postage stamps designed by artists, postcards, and other art forms generally considered marginal by the main stream art world.

While some say 'mail art' started when Cleopatra had herself wrapped in a blanket and was delivered to Caesar. However, the article says,"According to Doris Bell in Contemporary Art Trends 1960-1980, "mail art began by Marcel Duchamp in 1916 when he sent his ideas by postcard, has grown into a worldwide network. The mailing of ephemeral material to friends, begun by Ray Johnson in the 1950's, mushroomed into a kind of dadaist pen-pal club that circumvents the gallery system and so is an alternative to accepted ideas of art."

You can become a mail artist by sending a piece of your own creativity through the snail mail to names and addresses you find through links to current mail art invitations by searching for "mail art exhibition" and "mail art invitation" using an Internet search engine or on mail art message boards such as www.plexus.org/chalkboard/oneworld.

To read the the Herald-Tribune article, click here.

To learn more about 'mail art,' click here.

Good story about Fort Hamilton club meeting

The Fort Hamilton (Ohio) Philatelic Society, which celebrated its 7oth anniversary last year, got a nice write-up in the Hamilton News Journal yesterday.

Several of the members and Ken Martin of APS were quoted in the piece.

If your club is interested in getting some media attention, here's the outline the writer used.

• Lead with an interesting quote about stamp collecting from a member.
• Give the who, what, when and where of the club meeting.
• Quote some other members about what they collect and why they collect it.
• Give a little history and background on stamp collecting in general.
• Provide additional contact information.

If you follow this format, your club meeting announcement will likely move off the calendar page and into the feature section.

To read the article, click here.

For more on promoting your stamp club, click here.

Surgeon pushing for prostate cancer stamp

Dr. Ernie Bodai, director of breast surgery at Kaiser Permanente, California's largest HMO, stands in one of the surgery rooms at Kaiser's Point West facility in Sacramento, Calif., with a poster of the breast cancer awareness U.S. postage stamp. (photo courtesy AP)

According to an Associated Press article that appeared today in the Longmont Colorado Daily Times-Call and other papers around the country, Dr. Ernie Bodai, the California surgeon who successfully was able to get the 1999 Breast Cancer semi-postal (SB1) approved been trying to get a similar stamp to help fight the leading cancer in men - prostate cancer.

Dr. Bodai, who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer himself, said in the article, "The prostate cancer community is 10 years behind the breast groups in terms of being acknowledged and coming forward."

To date, the breast cancer stamp has raised approximately $50 million.

To read the entire article, click here.

• For additional information and background on the unsuccessful efforts to get a prostate cancer research stamp, click here.

Thanks to Zazzle.com your favorite charity, church, nonprofit organization - or even stamp club - can raise some serious dough by selling their own customized 'stamps.'

For example, Cure Autism Now is offering a sheet of 20 stamps (shown above) for $20.

Cost for a single sheet of 37-cent stamps is $16.99 (plus $2.99 shipping). However, if you buy 100 sheets, the cost drops down to $11.99 (plus $19.99 shipping). If my figures are correct, you could make close to $800 by selling only 100 sheets for $20 a piece.

Using their 'special collections,' you can get some really nice, license free artwork to go on the stamps. You can also use your own photo or artworkif you choose.

The 'stamps' (technically, I suppose, they are really postage labels since they are not government issued) come in various denominations from .23 postcard rate up to and including the $3.85 Priority Mail rate.

Sounds like a deal to me. For more on Zazzle stamps and their other products, click here.

'Free form' database for stamp collectors

In the Seattle Times the other day, there was a story about a 'free-form' database program called AskSam.

Although it's not designed specifically for collectors, the article talks about organizing a stamp collection with it and how you "... could ask it to find all of your stamps that you purchased within a date range, that are blue and that cost you more than $100."

Apparently what makes AskSam different from other database programs on the market is that it allows you to dump just about any kind of information into it and not have to worry about any kind of structure. In other words, it's definitely not modeled along the lines of Microsoft's Access.

The article says, "it's as close to a virtual shoebox as you're going to find."

If this sounds like something you might want to play around with, you can get a free 30-day trial at AskSam (www.asksam.com). After that, it's $149

I think I'll to stick with my regular, 'non-virtual' shoe box.

To see the entire article, click here.

A 'dog gone' good video

Dogs and mail carriers don't always get along.

Thanks to a new pooch safety video, Connecticut mail carriers enjoyed a nearly dog-bite free month in July -- suffering just one bite compared to five in July 2004.

According to an on-line article in the Journal Inquirer of Manchester,CT, last year mail carriers nationwide suffered 3,268 attacks by dogs, including 36 incidents in Connecticut.

The six-minute video emphasizes what postal service officials have been trying to teaching mail carriers for years - keep your eyes open, stick your satchel in front of the dog, and get back to your truck. It also strongly encourages mail carriers to report aggressive dogs.

Postal service officials are considering use of the video nationwide and inclusion in their official training program for new carriers.

To read the entire article, click here.

Atomic bomb covers and stamps

1998 stamp from the Marshall Islands where the first atomic tests after Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place - totally polluting and poisoning the Bikini atoll.

The Oregonian reports an Oregon collector owns three covers postmarked Aug. 6, 1945, and signed by Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets.

Tibbets, now 90 and in frail health, flew the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the 1st atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan 60 years ago.

Ken Martin of the American Philatelic Society is quoted as saying, "Of the estimated 5.5 million stamp collectors, only about 1,000 collect World War II covers. Collectors of atomic bomb covers are even more specialized and number less than 100."

Martin estimates the covers to worth about $100 each only because of Tibbets' signature.

To read the entire article, click here.

For more about Atomic Bombs on Stamps, click here.

Gone fishin'

Seeing how it's summer and all, I've decided to take the day off and go fishing.

Stamp collecting still a popular hobby

In case you didn't realize it, stamp collecting is still a popular hobby.

Here's a couple on-line articles you may have missed in the last day or so that deal with local stamp clubs and collectors.

"Stuck on Stamps" focuses on the Longmont [Colorado] Stampers and "Stamp Collecting is Sticking Around" spotlights a longtime Oregon collector, Rosemarie Close.

There has been a lot of press about the Presidential Libraries stamp issued last week, so stamp collecting is on the media's radar screen. If you belong to a club (or just crave publicity) the time may be right to call the local newspaper and invite a reporter over to your next club meeting or home.

Clinton attends FDC ceremonies in Little Rock

Former President Bill Clinton at first-day ceremonies for the Presidential Libraries stamp in Little Rock, AK. (photo courtesy AP)

According to the Arkansas News Bureau, Bill Clinton was the only former president to take part in Thursday's first of issue ceremonies for the Presidential Libraries stamp.

Clinton said a new U.S. postage stamp celebrating 50 years of presidential libraries will draw attention to institutions that are cornerstones of an open society.

Apparently it was a Little Rock man, Ron Robinson, who suggested the stamp to honor the libraries. Robinson is one of the members of the postal service's citizen advisory committee.

The 1955 Presidential Libraries Act allowed presidents to donate materials to the government, though they were not required to turn over their records. In 1978, Congress made mandatory the collection of all presidential papers by the National Archives.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was a stamp collector (see post below), came up with the idea of a presidential library. Clinton's downtown Little Rock library, dedicated last November, is the newest in the system. The Richard Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif., is to become part of the federal system next year.

For more on Clinton's remarks, click here.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, our 'Philatelic President"

Stamp from Philippines (SC 554, 1950) showing President Franklin D. Roosevelt working on his stamp collection.

In an article that appeared in the Poughkeepsie [New York] Journal, Cynthia M. Koch, director of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, is quoted as saying President Roosevelt had 1.2 million stamps in his collection.

"He started as a child and worked on it during his long convalescence from polio," Koch said in advance of first day of issue ceremonies being held at the FDR Presidential Library for the new stamp marking the 50th anniversary of the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955.

Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the first presidential library in Hyde Park, NY. He was an avid stamp collector and was a life member of the American Philatelic Society (APS). Roosevelt was inducted into the APS Hall of Fame in 1945.

According to the APS, "Roosevelt had a hand in every stamp issued during his period in office, suggesting some, designing many and giving his final approval on all issues. He arranged for the issuance of souvenir sheets at national stamp conventions and saw that many stamps had their first days at philatelic events."

For more on FDR, our "Philatelic President," click here... and his stamp collection, click here.

GOOD READS - "Flying the Mail"

Earlier this year my sister and I visited the American Philatelic Society's headquarters in Bellefonte (pronunced "bell-font") Pennsylvania. We were royally welcomed and given the grand tour. I didn't realize it at the time, but the town was a philatelic landmark even before the APS arrived.

In the 1982 Time-Life book, Flying the Mail (part of the Epic of Flight Series), Bellefonte is mentioned quite a few a times. It's a wonderful book for airmail enthusists with lots of photos.

Bellefonte's philatelic claim to fame is that when the Post Office decided to establish a airmail service between New York and Cleveland in the summer of 1918, it picked a farmer's field near the town as a refueling stop. Later it became one of the country's first radio-equipped airfields.

Because of its proximity to the Allegheny Mountains and the frequent bad weather conditions, the approach into Bellefonte was nicknamed "Hell Stretch." Several pilots were killed before the airfield was moved in 1925.

For more on Bellefonte airfield, click here.

Does this stamp look familiar?

I was sorting through a mixture of stamps over the weekend, when I came across this 1927 special delivery stamp from the Dominican Republic (SC E3).

Sure does look familiar doesn't it? In fact, it's pretty much a knock-off of a 10 cent special delivery stamp issued by the United States in 1922 (E15).

• If you have any stamp look-a-likes, send them to me at donschilling@worldnet.att.net a scan and I'll post them on The Round-Up.

One of my Favorite Sites - Post Office in Paradise

Here's a web site you might enjoy if you want to learn more about Hawaiian postage stamps. It's called 'Post Office in Paradise,' it's dedicated to the stamps and postal history of Hawaii before it became a territory of the United States on June 14, 1900.

Winner of several major awards, this comprehensive site offers both the beginning and advanced collector a wealth of information about the Hawaiian Islands' fascinating and little known philatelic history.

To visit, 'Post Office in Paradise,' click here.

• If you have a favorite philatelic website, e-mail me at donschilling@worldnet.att.net

LINNS Stamp-Market Survey

According to article by Michael Laurence on the linns.com website, stamp sales in the United States came "roaring" back in 2004.

Linn's 11th annual stamp-market survey shows that retail sales volume in the U.S. stamp market totaled $949 million last year, a 13 percent increase over 2003.

According to the article, "Most of the increase — 70 percent of it — came from improved collector sales by the U.S. Postal Service. But sales in traditional stamp-market channels also improved. Auctions, bourses, mail-order and online sales all grew substantially. Of the 16 sales channels Linns monitors, sales were up in 10 channels, unchanged in five and down in only one."

David Failor, Postal Service executive director of stamp services is quoted as saying, " stamp retention revenues increased in just about every category. When compared with similar subjects in prior years, the following stamps all saw at least a 15 percent increase: Pacific Coral Reef, Chinese New Year, John Wayne, Madonna and Child, and James Baldwin."

To read the entire article click here.