How would you like to own your very own antique Rosback pinhole perforator for just a penny? Someone could come away with just that with a seller in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, offering a full-size Rosback that appears to date from the 1930s with a starting bid of $0.01 or a buy-it-now price of $150.
That’s not to say that there wouldn’t be some additional costs involved even if you were the only bidder. For one thing, the seller is offering local pick-up only, so you would have to figure out a way to get the machine from Baton Rouge to wherever you are. In addition, this Rosback looks as though it has seen better days. At a minimum, you would have to build a new table, and to make use of the full width of the perforator, you would need to find some metal bars to hold down the pins along the right end. And I have no idea what condition the pins may be in.
I’m way too far from Baton Rouge to give this one any consideration, but I do hope someone puts in a bid with the idea of doing something creative with this machine, not just scrapping it for the metal value. It should be an interesting lot to watch.
1940s postcard features beautiful view of Corpus Christi Bay
I’m not usually all that interested in postcards. There are some attractive ones, no doubt, but I can’t collect everything. Stamps are what I collect, and that’s that.
I will make an occasional exception, however, and that happened during my most recent visit to the local stamp shop, ABC Stamps. While browsing through a box of postcards, I ran across this beauty with the caption “Eventing Scene on Corpus Christi Bay, Corpus Christi, Texas.” It’s certainly not the most colorful postcard that I’ve ever seen, but the clouds and shadows in the picture really make it stand out. I almost want to frame it!
Postcard picturing “Evening Scene on Corpus Christi Bay, Corpus Christi, Texas“
According to the Guide to Dating Curt Teich Postcards, this postcard was first printed by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago in 1940. This particular example was mailed from Corpus Christi to San Antonio, Texas, on April 25, 1946, as the postmark on the reverse shows. A 1¢ George Washington “Prexie” paid postage.
Message side of postcard
The message itself is from a young newlywed to his mother, and in it he gushes about his “wonderful little wife.” It’s an interesting glimpse of life in post-World War II America.
Jefferson Territory Ghost Post issues two new stamps
Jefferson Territory Ghost Post, the successor to Colorado Ghost Post of the 1970s, on July 1 issued two new local post stamps.
The first of the self-adhesive stamps pictures The Wall That Heals, a ¾-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Jefferson Territory Ghost Post’s Ghostmaster General, Rusty Morse, says that the photo on the stamp was taken while the wall was in Arvada, Colorado, in June 2019.
Jefferson Territory Ghost Post “The Wall That Heals” stamp
The second stamp pictures Jefferson Territory Ghost Post’s guard dog, Lily, along with the text “On Guard.” Although the picture used on the stamp depicts Lily at a younger age, Morse notes that she is now a five-year veteran in her role.
Jefferson Territory Ghost Post “On Guard” stamp
Both of the stamps are denominated in pennyweights of gold, each having a face value of .01-dwt Au.
You can read more about Colorado Ghost Post and subsequent revivals of that local post service on the Rusty’s Maps Projects page.
In just a few days, we will reach the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon’s surface at what was late in the day on July 20, 1969, in the United States, making Apollo 11 the first of several missions to put human beings on the moon.
Purgatory Post in January issued a man on the moon stamp celebrating the anniversary for World Local Post Day. This month, the New Hampshire-based local post issued a pair of 11-sola stamps commemorating the Apollo 11 mission: one picturing astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin, and Michael Collins, along with a photo of their launch, and the other depicting the Apollo 11 patch and a picture of Aldrin standing next to an American flag on the moon.
Purgatory Post Apollo 11 stamps
Purgatory Post has been issuing a pair of stamps for the 50th anniversary of each of the Apollo missions, with the stamps for each mission denominated with the mission number. I would expect another six issues for the remaining Apollo flights.
Fixing spaces for the Transcontinental Railroad stamps
I realized just yesterday that the three spaces that I included for this year’s Transcontinental Railroad stamps in the Summer 2019 Supplement for The Philosateleian U.S. Stamp Album were much too small to contain the stamps. To quote former Texas governor Rick Perry, “Oops.”
To make up for my mistake, I’ve prepared a special update that corrects the sizes of the spaces for those three stamps, and you can download it now from The Philosateleian’s Updates & supplements page. I’m sorry about the error, and hope the corrected page will better meet your needs.
