When I first saw pictures of the Simpsons stamps in USA Philatelic, the USPS sales catalog, I thought the stamps were going to be issued in the large commemorative format used for the Disney stamps issued over the past few years, for example. It turns out they’re much smaller—the size of the Christmas stamps issued each year, in fact.
There’s no problem with this, but it does mean the spaces for those stamps on my 2009 stamp album pages were far too large. I’ve changed the size of those spaces, and you can download the fixed page [PDF] now.
Did the Simpsons stamps meet your expectations, or are you surprised they were not issued in a larger format?
Some time back I learned a tiny bit about the postal history of a small community in the state of Georgia in the USA. The name of the place is Mauk.
There isn’t much to Mauk—a gas station, a volunteer fire station, and a church or two. And then there’s the post office, which today is housed in a single-wide mobile home.
It seems the Mauk post office opened in late 1906, November perhaps, after a railroad was built through the area. Dan Smith was the postmaster.
I have ties to Mauk, and I would be very interested in acquiring covers postmarked at the Mauk post office during its early days, if any such covers still exist.
Do you have any covers postmarked Mauk? Please let me know if you’re willing to sell.
The 14¢ American Indian stamp has been my favorite for years, so I jumped at the opportunity to acquire this piece recently.
1936 Hindenburg Cover
This cover bears two copies of Scott No. 565 (14¢ American Indian, perf. 11), and one copy of Scott No. 693 (12¢ Grover Cleveland, perf. 11×10½). It is the only piece in my collection that was carried by an airship, the Hindenburg. The Hindenburg might be the best-known airship due to its explosion in Lakehurst, N.J., in 1937.
The Richmond, Va., postmark, although incompletely struck, provides all the information we need to determine the year the cover was flown. According to Airships: A Zeppelin History Site, the Hindenburg’s first flight took place in March 1936 and its last took place in May 1937. The July 13 postmark therefore can only mean the cover flew in 1936.
It looks like it’s election season again. The Local Post Collectors Society is accepting candidate declarations from members who want to run for LPCS president, vice president, or secretary/treasurer. The winners will serve for five years beginning in January 2010.
According to the candidate declaration form mailed to LPCS members, a candidate must:
be a LPCS member in good standing
have been a LPCS member in good standing for at least the past two years
be familiar with the duties of the office for which he or she is running
not be facing pending disciplinary action by the LPCS or APS
follow the APS Code of Ethics
Are you a LPCS member? What would you like to see the new officers do during their term?
In the summer of 2002, Philosateleia was born. Seven years later, it’s time to introduce a new feature: the Philosateleian blog.
My name is Kevin, and I’m the editor of this Web site. As we move forward, I plan to write about stamps, stamp collecting, and the mail in general.
Why a blog?
If you’ve been following Philosateleia for any time at all, you’ve probably noticed the site doesn’t change much. I want to change that, and a blog seems like a good starting point.
One of the reasons I haven’t updated my site that often over the past couple of years is a lack of time. I’m under no illusions that adding a blog is going to help me with time management. I do, however, think it will help in that when I want to add something to the site but have only a couple of minutes to spare, I have an outlet to do that. In the past, adding content has been a major project.
In addition, I like stamps, and I like picking up a pen—or in this case, setting my fingers to the keyboard—now and again. What better way to combine those two things than to blog about stamps?
Join me
I’ll keep this brief, but let me say welcome. I hope you’ll take the time to comment on my posts when you see something interesting, and if you have any suggestions, please let me know. And finally, happy collecting!
