Dead countries and the world of stamps
A few years ago, I'm doing some research and I ran across a website devoted to stamps from Dead Countries. My interest level shot through the roof and since, dead countries have been a real ....
Category: Stamp Collecting
The Coast Guard at 230. Doesn’t look a day over…
Today, August 4, 2020, the U.S. Coast Guard turned 230 years old. In May, 1988, six days after my 19th birthday, I boarded a plane that took me to Philadelphia and then caught a bus ....
Bugs Bunny vs MLK. Who wins at the USPS?
The USPS recently announced a new set of stamps featuring Bugs Bunny. There will be ten stamps featuring the famous cartoon character. Adding to it a previous stamp featuring Bugs Bunny, and that brings the ....
My inaugural philatelic acquisition
My inaugural philatelic acquisition took place many years ago in 1978. I'd turned 9-years-old just a couple weeks previous when I received a very curious item from an aunt. (more…)
Stamp topics and dissing on Batman
On the various philatelic discussion forums, the subject of stamp topics arises from time to time. It seems to coincide with a stamp release that is likely to have some pretty insane popularity. (more…)
The Christkindl joy at Christmas
The collecting of Christkindl covers is a fairly popular sub-specialty of people who collect stamps related to Christmas. I have a few and they are beautiful. Christkindl. So there are a couple of definitions here. ....
Norman Rockwell, the Boy Scouts, and Liberia
Norman Rockwell, the great American painter, painted some 51 annual illustrations for an annual Boy Scout calendar in his career. I was a Boy Scout from the time of 7 or so (Cub Scouts) until ....
The USCGC Cowslip and adventures in buoy tending
From 1988 to 1990, the USCGC Cowslip moored right behind us, and that was the cause for quite a bit of fun. I served aboard the Red Cedar, a 157-foot coastal buoy tender based in ....
Robert E. Howard and the station cancellation
Like many, my first exposure to Robert E. Howard was through his character, Conan the Barbarian. There was a set of 12 books, not all written by creator Robert E. Howard, but I devoured them ....
The front, the back, and look closely
On the surface, the cover is plain on the front. A stamp. An address. A postmark. It is often … frustrating when someone is actually looking at my collection and they see just that plain ....