WESTMORELAND COUNTY PHILATELIC SOCIETY
 NEWSLETTER

Volume 22, Number 2

February 2008

The news from the January meeting was that we decided to not have one.  Everyone was having so much fun at the snack table for our annual winter party that we decided to postpone business until the February meeting.  Everyone enjoyed the shrimp and barbequed ham and punch and cookies, etc., etc.  We had the APS circuit books for the first time and they were a big hit.  We welcomed three new members.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Hagerstown Stamp & Coin Show – Saturday, February 16, 9:00am – 3:30pm, Hagerstown Stamp Club, Plaza Hotel., Halfway Blvd & I-81 (across from Valley Mall), 13 dealers.

Pittsburgh Area Stamp & Coin Show – Saturday, March 8; 10:00am to 4:00pm; Wilkins Township Fire Hall, 109 Powell St., (Just off Greensburg Pike) Sponsored by James J. Reeves.  Call 800-701-7091 for more information.

TRIPEX Stamp Show – Saturday March 22, 10:00am - 3:30pm, Tri State Stamp Club, Lavale Volunteer Fire Dept., Station 1, 421 National Hwy., Lavale, MD (Cumberland). Contact: Jeff Hutter, jeff.hutter@twrcommunications.com Call 301-777-0379 evenings and weekends.

Garfield-Perry March Party – Friday March 28, 11AM-6PM; Saturday March 29, 10AM-5:30PM; Sunday March 30, 10AM-4PM; Masonic Auditorium, East 36^th Street and Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH; 50+ dealers. Website address: http://www.garfieldperry.org/marchparty.html

Ebay will raise the final value fee from 5.25% to 8.75% on the first $25 of every lot sold at auction beginning February 20.  That is a whopping 67%.  In return they are lowering the listing fee by 5 cents for lots starting at less than $25.  This will likely encourage sellers to raise their handling fees and has resulted in other venues such as StampWants and Delcampe to attempt to woo customers and sellers to their websites.  The new eBay management has announced plans to make other extensive changes too numerous to detail here.  On another front, the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue has stepped up efforts to collect taxes from sellers who accept consignments and is lobbying for a bill to license them.  Everyone wants a bigger share of the action.

  NEW US ISSUES

On February 21, 2008, in Hawthorne, Florida, the Postal Service will issue a 41-cent, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings commemorative stamp in one design in a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) pane of 20 stamps. Designed by Carl T. Herrman of Carlsbad, California, the stamp goes on sale nationwide February 21, 2008. With this 24th stamp in the Literary Arts series, the Postal Service commemorates author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953). Best known for her novel The Yearling and her memoir Cross Creek, Rawlings is remembered for a series of short stories, novels, and works of nonfiction about life in the Florida backwoods. The stamp will be dedicated on the grounds of Rawlings’ home in Cross Creek, now a state of Florida historic park. In the foreground of the stamp art is a portrait of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings based on an undated photograph. The background depicts a fawn at a watering hole in the Florida scrub country. The rows of spots on the fawn, which are consistent with descriptions in The Yearling, indicate that the fawn is a young male. First day address:

MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS STAMP 

POSTMASTER

6300 SE 221ST

ST HAWTHORNE FL 32640-9998

All orders must be postmarked by April 21, 2008.   There will be three philatelic products:

• First Day Cover, $0.79  

• Ceremony Program, $6.95  

• First Day Cover Keepsake Full Pane with cover, $8.99  

American Scientists – March 6

 

On March 6, 2008, in New York, New York, the Postal Service will issue 41-cent, American Scientists commemorative stamps in four designs in a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) pane of 20 stamps. Designed by Victor Stabin of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, the stamps go on sale nationwide March 6, 2008. This second American Scientists stamps issuance honors theoretical physicist John Bardeen, biochemist Gerty Cori, astronomer Edwin Hubble, and structural chemist Linus Pauling. For each stamp, artist Victor Stabin created a collage featuring a portrait of the scientist along with diagrams or photographic representations that are associated with major contributions made by the scientist. Information about the specific elements in each collage is contained in the design briefs of the individual profiles on the back of each stamp. First day address:

AMERICAN SCIENTISTS STAMPS

POSTMASTER

421 EIGHTH AVE RM 2029B

NEW YORK NY 10199-9998

All orders must be postmarked by May 5, 2008. There are three philatelic products available for this stamp issue:

·         First Day Cover Set/4, $3.16

·         Ceremony Program with 4 stamps, $6.95

·         First Day Cover Keepsake with 4 First Day Covers, $11.36

Lindbergh’s Goodwill Visit to Pittsburgh  

Crowds engulf the Spirit of Saint Louis at Bettis Field after Charles Lindbergh arrived on a good will tour in 1927.

On August 23, 1927, “Lucky Lindy” landed at Pittsburgh’s Bettis Airfield.  When Lindbergh returned from Paris he began a goodwill tour of the world in the Spirit of St. Louis. The airfield was packed with 10,000 people that day and the streets were lined with people.  Lindbergh was met at the airport by Pittsburgh Mayor Charles H. Kline and other dignitaries, and then ferried to Pitt Stadium in Oakland in a motorcade.  At the airport the Spirit of St. Louis was put in a hangar sideways because it was too large to fit in the largest hangar in the normal way.  Col. Lindbergh left at noon the next day as a crowd of 30,000 cheered him off.

The cover above celebrates the second anniversary of Lindbergh’s visit.  Airmail pilot R. L. Baker signed it.  The cover was beautifully prepared with the Lindbergh airmail stamp (C10) by Lindbergh airmail specialist Leon Berman.  A Berman cover has surfaced that was posted in San Diego the day that Lindbergh signed the contract there to build the Spirit of St. Louis.  Berman was philatelically documenting Lindbergh even before he made his famous transatlantic flight.

Punxsutawney celebrated the 100^th anniversary of Groundhog Day in 1987 with this cover.  Phil says, “Six more weeks of winter.”  Officially winter will end on March 20^th at 00:48 AM EST (that’s about 6½ weeks).   All you ever wanted to know about the rodent (and then some) is at: http://www.groundhog.org/

WASHINGTON, DC – Jan. 23 — Postmaster General John Potter today announced the appointment of Fordham University professor Clara Rodriguez to serve on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC), which recommends subjects to appear on U.S. postage stamps.  Clara Rodriguez is a professor of sociology at Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center and the author of 10 books.  She is the recipient of numerous research and teaching awards, most recently the American Sociological Association’s 2001 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in the Field of Latina/o Studies.  She has also been a consultant to a number of television shows and documentaries, most recently Dora, the Explorer and Sesame Street.

It Is Not Always Wise to Remove Stamps From Envelopes

This roughly opened cover was mailed from Mokanshan, China to the Philippines in 1903.  It is franked with China Scott 100 and two 101.  The stamps have a total catalog value of $2.15.  The cover recently sold on eBay for $1,558.  The postmark partially covering the return address is from the French post office in Shanghai.  There were several other postmarks on the back including the US post office in Shanghai and the Manila, Philippines post office.  The value is in the postmarks and transit marks.  Only a specialist in Chinese postmarks would be able to recognize the hidden value in this cover.  Fortunately no one decided to remove the stamps from this envelope.  Mokanshan is a mountain resort about 100 miles west of Shanghai.

Chinese stamps were not valid for international postage until they joined the Universal Postal Union in 1914.  However, the US post office in Shanghai must have accepted this cover into the international mail.  The Philippine Islands were a territory of the US in 1903 that became independent in 1946.  Great Britain, France, Germany, Indo-China, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US all maintained post offices in China to handle foreign mail until China joined the UPU.

How To Keep Track of Your Collection

Knowing what you have in your collection by keeping an inventory serves several sensible purposes: You will have a record in case anything is lost or stolen, and you will know what you don't have yet.

Collectors kept inventories long before there were computers, by making their own lists or using simple inventory booklets available from stamp suppliers. "Paper" inventories still work very well, and can be as simple or complicated as you want. The usual inventory is arranged by catalogue number of the stamp, and may also list the condition of the stamp, when you bought it, how much you paid for it, and any other information you want to include. For covers, you could list them by the country where they were mailed from, and then some description of the item. It's really up to you.

Some of the inventory booklets you can buy, ready-made, are small enough to fit in a pocket, and are convenient to take to stamp shows so you can quickly see if you need such-and-such a stamp for your collection. It's a good idea to take a want list to a show with you - in the excitement of the chase; it's not always easy to remember specifically what you have and what you still need!

Computer-users who also were stamp collectors quickly realized how this high-tech tool could be used in their hobby. Some created their own stamp-inventory databases, while others simply used existing word-processing programs to list their holdings. Specialized philatelic inventory software came on the market in the 1980's, and has become increasingly sophisticated. These programs are widely advertised, both in the print media and on the stamp-hobby sites on the Internet.

As a visual record, some collectors are using scanners to save images of at least their "best stuff," in case of loss or damage, for insurance purposes. If you don't have a scanner, you can make a photocopy of your high-value purchases, videotape them, or photograph them. (While you're thinking about this sort of thing, check your personal insurance to see if philatelic collections are covered, and to what extent. You may want to think about specific stamp collectors' insurance, available from several companies.)

Ed.  The above article was reprinted from the Collectors Club of Chicago website Ask Phil.  http://www.askphil.org

90-Cent Lincoln - 1869  

The 90 cent Lincoln is the high value of the 1869 pictorial issue and is a particularly beautiful stamp.  It features a portrait of Lincoln engraved by Joseph P. Ourdan in black with a carmine frame.  Ourdan later became chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  The National Bank Note Company printed this stamp on hard wove paper embossed with the G type grill.  A grill is an impression made on a stamp in order to break the paper fibers so that the ink from the cancel will soak into the stamp paper and make washing for reuse impossible.  The ‘G’ designation defines the dimensions and number of points in the grill. 

The earliest known use of the stamp is May 10, 1869.  47,360 copies of the stamp were printed but only 25,000 were issued.  The stamps were used on heavy mail and parcels and few have survived.  Most of those that have are in poor condition.  The stamp is identified as Scott 122 and catalogs at $10,000 mint and $2,250 used.  Scarcer varieties exist without a grill and with a split grill.  A split grill is a grill that bridges the stamp perforations and appears on multiple stamps because the pane was misfed when the grill was being applied. 

REMEMBER YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT ON PRESIDENT’S DAY – FEBRUARY 18th  

James Garfield was assassinated four months after taking office in 1881.