Biltmore House | Asheville, North Carolina 🇺🇸 United States | Postmarked Nov 7, 1963 The Biltmore Estate bills itself as a timeless treasure. And based on this postcard photo, taken in the early 1960s, it is just that. No longer can you park your Chevy Bel Air directly in front of the home. And gone... Continue Reading →
Vincent van Gogh, “Self-Portrait with Straw Hat” 🇳🇱 Netherlands, €0.39 | Issued January 2, 2003 | Scott 1139, Michel NL 2083v Behind every painting is a story. And the same can certainly be said of stamps. Postage stamps have long borrowed from fine art, from presidential portraits painted by American masters to great works of... Continue Reading →
Marine Timekeepers: Decorated Enamel Dial 🇬🇧 Great Britain, 24p | Issued February 16, 1993 | SG GB 1654 Since 2020, many people (myself included) have felt that time isn’t what it used to be. Days are too long and too short at the same time. Hours take weeks. Months go by in a flash. We... Continue Reading →
Some of the Literary Arts stamps in my collection. John Steinbeck | 🇺🇸 United States, 15¢ | Issued Feb. 27, 1979 | Scott 1773 Edith Wharton | 🇺🇸 United States, 15¢ | Issued Sept. 5, 1980 | Scott 1832 Nathaniel Hawthorne | 🇺🇸 United States, 20¢ | Issued July 8, 1983 | Scott 2047 F.... Continue Reading →
It’s snowed out every “significant” birthday of my life so far. The day my mother went into labor, there were 17 inches of snow on the ground. So much snow, that my father and the EMT on duty had to hoist her four-foot-ten frame by the armpits and carry her the nearly-quarter mile down the... Continue Reading →
900th Anniversary of the Death of St. Stephen: Pope Sylvester II, Archbishop 🇭🇺 Hungary, 10f | Issued January 1, 1938 | Scott 516 America was famously born when the Second Continental Congress of 56 delegates agreed to adopt the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But according to history, the birth of Hungary as a nation... Continue Reading →
Holiday Delights 🇺🇸 United States, Forever¢ | Issued September 24, 2020 | Scott 5525-5528 It’s always fun to focus on stamps of yore and use them to glean stories from the past. But often, we forget that many of those stamps have held their stories since the day they were issued—or, at least, since shortly... Continue Reading →
https://youtu.be/lq0Zh9_pWiM Crimped hair. Pogs. Reebok Pumps. Nintendo Wii. “Gangnam Style.” These fads charged into the zeitgeist and sacked public consciousness! Battalions of Garbage Pail Kids invaded lunch boxes all over the globe. Armies of JNCO jeans marched through the hallways of local high schools, defining the ranks of peer groups. “Baby Shark” wreaked havoc on... Continue Reading →
The Penny Red (red plate printing) 🇬🇧 United Kingdom, 1d | Issued 1864–1879 | Scott 33 Color and contrast enhanced for clarity. Somewhere out there, someone is keeping a list of stamp superlatives. What’s the biggest stamp? The smallest? What’s the “weirdest” stamp? Some of these superlatives may be subjective, but there is one everyone... Continue Reading →
Madonna with Crown 🇭🇺 Hungary, 3,000k | Issued October 16, 1923 | Scott 385 If you look at it in detail, there is so much you can learn from a single stamp. The technology of the printing process. The artist and symbolism behind the design. The story of its travel inked in the cancellation. And... Continue Reading →
Armchair Philately 