Stamp (currency)

“ In many instances men make such collections a matter of business, and these receptacles for stamps bring very high prices,—in fact, like old coins, many of them command fabulous prices. The collection of these miniature paper currency circulating mediums is decidedly a British institution. Periodicals devoted to the interest of dealers are established in various parts of the kingdom, and agents employed, not only to furnish information upon the subject of new issues, but to procure various stamps for orders. ”

“ For one thing, the making of change in the course of small transactions proved a laborious business because of the intrusion of a common denomination of 3 cents (the stamp most frequently employed and the one of which there was the greatest supply) into the convenient decimal system. The counting out of 2, 3, 5 and 10 cent stamps became intolerable when large quantities of change were required, so that in places where various sorts of tickets were sold, the stamps were put up in small envelopes marked in large figures, 10, 25 and 50 cents, as the case might be. ”

“ The wholesaler sells to the retail dealer at a small advance per thousand. Those stamps the ordinary dealer makes up into packets at a further profit, but still at a comparatively low price. Good copies he picks out for sale in sets and separately. Those have to be catalogued. Therefore, the catalogue price of common stamps bought and sold by the million eventually comes before the general collector at "one penny each," and the man who makes a collection of common stamps of the "one penny each" class can scarcely be expected to realise a fortune out of his stamp collecting. ”

“ Surely you are not going to stick to your foolish idea that trading stamps are something for nothing. All sensible people know that no one can give something for nothing and live, and I trust that the trading stamp concerns are sensible people. It is merely a cash discount. ”

“ Can anyone doubt that all these 150,000 6d stamps were not perforated? In the case of the 3d we have one and a third millions to compare with a total issue of three and a half millions—about a third in the supposed perforated class. Yet the catalogue value of the latter is $2.50 against 36 cents for the wove paper imperforate alone. With the 1⁄2d stamp there are two millions against a total of three and a third millions, or about two to one in favor of the supposed perforated stamps, yet the latter are double the catalogue price of the former! ”

“ Buy good stamps from a responsible dealer. As a rule the higher the value the more likely to increase in the future. This applies to all but the first-class rarities now worth from $50 apiece upward.
W. F. Brown.—No addresses of dealers can be given in this column. I believe the dealers have a full supply of all the Columbian stamps, except the $1 and $2, which are sold for $7 and $4 respectively. There is no 7c. Columbian stamp.
M. S. C.—The coin dealers sell the 1803 cent for 10 cents. The English coins mentioned are all common. ”

“ We cannot encourage 'exchanging foreign stamps,' for we do not see the smallest good resulting from it. This foreign stamp-collecting has been a mania, which is at length dying out. Were the stamps works of art, then the collecting them might be justified. Were they, in short, anything but bits of defaced printing, totally worthless, we would try to say something in their favour. ”

“ Our statute is a currency which we stamp with our own portrait: it soon becomes unrecognizable, and in process of time will return to the mint. ”

“ To promote the general convenience of the public in prepaying letters to the United Kingdom at the new rate, postage stamps of the value of 10d currency, equal to 8d sterling, were procured, and issued to the public. ”

“ Stamps, while they do duty for coin, are used almost exclusively for small transactions, and generally among people well known to each other. Other precautions are nevertheless very necessary; and besides the initial letters on each stamp—different in every one of the two hundred and forty in the sheet—which are regarded as so many checks on the forger, this pest to society would have to engrave his own die, and cast his own blocks, and find a drilling-machine, perhaps the most difficult undertaking of all. ”

“ In the case at hand, we find the demand for stamps so deep-seated and secure that it literally stretches from the cradle to the grave. From the business transacted by government agencies and the multitude of dealers in philatelic merchandise, authorities have estimated that five out of every hundred people, both here and abroad, are stamp collectors. Such a computation means, that in the United States alone, well over 5,000,000 people pursue this hobby. ”

“ In the stamp business, as in all other branches of commerce, there are wholesale and retail dealers. The wholesaler buys by the thousand stamps that are printed by the million. I refer, of course, to used stamps. In some cases the price paid per thousand is only a few pence for large quantities that run into millions. ”

“ No rule can be given, but as a general thing, when the catalogue does not price a stamp in both used and unused condition, the inference is that so few copies are known that no definite market value has been established. Jefferson and Perry.
S. Manning.—Defaced coins are worth metal value only; possibly some such coins would be redeemed at face value at the Sub-Treasury in New York.
R. H. Martin.—I shall always be glad to examine any rare stamps, but it is not worth the expense to send common or ordinary stamps. ”

“ D. W. W.—Practically all the unperforated U. S. Revenues are on "old paper," but the paper varied in thickness and in color. The "silk" paper was used in some of the perforated stamps. They are quite scarce. The second and third issues of the U.S. Revenues and the Proprietary stamps were printed on "pink" paper, "violet" paper, and "green" paper. Unless a collector has lots of money to spend, I would advise him not to bother about papers, but take every stamp according to design only. Part perforated stamps are those which have perforations on two sides only. ”

“ As to U.S. coins in general I would say that the supply in the hands of the dealers is equal to any prospective demand. The immense quantity of old U.S. coins in the hands of the public will not command a premium. Coin-collecting to-day is very much what stamp-collecting was twenty years ago—that is to say, the speculative element is lacking.
W. Smithson.—Collect Seebecks all you want. No society or association can prevent you. The stamps are pretty in themselves, and they have undoubtedly been used for postal purposes. ”

“ Of course, no dealer would hoard up £100 worth of a common stamp, but from the day that it becomes obsolete it must be hoarded up by someone, and interest must be accruing on the investment which will have to be added to the value of the stamp, unless someone is to stand the loss. ”

“ A thought has just occurred to me, however. While you promise that no other hardware man shall have the Garter stamps, can you promise that no other trading stamp concern will offer stamps to any other hardware man in Farmdale? ”

“ Our youth were reminded of the wise saws and sayings of "Poor Richard" and it taught them that if they learned to save the cents, the dollars were more likely to take care of themselves. But now think of the miserable, confused looking thing, with its wretched printing, that the Post Office has given us for the present three cent stamp. It is neither historical, national, beautiful, nor anything but a paltry evidence of the fact, that some engraver has got paid or will get paid for a job that ought never to have been done. Can our authorities not let well enough alone? ”

“ While it embraces but two classes, stamps for postal purposes and stamps for revenue purposes, it has divided these two classes into several divisions, each of which has an equal importance, and each of which claims for itself all that can be given to it either of time or money. Jack of all trades, and master of none, can very truly be applied to stamp collecting. One who attempts to collect all kinds of stamps may, by the expenditure of a very large amount of money, succeed in accumulating a very great number of stamps ”

“ An ingenious trick of the forger in a small way of business consists in transforming a common stamp into a valuable one. His work is not very arduous, and his apparatus costs but a few pence. All he needs is an aptitude for drawing, a few paints, brushes, and some chemicals. He selects, first of all, an issue where the stamps all bear an identical design and are printed in the same colour, the value, and perhaps an additional word or two, only being printed in a distinctive colour. ”

“ But here is an issue from fifty to sixty years old; the stamps were regularly used in increasing numbers during their years of issue; they have always been popular and eagerly collected, so that the stock in existence has been pretty well handled and pretty well distributed. Under these conditions the catalog prices should by this time reflect fairly accurately the relative rarity of the main varieties of each stamp at least; and it is this relative rarity that we are after in order to approximate the original supplies of the main varieties. ”

“ They were National and American, as they ought to have been. The head of Washington was venerable, and our three cent stamps were as perfect as they well could be. So also the one cent stamp with the head of Franklin was equally appropriate. There was [147] a fitness of congruity in putting the head of the old, thrifty economist, on the one cent stamp. ”

“ The color of the 5 and 25 cent notes was brown; that of the 10 and 50 cent, green; when new they were not ill-looking. To men and women who had been using shinplasters and soiled and worn postage and revenue stamps, they seemed a positive deliverance. The issue of this postage currency began August 21, 1862, and crowds of people waited patiently in long lines at the office of the Assistant-Treasurer in New York and other cities for their turn to secure some of these new and attractive notes. ”

“ Fellows came back with the names of two concerns which were better known to me than the Garter trading stamp.
"Why, yes," drawled Bulder, "of course, they might offer stamps to some other hardware man. But, my dear sir, think a minute—what are the value of [Pg 157] their stamps compared to ours? Why, my good friend, you can't compare them! Every woman in town knows that Garter stamps have a higher premium value than any others." ”

“ Had it been possible under the old postal system to prepay letter-postage as well as newspaper-postage, what more likely than that a man so far-seeing as was Mr Knight would also have suggested the application of his stamp to all mail matter? Letter postage stamps and prepayment had, of necessity, to await the advent of 1840 and uniformity of rate. [154]
(4) “Finally, and in its results most important of all, the adhesive stamp was made experimentally by Mr James Chalmers in his printing office at Dundee, in 1834.” ”

“ Foreign stamps, for a 5-cent, 30-cent, or 90-cent United States stamp, issue of 1851 to 1860; a 90-cent, issue of 1861, envelope or newspaper stamps, except 1-cent, 2-cent, and 3-cent, or any Department stamps except Interior and Treasury. ”

“ Up to this day, after over forty years of public service, and notwithstanding the improvements in the production of impressed and embossed stamps, the adhesive stamp remains indispensable to our postal, inland revenue, telegraphic, and parcel-post systems—"Eighteen hundred millions are issued yearly from the office of the Controller of stamps. These range in value from a halfpenny to twenty pounds, covering postage and inland revenue from a halfpenny to two shillings and sixpence; postage proper from five shillings to five pounds ”

“ Of all the stamps of this character, those issued by the St. Louis Postmaster have been most discussed in the Philatelical Press. The ten cents was first noticed in an article in the Stamp Collector's Magazine in November, 1863, and the five cents was mentioned in Kline's Manual, 3rd edition, 1865. Mr. L. W. Durbin first mentioned the second die of the 10 cents, Mr. Pemberton the second die of the 5 cents, and Mr. Scott is entitled to the credit of discovering the third die of each. ”

“ It must seem hard to you stamp collectors that the most beautiful stamps issued—the newspaper and periodical stamps—are not permitted to be sold to the public. One of the chief reasons for this is that the values of these small squares of paper run up to such high figures, viz., $24, $36, $48, and $60, that they would offer a great field in counterfeiters if generally circulated. ”

“ To-day it is the fashion to look back with regret on those lost opportunities, and to nurse the belief that such opportunities are never likely to return. But experience shows that in every decade of stamp collecting the common stamp of to-day may be the rarity of to-morrow. In many a series of stamps some one of the lot from some cause or another gets scarce, and the price appreciates from year to year till the original price paid for the stamp in pence is represented by pounds. ”

“ For instance, the 1796 and 1797 half-dollars are quoted by dealers at $75 each. The coins mentioned by you are not rare. Dealers supply them at about double the face value.
A. Simon.—As a beginning, to make up a stamp-collection, I advise you to purchase packets of stamps from responsible dealers. You can buy twenty-five different packets from the oldest stamp dealer in America, and probably from others, for 25c. to $25 per packet. The packets contain from 10 to 1500 different stamps, according to price and rarity of the stamps. ”