1898 Revenues: APRL Friend of Other Libraries program

Thursday, March 31, 2016

APRL Friend of Other Libraries program

We hear that the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL) will soon be parting with many of its books. Decisions have been made at the highest levels to give those books to other libraries, under a new program known as the APRL Friend of Other Libraries program. Beginning in the third quarter of 2016, the books on the bottom two shelves throughout the library will be boxed up and shipped off to other interested libraries.

While this is shocking and disturbing news, the underlying story is known to all of us in the hobby. As stamp collecting has declined in popularity, so has the membership of The American Philatelic Society and the APRL. Book borrowing has declined, and with the expense of maintaining such a vast and lightly used collection, the APS and APRL have decided to "right size" the library.

As understood by 1898 Revenues, factors contributing to this decision include:

Flooding: The APRL is on the bank of a creek with an occasional tendency to flood. By parting with all of the books on the two lowest shelves throughout the library, the remaining books will be an additional 3 feet above potential flood waters compared to present.
Orthopedic Injuries: As APS members continue to increase in average age, it is much easier for our members to reach the books on the middle and upper shelves without having to strain to access the lower shelves. A recent spike in library users having back surgery has attracted the attention of epidemiologists looking for answers as to why stamp collectors in Bellefonte have made the town an epicenter for orthopedic injuries. The Friend of other Libraries program will help the APRL dodge this unwanted attention.
Cost Effectivenss: Simply put, the library just isn't very busy anymore. The cost of maintaining the collection is exceeding revenues, and choices have had to be made. By eliminating the bottom two shelves of books, staff time, flood insurance, and library user injury insurance premiums will decline, helping the APRL produce a balanced budget.

Libraries benefitting from this new program will receive books with this label inside:

Interested libraries and all others concerned may inquire with this correspondent at 1898revenues@gmail.com.

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Unusual Ink on the 1898 Series Dollar Values

THESE STAMPS ARE BOTH SCOTT R191! From fugitive ink to color changelings with unknown origins. These are both copies of R191. Can only exposure to light produce the color changes you see in stamp on the right? Or possibly a soak in bleach or other chemical? I doubt it. These stamps have so many examples of changelings that there must be something else happening. The ink used on this dark green series of stamps was different than that known on any other BEP printed stamps, never mind the varnish square. It is likely the BEP was experimenting with ink on this issue. Inks are discussed further if you click on the stamps.

Collecting Cancels

Welcome to 1898 Revenues, a website that features the stamps used to pay the Spanish-American war taxes imposed by the US Government starting in July, 1898. But while this site features those stamps in general, a focus is on their cancels, and on the firms that applied them. Unlike US postage stamps, which were canceled by the US Post Office and now Postal Service, revenue stamps were ordered to be canceled by their users in such a way that the identity of the user and the date was included in the cancel. This makes the collecting possibilities nearly endless, so that a single variety of stamp, for example, the 2 cent battleship stamp intended to pay documentary taxes, had potentially millions of different users, and therefore as many different cancels. Please browse the site and discover the collecting possibilities, made so much more accessible now through online sales. Cancels on these stamps have become much more interesting and accessible with the massive amounts of archival and historical data available on line. Rather than hours spent in libraries or with heavy volumes to identify cancels, search engines allow for cancel sleuthing at home.

Battleship Proprietary Printed Cancels: Updating the Joyce/Chappell Lists

In the 1950s, Morton Dean Joyce updated a list of printed cancels on the battleship proprietaries compiled by Clarence Chappell. Joyce's is a very long list consisting of more than one hundred companies and thousands of cancel dates. In the years since Joyce completed his list, many new cancel dates have been demonstrated to exist, and an update of the 1950s list is needed.

This site is attempting that update. Using the Joyce/Chappell lists and the former collection of Henry Tolman (ARA #25) as a base, a gradual effort will be made to post updated lists to the best of my knowledge, making a call for those that can contribute new dates and new images of those cancels.

Following in this column are quick links to excel files of these lists by company. Also are links to the posts that I have made on this blog regarding these companies and their cancels.