R154 Franklin Overprint Plate "Kiss" Variety

R154 plate strip with red "kiss" in margin

Another image courtesy of Dave Thompson in Nevada.  The I.R. overprint plate was the source of the red "kiss" in the margin.

kiss close up -

it almost looks like a screw head

Cancel for April 20: C.T.I. & T. Company

Scott R182 carmine used

2009 Scott value: 55 cents

C. T. I. & T. Co.

APR   20     1901

The initials are long enough for this company that they should inspire immediate recognition to to anyone who knows the firm.  Who canceled this stamp?

Cancel for April 19: U.S and Pacific Express Company

U. S. & PAC. EX. CO.

APR

19

1899

J. D. Chamberlin

I have found a listing for this company in Springfield, Illinois in 1881 but the trail so far is otherwise cold. 

De'Coppet and Doremus Perf Initials on 40 Cent Hyphen Hole

D ' C & D

perf initials for

De'Coppet & Doremus
R170p blue lilac documentary

On November 11th this site featured a pair of 5 cent documentary stamps with handstamp cancels from the Wall Street firm De'Coppet and Doremus.  Here is an equally if not more interesting D'C&D cancel, this time on a 40 cent documentary hyphen hole battleship. 

The 40 cent documentary hyphen hole is one of the few stamps in the battleship set that commands any sort of real premium, and perforated initials of this sort are seldom seen.  The 2010 Scott Catalog prices a used cut canceled R170p at $12.50, while the uncut goes for $30.00. 

Cancel for April 17: National Fire Insurance Company

NATIONAL

APR   17   1899

FIRE INS. CO.

Yet another Hartford-based insurance company. 

National Fire Insurance Company Letter Folder

G.H. Mumm Printed Cancels: Joyce Type 3, 1 Cent 1899s

Joyce lists 9 different 1899 cancels for the 1 cent proprietary with the type 3 printed cancelation, from February through December. Below are examples of six of those dates except for February 1, March 1, and August 1.  Two other unlisted dates, April 1 and June 1, are included.  I am interested in receiving scans of stamps with the dates not included below to add to this post.  Can you help? 

G.  H.  M.  &  Co.

FRANCE

1/4    1899

unlisted by Joyce

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1/5   1899

G.  H.  M.  &  Co.

FRANCE

1/6    1899

unlisted by Joyce

G.  H.  M.  &  Co.

FRANCE
1/7   1899

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1/9   1899

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1/10   1899

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1/11  1899

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1/12   1899

Auction Update: RB31p Block of 12 Sold in Robert Siegel US Stamp Auction of April 6-8

RB31p

5 cent proprietary hyphen-hole block of 12

with plate block and bureau imprint

Siegel Opening:  $1,125

Sold for: $1,900

A high realization for this block of 12.  Scott does not list a price for the plate block.  See the actual result here:  Siegel auction result.  I did not buy this!  Image taken from Siegel auction listing. 

Cancel for April 15: Concordia Fire Insurance Company

CONCORDIA FIRE INS. CO.

APR

15

1901

MILWAUKEE, WISC.

George Brumder, President of Concordia Fire Insurance Company from 1897 to 1909.  Brumder was a successful publisher in Milwaukee, especially for the German speaking community.

G. H. Mumm Printed Cancels: Joyce Type 2, the Mumm 4 line cancel

As explained in the post from April 6, the Mumm type 2 cancel was a transition cancel from a year date only format to a year, month and day format.  For this cancel the firm simply added an extra line to their existing format.  According to the list they only used this format for one date, January 27, 1899.  The listing for type 2 is below along with an example of the cancel.

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1899

     27/1

Cancel for April 13: Jacksonville and St. Louis Railway

J.&St. L. Ry.

APR   13  1900

The Jacksonville and St. Louis ran from 1896 to 1905 and was taken over in 1905 by the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy.

G. H. Mumm Printed Cancels: Joyce Type 1, or Year date only 1898 or 1899 cancels

This is part one of a breakdown of the Joyce G.H. Mumm cancel list.   See the post from April 6 to read the background on this list.  Below is a snippet from the list of the the type 1 description and the list of the three collectible possibilities with this cancel type.

 The images below account for all the collectible possibilites of type 1 according to Joyce, with the addition of a second shade of brown on the 2 cent stamp cancelled 1898.

1c 1898 red ink, roulette

2c 1898 blue ink, roulette

2c 1898 blue ink, roulette

different shade of brown than the more common shade above

2c 1899 blue ink, roulette

Cancel for April 11: St. Paul and Duluth Railroad

ST. P. & D. R.R.

APR  11  1899

Treasurer        

box cancel with pennants on R164 documentary

The St. Paul and Duluth Railroad was created as the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad and was given its name in a reorganization in the 1870s.  It was bought by the Northern Pacific in 1900 just after the time of this cancel.  Known as the "Skally Line", it operated from Saint Paul to Duluth, Minnesota, with branches to Minneapolis, Taylors Falls, Kettle River, and Cloquet, in Minnesota, and Grantsburg and Superior in Wisconsin. 

St. Paul and Duluth Railroad route map from 1891 with connections to other railroads.

Cancel for April 10: H. D. & Company

H.D. & CO.

APR  10  1900

Company unknown, but a great, clear wavy line box cancel

April 10: S. S. & Company

R175 $5 Documentary

S. S. & CO.

APR

10

1899

Company unknown.  As usual, probably a New York securities firm.  Any ideas?

Cancel for April 8: Tippett & Baker Insurance

TIPPETT & BAKER

APR

8

1899

DOVER, N.J.

***

Located at the corner of Blackwell and Warren Streets in Dover, F.H. Tippett and Thomas Baker ran an insurance and real estate agency. They advertised in the Dover newspaper "The Iron Era."

Cancel for April 7: Chautauqua County Trust Company

CHAUT.  CO.  TRUST  CO.

APR

7

1898

The Chautauqua County Trust Company was opened for business in 1896.

April 7, 1898?  This date is before these stamps were printed, never mind used.  Either I'm misreading the cancel or the cancel was improperly dated.

Battleship Proprietary Printed Cancels: G. H. Mumm and the Joyce/Chappell Lists

Three weeks ago Dave Thompson emailed the images of two proprietary stamps with cancels from a G. H. M. & Co. to confirm that these cancels are from the French Champagne firm Mumm.  Those images are below.  Dave is right.  The cancels are from Mumm, a firm that still exists and produces fine Champagne today.  One indication that these are by Mumm other than the initials and the prominent "FRANCE" in the cancel is that the stamps are one and two cent proprietaries.  The proprietary tax extended to sparkling wines, and they were taxed at a rate of one cent for less than a pint and two cents for more.  So each of these stamp values would have been required by Mumm for its products.  Pharmaceutical or medicine manufacturers rarely used the one and two cent stamps.

There has been a great deal of work by philatelists regarding proprietary printed cancels like those of G.H. Mumm.  Franklin Smith, Clarence Chappell, and Morton Dean Joyce had extensive collections of printed cancels and published articles about these cancels and lists of the companies that issued them.  But all of these gentleman conducted the bulk of their work on these cancels in the early to mid-20th century, and there has been little high profile work since.  An American Revenue Association publication in the 1950s edited and written in part by Morton Dean Joyce is the last major work on the subject, but it is a very effective tool for guiding and organizing a collection of these cancels. 

Cover of the Morton Dean Joyce/Clarence Chappell

proprietary printed cancel lists published by the ARA.

The original cover was light blue.

A copy of this publication can be borrowed by mail from the American Philatelic Research Library if you are a member of the American Philatelic Society.  As mentioned in a previous post, the Battleship Desk Reference  is a more current publication that presents extensive research and a major database that helps collectors identify handstamp cancels on proprietaries.  But the work of Mustacich and Giacomelli does not cover the printed cancels.

In the Joyce/Chappell publication you will find lists by company of the printed cancels on the proprietary battleships.  There is much detail and the lists are extensive, if not exhaustive.  At the time of the publication of this list, Mr. Joyce was calling for members of the American Revenue Association to send in evidence of cancels not yet listed so they could be incorporated.  If he produced a more complete list it was never published. 

Mr. Joyce's 2 page introduction to the volume is included below.  Click on the images to see a larger and readable version. 

Internet technology, with the ability to post images and get information returned in real time might make the compilation of a new and more complete list much easier than 50 years ago when Mr. Joyce last made the attempt to update Clarence Chappell's original lists.  However, it is unclear how many collectors there are out there who possess this material, know and understand it, and are conversant enough with using the web to facilitate this enterprise.  For now here is Mr. Joyce's introduction to his lists, and below I will work through identifying where Dave Thompson's G. H. Mumm stamps fall in the listings. 

Joyce mentions early members of the ARA and collectors of these cancels in the intro above, names like Tolman, Imbler, and Chappell.  Some of my material comes from Henry Tolman's collection, which went up for sale by Robert Siegel approximately 3 years ago.  From what I can tell that material has been in Mr. Tolman's closed binders for the past couple of decades without them ever being opened.  There are notes between Mr. Joyce and Henry Tolman included in one of the Tolman binders.  Now that the binders are open again this site will explore printed cancels. 

Back to Dave Thompson's Mumm cancels.  Below is the section of the Joyce listings for G.H. Mumm Company.  It is impossible to read the image below.  It can be downloaded for a full size version by clicking on the list.  Lists of cancels for other companies look the same throughout this volume.  In order to make the list more usable I will also type out sections in order to highlight examples of cancels listed and compare them against the list. 

The list above is quite possibly a complete list for all cancels produced by G.H. Mumm, with the exception for a few dates, and those can be logically inferred to exist, and by example, proven to exist.  How does this list work?

Joyce breaks the Mumm cancels into three different types, and I will use Mr. Joyce's exact language:

Type 1: Three line horizontal printed cancelation in serif type, with the initials above, "FRANCE" in the second line, and theyear in a smaller font, below.  "Co." is in upper and low case letters.

Ed. note: This type has a year date only, no month or day.  The tax law originally was unclear about what type of date was required.  By late 1898 it was clarified that day an month were required in the cancel and year date only cancels were stopped.

Type 2:  Four line horizontal printed cancelation.  The first three lines are the same as in type 1, with the day and month in figures, added below.

Ed. note:  There is only one example of this type, date January 27, 1899.  My guess is that this is a transitional cancel as Mumm switched from year date only cancels to day/month/year cancels.  Later Mumm cancels would only be dated on the first of the month.  This is the only Mumm cancel not dated on the first, and is the only Mum cancel using for lines.  Tolman notes this particular cancel as a rarity in pencil next to his copy of the stamp.

Type 3:  Three line horizontal printed cancelation.  The first two lines are the same as in type 1, with the date, in figures, added below.

Ed note:  Mumm used printed cancels on these stamps through the full tax period that ceased with the cancel date March 1, 1902.  Most of Mumm's cancels used a type 3 style, dated the first of each month, so that Mumm only produced one printed cancel date per month, with the exception of January 1899 in which it prented a type 2 cancel and a type 3.

1 cent proprietary with March 1, 1901 Mumm printed cancel

2 cent proprietary with December 1, 1900 Mumm printed cancel

It should be noted that the date is ordered not using an American date protocol but a  French one, with the format day/month/year.

So according the the Joyce/Chappell typology, both of Dave's stamps above are type 3s, and used the red and blue inks as also noted in the list. 

According to the list, Mumm printed type 1 1898 dated cancels on the 1 and 2 cent stamps, for two collectable types.  Mumm printed the type 2 cancel using only one date (1/27) on only the 1 cent stamp for a single collectable type.  And Mumm printed type 3 cancels using 36 dates on the one cent stamp, and 30 dates on the two cance stamp, creating 66 collectable types.  The list, however is short of a few dates, and those will be pointed out in the posts over the next week or so. 

For now, here are examples of Joyce/Chappell's three types:

 G. H. Mumm printed cancel type 1

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1898

G.H. Mumm printed cancel type 2

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1899

    27/1

G. H. Mumm printed cancel type 3

G. H. M. & Co.

FRANCE

1/7  1899

Georges Hermann of Mumm, Head of the House of Mumm from 1852 to 1876

Cancel for April 5: The Lorain Steel Company; Welcome to Readers of Stamp Collecting Round-up

THE LORAIN STEEL COMPANY

APRIL

5

1900

Thanks to Don Schilling for his post about this blog on his blog, The Stamp Collecting Round-up, and welcome to his readers stopping by to visit.  If you have never visited this site before, please browse the index in the left column of all the posts on this site going back for a year, or just scroll down from here to see the last 21 posts. 

This site is dedicated to the US revenue stamps of the 1898 series which were issued to help pay the costs of the Spanish American War.  The period was an exciting time in US history, with major industrial and financial growth reflected in the cancels on the documentary series, and major "snake-oil" pharmaceutical purveyors showing up on the cancels of the proprietary series.  You will find lots of those cancels here. 

Cancel for April 5: A.E. Barrows

A. E.  BARROWS,

APR

5

1901

CONNERSVILLE, IND.

From the "History of Fayette Counties, Indiana"

Published by B. F. Bowen & Co. Indianapolis, IN 1917

Alvin E. Barrows was born in Dorset, Vermont, on February 9, 1843, and died at his home in Connersville, July 12, 1913. He was the son of Milutus Barrows, who was the son of Experience Barrows, who was the son of Solomon Barrows, who was the son of Lieut. Thomas Barrows, who was a son of Robert Barrows, who was the son of Robert Barrows, who was a son of John Barrow or Barrows, who arrived in Plymouth colony, Massachusetts, in 1637. His mother, Lucina Gray Barrows, was a daughter of Susannah Cleveland, who married Alvin Gray, she a daughter of Job William Cleveland, a Revolutionary soldier, the fifth generation from Moses Cleveland, who came to New England in 1636 from Ipswich, England, who is also an ancestor of Grover Cleveland.


The name Alvin, it may be seen, was derived from his grandfather, Alvin Gray, while the middle initial stood for Experience, the name of his other grandfather, Experience Barrows, who was the son of Lucretia Wales Barrows, she the daughter of Capt. Nathaniel Wales, an officer in the Revolutionary war, and Grace Brewster Wales, who was the daughter of Damaris Gates and William Brewster, who was the son of Elizabeth Witter Brewster and Benjamin Brewster, who was the son of Lydia Partridge Brewster and William Brewster, who was the son of Sarah Collier Brewster and Love Brewster, who was the son of Elder William Brewster, oldest and most distinguished of the Pilgrims on their arrival in America.

Milutus Barrows, the father of the subject of this sketch, was twice married, first to Lucretia Gray, and afterwards, when she died, leaving a family of small children, to her sister, Lucina Gray, who was the mother of Alvin E. Barrows. When he was about seven years old, the family moved from near Dorset, Vermont to Chautauclua county, New York, and were residing there at the outbreak of the war. In 1861 Alvin was employed on an oil derrick, just over the line in Pennsylvania. His father had been more or less active in the abolition movement and upon the call for seventy-five thousand volunteers he quit his job and went home for permission to enlist. At the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, he was severely wounded, barely avoiding the amputation of his left leg at the knee. In the same year he was again wounded. At the battle of Chancellorsville, where he was taken prisoner, he was officially commended for conspicuous bravery. He served a short time in Libby prison, but his conduct had won for him such attention as secured his speedy release. He served in the army more than four years, in the Seventy-second, One Hundred and Twentieth and One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York Volunteers. When the war was over, he returned to his home in New York and attempted to do carpenter work and farming. This his lameness made impossible, and he drifted into mercantile pursuits, being for a time employed in the general mercantile business, but very soon turning to the business of writing life and, later, fire insurance. For forty years he was a successful fire underwriter, never ceasing this activity until on June 9, 1913, he was stricken down at his desk. In 1881 he left West Farmington, Ohio, where he had commenced in the insurance business, coming to Connersville, Indiana, and purchasing the insurance agency of Ignatius Zeller, forming a partnership with Charles B. Sanders, under the firm style of Sanders & Barrows. Until 1884 this partnership continued, when it was succeeded by the firm of Fearis & Barrows, which continued until 1887, when Col. J. H. Fearis withdrew to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mr. Barrows then associated himself in business with the late Charles Mount and the late Major Francis T. Roots, under the firm name of Mount, Roots & Barrows. The interest of Messrs. Mount and Roots was bought later, and for a number of years he did business under his own name until he transferred his business to the corporate form in which it now stands, The A. E. Barrows Company, with himself as president and treasurer and his son, Frederic I. Barrows, as secretary. It has thus continued for a number of years. In 1887 Mr. Barrows closed up the affairs of the stocking mill, acting as assignee of the Keatley Stocking Company. At the inception of the Fayette Banking Company he was one of the original partners, continuing with it and its successor, the Fayette National Bank, until 1906, when he sold his stock and became the vice-president of the Central State Bank. Later he succeeded to the presidency of this bank and was active in the discharge of his duties until the beginning of his last illness.

For many years Mr. Barrows had been a close friend of the late William Newkirk, by the terms of whose will he was made joint executor with James M. McIntosh, of Indianapolis, a trust which he was executing up to the time of his death. Perhaps the business activity which brought him in closest touch with the people of Connersville was his long and honorable service as a building association officer. Mr. Barrows was a pioneer in Connersville in providing means for home building to persons dependent on weekly savings. In 1886, with Dr. A. M. Andrews, Thomas Downs, R. G. Wait and others, he organized the Connersville Building and Loan Association. This was an association of the old style where all the shares matured at one time. It was organized with a very limited membership and with great difficulty because there was local prejudice against building associations. The association of which Mr. Barrows was always the secretary, was so satisfactorily managed that a year later a series association, the Fayette Savings and Loan Association, was established. As the first association met in Mr. Barrows' office on Monday nights, the new association met on Tuesday, for he was secretary for both. More than a quarter century has passed since the first association was organized and as it paid out it was compelled by its charter to disband. The second kept on maturing some twenty-five series, until, at Mr. Barrows' suggestion, it modified its rules to adopt the individual or perpetual plan. It now has assets in excess of half a million dollars, a monument of faithfulness, persistence and prudence.

In 1871, while living in northeastern Ohio, Mr. Barrows was married to Mary A. Peck. She was the daughter of Caroline Merriman Peck and Burton Peck, both of New Haven county, Connecticut, the latter being the son of Morab Moss Peck and John Peck, who was the son of Jerusha Hall Peck and John Peck, who was the son of Mary Parmalee Peck and Samuel Peck, who was the son of Susannah and John Peck, who was the son of Mary Moss Peck and John Peck, wh0 was the son of Elder William Peck, one of the earliest New England settlers and a founder of New Haven. To this union were born four children, Frederic I., Burton Milutus, Caroline Lucina (Dixon) and Josephine. These with two brothers, George A. Barrows, of Denver, Colorado, and Charles E. Barrows, of Greenville, Pennsylvania, and the children of his son, Burton M. Barrows, Marian, Joseph B. and Catherine, are the only members of his immediate family surviving.

Mr. Barrows had been, during nearly the whole of his life, an active member of the Methodist Episcopal church and on its official board for about thirty consecutive years, being both a trustee and chairman of the board of stewards. Mr. Barrows was always an active Republican, though never an office seeker. He served two terms as township trustee because two of his good friends, Charles Roeh1 and Moses Kahn, tied for the nomination, and then withdrew and asked him to be a candidate as a compromise.

At his death, the editor of the Connersville News wrote the following personal tribute, under the heading ''A Worthy Citizen" "In the passing of Alvin E. Barrows from this stage of action, Connersville and vicinity loses from its social, its business and its industrial life a unit of striking outlines. Since 1881 this man had been an active, steady, certain force in local affairs. His early life, and his army record especially, offer some glimpses of a powerful character. These were fully sustained by the life of Mr. Barrows here, and they present but a single aspect of a temperament of more than usual distinctiveness. Perhaps no man in Connersville was clearer of any suggestion of effeminacy than was A. E. Barrows. Serious minded, his intellect bent itself, engine-like, to the work he set himself to do. The light, the frivolous, the foolish he would neither suffer in himself nor tolerate in others. His business in the world was to do things. Thus it came about that many a casual eye perceived the rugged husk which encased the actual man, and mistook the exterior for the entirety. Under the cloak of what might be taken for a blunt manner, there was a warmth of sentiment in A. E. Barrows which, undemonstrative as it was, was deep and earnest and forever in its place. Without the suggestion of ostentation, he was a deeply religious man. Without being loud, he was a patriot of the highest type. Without bold pretense, he was generous and philanthropic. Without a hint of weakness, he was no stranger to the truest and most enduring of affections. Thus it happened that Mr. Barrows' truest friends were those who knew him fully, rather than those who merely met him. But in the circle of those who were able to see and interpret the depths of his personality, he had such friends as men of superficial makeup never know.

"Rugged, tenacious, severely methodical and unbendingly honest. Alvin Experience Barrows long ago compelled for himself a high place in the affairs and in the eyes of men. This place, by the sheer might of him, he held to the end of his life. The recollection of his virile manner and uncompromising self-reliance somehow lends a peculiar depth of pathos, for whoever really knew him, to the realization that his work is done and that he is gone.

Re-entries, Double Transfers, Triple Transfers, and Shifts

Until the past few weeks I have never really spent time to understand the differences between re-entries, double or triple transfers, and shifts.  Despite spending a couple of decades as an active collector and the past 5 years focused on the 1898 series of revenues in which double transfers and possibly shifts are common, I couldn't classify a pile of stamps confirmed with these qualities into their types.   It is obvious on some stamps that at least one of these errors in transfer is present.  Below on the left side are images from a shown in a post a few weeks back.  The right side images are from a "normal" stamp, or a stamp without any evident transfer errors.  To the eye these differences are obvious.  But which entry error do I have here?  

Below the stamp images are the Scott explanations of these phenomenon just for reference.  Meanwhile, I'll describe what I see, with a little help from Dave Thompson who sent me this image. 

Left 2 with re-entry marks; Right 2 normal

On the left two above is evidence of a "westward" transfer, with ink marks inside the two to the left of the edge of the numeral.  Compare the normal two on the right.

Left "TED" with re-entry evident; Right "TED" normal

The left image comes from the same stamp as the left two above.  But it is not obvious to me whether there is evidence of more westward transfer errors here, or whether there is some southern movement as well.  The ink dots inside the letters T, E, and D look like more of a southern shift to me, which would indicate that this stamp is scarce triple transfer variety.

The batlleship series has many of these types of errors.  Pubications like the Bureau Specialist focused on these types of errors across numerous issues, and this type of philatelic study has been popular over the years.  I doubt many practice it now.  But while the Scott guidance on these errors might not be of much use these days to most revenue collectors, here it is:

2010 Scott Specialized Catalog page 22A:

Double Transfer: The condition of a transfer on a plate that shows evidence of a duplication of all or a portion of the design.  A double transfer is usually the result of the changing of the registration between the relief and the plate during the rolling of the original entry.  Occasionally it is necessary to remove the original transfer from a plate and enter the relief a second time.  When the finished re-transfer shows indications of the original transfer, because of incomplete erasure, the result is known as a double transfer.

2010 Scott Specialized Catalog page 22A:

Re-entry:  When executing a re-entry, the transfer role is reapplied to the plate at some time after the latter has been put to press.   Thus, worn out designs may be resharpened by carefully re-entering the transfer roll.  If the transfer roll is not carefully entered, the registration will not be true and a double transfer will result.

2010 Scott Specialized Catalog page 22A-23A:

Shifted Transfer:  In transferring, the metal diplaced on the plate by the entry of the ridges, constituting the design on the transfer roll, is forced ahead of the roll as well as pressed out at the sides.  The amount of displaced metal increases with the depth of the entry.  When the depth is increased evenly, the design will be uniformly entered.  Most of the displaced metal is pressed ahead of the roll.  If too much pressure is exterted on any pass (rocking), the impression of the previous partial entry may be floated (pushed) ahead of the roll and cause a duplication of the final design.  The duplication appears as an increased width of frame lines or doubling the lines.  The ridges of the displaced metal are flattened out by the hammering or rolling back of the plate along the sapce occupied by the subject margins. 

Milestone Coverage of 1898 Revenues

OK, it is small I know.  But today an article on a non-philatelic website has been posted about this blog.  You can find it at NJ.com.   On March 18 on this site the stamp and cancel below were featured:

Mr. Webb was a prominent citizen of Madison, New Jersey, and this fact was of interest to NJ.com and the website's specialized coverage of New Jersey.  While this historical association is interesting to me, more interesting are the opportunities apparent in this coverage for advancing people's exposure to revenue stamps. 

Screen capture of NJ.com article

The revenue collector's world is a contracting one, but it doesn't need to stay this way.  About three years ago I joined the American Revenue Association.  I was assigned the number 6978.  In the January-February 2010 issue of the American Revenuer, new member number 7054 was just assigned.  Yikes.  76 new members in 3 years.  I would have to guess attrition is taking its toll.  How might new collectors be attracted to the hobby, and what might make them join the ARA?

Collectors in this field need to be positive, use the latest technology, and highlight what attracts us to the hobby.    How did NJ.com find this site, and why was the author of the piece so upbeat? 

I am absolutely certain of the compelling quality of US revenue stamps, so long as history is a focus and all of us in the hobby are positive diplomats.  Welcome to this site if you are visitor, and think about what you can to do promote the hobby if you are an existing collector.