I don't know if this will help, but I recall one dealer of many years ago being upset at the insistence ( by the potential buyers) of the gum on the backs of stamps being so focused upon, that he put the U.S. Columbus series backwards on the board to show the backside and the gum- and he did pin each stamp to the board through the stamp!! A very long time ago to be sure.
Best,
Dan C.
I've seen sometime ago at a stamp club meeting a collector who displayed his prized MNH stamps face down in his album. Of course in mounts.
Wow! Unbelievable! The pins through the stamps made me cringe and wince, yikes.
When I saw the words pins and stamps in the same sentence, I immediately thought of the scene in Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" where the pin collecting clerk invented perforations after noting that the pin holes in the paper from his pin collection caused the paper to tear easily and adapted the idea for the newly printed Ankh-Morpork postage stamps. Hilarious book!
I don't know where I read this but, supposedly, in the early days of stamp dealers it was common to see small holes in stamps from either pins or people showing their stamps on pieces of thread or string. I'm not sure where this came from but I do remember reading it somewhere.
I believe it was described in Herman Hearst's book "Nassau Street". If I remember correctly, in the early part of the 20th Century Nassau Street was a thriving community of stamp dealers. Over the lunch hour, small dealers would set up on the street to catch the office crowd. They'd display the stamps on boards mounted on pins.
I think about that whenever I see a classic stamp described as having a pin hole as a defect. Actually it's a sign of an interesting past!
Nassau street was my old stamping ground back in college days and early collecting times. Damn I'm old!!
Dan C.
Dan, that's fantastic that you had the chance to experience that.
I’d take a pinhole from a pinhead over the tape that turned brown and destroyed many beautiful and high value stamps I’ve run across.
Any one hear some one using super glue to secure high cost stamps?
I know of someone who swears that they were looking at a Canada collection up for auction where the heir had gone through the collection securing items that had previously been hinged, but were falling out, with Scotch Tape!! Of these items were the higher values of the Victoria Jubilee series!! I guess if you're not a collector you might not know the difference!
I can't remember where I read this, the early stamp collectors could buy stamps in New York City. The dealers (don't know if that's what they were called) would pin the stamps on a wall and collectors would purchase what they wanted.
Does anyone know the factual background story?
This might make a right and proper if true example at a stamp club meeting, what do you think?
re: Pins and Stamps
I don't know if this will help, but I recall one dealer of many years ago being upset at the insistence ( by the potential buyers) of the gum on the backs of stamps being so focused upon, that he put the U.S. Columbus series backwards on the board to show the backside and the gum- and he did pin each stamp to the board through the stamp!! A very long time ago to be sure.
Best,
Dan C.
re: Pins and Stamps
I've seen sometime ago at a stamp club meeting a collector who displayed his prized MNH stamps face down in his album. Of course in mounts.
re: Pins and Stamps
Wow! Unbelievable! The pins through the stamps made me cringe and wince, yikes.
When I saw the words pins and stamps in the same sentence, I immediately thought of the scene in Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" where the pin collecting clerk invented perforations after noting that the pin holes in the paper from his pin collection caused the paper to tear easily and adapted the idea for the newly printed Ankh-Morpork postage stamps. Hilarious book!
re: Pins and Stamps
I don't know where I read this but, supposedly, in the early days of stamp dealers it was common to see small holes in stamps from either pins or people showing their stamps on pieces of thread or string. I'm not sure where this came from but I do remember reading it somewhere.
re: Pins and Stamps
I believe it was described in Herman Hearst's book "Nassau Street". If I remember correctly, in the early part of the 20th Century Nassau Street was a thriving community of stamp dealers. Over the lunch hour, small dealers would set up on the street to catch the office crowd. They'd display the stamps on boards mounted on pins.
I think about that whenever I see a classic stamp described as having a pin hole as a defect. Actually it's a sign of an interesting past!
re: Pins and Stamps
Nassau street was my old stamping ground back in college days and early collecting times. Damn I'm old!!
Dan C.
re: Pins and Stamps
Dan, that's fantastic that you had the chance to experience that.
re: Pins and Stamps
I’d take a pinhole from a pinhead over the tape that turned brown and destroyed many beautiful and high value stamps I’ve run across.
re: Pins and Stamps
Any one hear some one using super glue to secure high cost stamps?
re: Pins and Stamps
I know of someone who swears that they were looking at a Canada collection up for auction where the heir had gone through the collection securing items that had previously been hinged, but were falling out, with Scotch Tape!! Of these items were the higher values of the Victoria Jubilee series!! I guess if you're not a collector you might not know the difference!