Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I was given this cover recently and would like to know more about it.
What I do know, other than the obvious;
1) not a first day issue
2) made by artcraft
3) no markings on the reverse
That's about it. Any further info is very welcome. I like the cachet!
Thanks in advance!
Randy
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It is an Artcraft World War II patriotic cachet, one of many cachetmakers that produced patriotic envelopes for people to use during the war period in their regular mailings. I am not aware of May 25, 1942 being a significant day during the war.
Dave Ahl's site (http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Pat/index.htm) has many examples of patriotic cachets in a myriad of varietyies.
Cheers,
John
fdcusa.com
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The cover is typical of a "class" of such "humorous" covers that represent Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo as little more than pests to be swatted like flies, and then the world will be OK again. Similar covers present those leaders as well as the German, Italian, and Japanese people as morons incapable of fighting a modern war; they are often shown as comic strip caricatures, not as men capable of destroying democracy.
Such misrepresentations increased the danger to American servicemen, who often went into combat in the mistaken belief that they were supermen facing an ill-trained, poorly supplied enemy soldiers who would throw down their arms at the first hint of defeat. In the Pacific, particularly, they were unprepared to face an enemy that simply wouldn't give up.
History, of course, tends to repeat itself: In the first months of what Vietnamese called the American War and Americans call the Vietnam War, Americans from generals down to privates saw the Viet Cong (whom we confused with the Viet Minh) as "slant eyes" and "gooks" whose primitive weapons and training could not possibly stand against American military might. And to some extent they were correct, because the U.S. never lost a battle against the communists in Vietnam, but many of their victories were Pyrrhic victories. My own battalion was literally decimated by the "gooks" in only one operation. When the U.S. Congress withdrew financial support for the war and American troops came home, 58,000 servicemen and woman had died in the line of duty.
At least the Vietnam War didn't produce many of the silly cachets of the types seen in the Second World War. I have just one in my collection: it pokes fun at the U.S. Army Military Police, and was sent by a Military Policeman. All of the other cachets in my collection are have serious patriotic or military themes, or somber reminders of the nature of war.
Bob
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May 25, 1942 (taken from internet postings)
A combined group of eight 13th and 90th Squadron crews of the 3rd Bomb Group flew a bombing mission against the Japanese airbase at Lae, New Guinea. For most of the men it was not the first time against this, their regular target. It was their job to make the airfield untenable for Japanese bomber operations against their own forward base at Port Moresby. As usual they were flying without any fighter escort against some of Japan’s best trained and most experienced fighter pilots. The weather that day did not permit their preferred flight plan and the altered course permitted their detection by Japanese spotters who sent an advance warning of the attack. This allowed time for a greater than usual number of Zero fighter planes to intercept the B-25 Mitchell bombers. Despite the best evasive efforts of the pilots and defensive fire of the gunners five 3rd BG planes were shot down that terrible day. Twenty-three men made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
German submarine U-593 sighted a convoy off the coast of New Jersey in the afternoon of May 25, 1942. Kelbling, submerged and attacked in only eight fathoms of water. He hit the tanker Persephone with a torpedo on the starboard side. The tanker’s cargo began to burn and the Master gave orders to abandon ship. Persephone’s crew was rescued by a Coast Guard patrol boat. The convoy escorts, supported by aircraft, counterattacked damaging the boat. The tanker's bow section was salvaged and towed to New York, where 21,000 of 80,000 barrels of oil were salvaged. Her midship house was removed intact and placed on the tanker Livingston Roe. The stern section was later blown up by the US Coast Guard after passing ships collided with it.
A small Japanese fleet steams out of Hokkaido en route to Alaska. The Japanese stage an attack on the Aleutians that they hope will draw attention away from the real target of Midway Island in the South Pacific.
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...so does anyone have an idea as to a value for a cover such as this?
I have a Scott FDC price guide, but as was mentioned, this is not an FDC.
My guess - and this is most definitely just a guess - would be anywhere between $1 & $5.
....opinions?
And by the way -
thank you to all for the info up to this point!
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Randy,
I love to discuss covers, but this one is just outside of my realm. Yes, I could tell you everything you wanted to know (actually more than you wanted to know) about the cancellation, but this would not speak to the significant element of the cover -- which is the cachet. For the same reason, the conincidence of what happened that day is interesting, but again does not capture why this cover usually would be collected for -- which is the cachet.
So if you are interested to learn more about patriotic envelopes of WWII, "to the point" information can only come from the literature on the specific subject of WWII patriotic cachets. There is a recent book by Lawrence Sherman "United States Patriotic Envelopes of World War II"
The Sherman book may be difficult to find. There also exists a reprint of a 1940s work by George Linn
Catalogue of Patriotic Covers of WWII
I don't have these books, and unless we find someone who has access to these books, or somehow you get them yourself (interlibrary loan?), any information on value would be just guessing. Many of these patriotic covers have survived; essentially because these envelopes were inspired by collectors and, thus, meant to be kept. Therefore, it is true that many of these covers sell in the $2-5 range. However, there are also some that sell for $10 and more. Unless we consult the same literature that serious buyers of such material are also likely to consult, it is impossible to separate the common from the uncommon and the rare patriotic cachets. We just don't know what makes such cachets desirable from the perspective of WWII patriotic cachet collectors.
Not really much help -- sorry.
Arno
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The American Philatelc Research Library would doubtless have a copy of the book Arno mentions. APS members can request photocopies of individual pages for a very reasonable fee.
In my experience, common patriotic covers, and most are common, sell in the range Arno suggests -- $5 a $10.
Bob
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Bob,
True...and being an APS member, I might just have to eventually "borrow" that one!
Arno,
Not much help fact-wise, maybe...but some great food for thought nonetheless! I always appreciate input such as you and Bob.
Thank you both!
Randy
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the other factor to consider is one to which Arno alluded: collector-inspired and therefore meant to be kept. Helbock, in his APO listings, generally discounts the value of any APO on a patriotic cachet for precisely that reason.
David
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I do not mean to "hijack" Randy's thread, but the advice to use the APS philatelic library has come up several times in various contexts now and I can't help but wanting to comment on it. I am an APS member, but have never used this servic.
I believe the APS library is perfect if you are interested in specific articles from philatelic journals. Also, as Bob says, if you want specific pages -- but how do you know which pages you need -- the library is great.
However, if you want to borrow a book, assuming the book is on the shelf and and readily available if you need it (which may pose an unforeseen additional problem), you are looking at a $10 base fee plus $13 for the first book plus $5 extra if you are not an APS member. That is $28 and I am not sure if these fees include the postage for sending the book back. Moreover, copying the book you will receive is illegal, because it violates copyright laws, and also will cost you money. The Sherman book lists 11,0000+ cachets and has 426 pages. That is about $20 in costs of copying at around 10c per page plus the cost of binding it -- and I am not even talking about the pain to copy 426 pages.
To sum it up, I do not see how borrowing a book from the APS makes any sense, if the book is still available in print for about up to around $50. In addition, if you don't like it you can sell it. Quality philatelic literature keeps its price and you will usually recover your purchase price, while the APS fees and cost of copying are sunk.
Now this is from someone who has never used the APS library service. But for an item like the Sherman book, if I was interested in the subject, I'd just buy it and have it as a permanent reference. I assume, one will probably be able to recover the price with the knowledge to spot elusive and highly priced items in bargain boxes.
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I've used the APRL on two occasions. Once I asked for information about wartime British wartime slogan cancellations. On another occasion, I requested information about the handling of mail from the 1954 aircraft collision over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. (An RCAF Harvard trainer and a Canadair North Star airliner collided in clear skies, killing everyone on board the airliner, the pilot of the Harvard, and a woman on the ground.)
The APRL staff is exceptionally accommodating — they did the research, photocopied material that they thought would be pertinent, and mailed it to me for a cost of about $10 each time. I'm sure they would appreciate having page references, titles of books, etc., but it's not a requirement. I will certainly use their services again when I need them.
The photocopies I received all came from philatelic journals, monographs, etc. I don't know what the APRL's rules are on copying pages from copyrighted books (although, as I understand it, virtually everything is copyrighted by virtue of being written by a human being, who automatically owns the copyright to any original writing). Not that I can claim to understand copyright law, which varies country by country, and is currently in flux. Many of you will remember Anne Mette Heindorff, who had to remove most of the images from her huge art-on-stamps web site when the Copy-Dan (Copy Denmark) association threatened legal action if she didn't comply with a demand to pay for the use of the images or remove them. I understand that similar associations now operate in many countries.
Bob
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It is OK to photocopy books in the U.S. under most circumstances, provided you are not copying them for resale or distribution (and even then, you can always copy up to one chapter from a book). Copyright law includes provisions for educational or research purposes.
Better still would be to scan copies of the pages; this way you will save trees and money, and you will have a digital copy if the hard copy ever becomes lost or damaged.
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Being a published author, I must clarify what you said about "it's OK to photocopy books under most circumstances." That is flat out wrong!
Copyright laws are very restrictive. You may not make copies of copyrighted material to share, give, provide, etc. with anyone else! For research and educational purposes, the work must be properly footnoted and credited in papers and reports resultant from the research that utilized the material.
Read the copyright notice in a book and you will see how restrictive the laws are, such as this notice from "The Whitechapel Fog":
"All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews."
Copyright laws are governed by international convention and apply to almost all countries in the world.
Now, Scott does grant limited license through written permission printed in its catalogs for the use of its numbering system, but even then Scott reserves the right for the need to grant permission based on someone's desired level of use of the catalogs.
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Michael is correct on this. One may NOT copy material, regardless of intent, without first securing permission and, where indicated, paying a fee. Classroom use is also prohibited UNLESS one's university has arrangements with Copyright Clearance or other aggragators, but even in this latter instance, fees are being paid to the publisher for the right to copy the work. One may use small quotes, etc., but that's not copying, that's citing.
There are exceptions and caveats and such, but most work from mid-20s onward is securely protected, unless otherwise stated.
this comment refers solely to US material in the US.
I suspect that part of the fee assessed by APRL goes to copyright clearance or similar body. I'd be surprised if the library, which so openly promotes its copying services, doesn't have such an arrangement (or would risk the huge potential fines for flagrantly flauting copyright law).
David Teisler
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I agree that distributing or otherwise profiting from copied material would violate copyright law, but I don't see how making copies for personal research use would constitute a violation. Such photocopying would be no different from reading the book. For example, if I check out a book from the library and haven't finished reading it by the time it is due, I see no problem with photocopying/scanning the remaining pages so that I can finish reading the book on my own time and make notes directly on the pages.
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To provide another example: what about someone who owns a copy of a book, but has poor eyesight and scans pages from it to enlarge the print?
I must admit that copyright law is something I know little about. As a graduate student with access to a major research library, photocopying/scanning research materials is commonplace. The average university professor usually has several or more photocopied books in their office, and many have dozens of scanned books and articles.
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In some of the examples you gave: copying a few pages for personal and private use, enlarging the print, copying a few pages from a catalog to take to a dealer or show, I doubt there would be much of a fuss over that made by the copyright owner. However, the copyright owner has to take action against the person if it becomes known that unauthorized copies were made. If the copyright owner fails to do this, then there is the risk that the work will be considered under copyright law to have fallen into the public domain. It's the same as trademark infringements. The owner has to be proactive at protecting the rights to the work.
Say you took one of my books and copied a few chapters and I found out about it. I would have to contact you to find out the nature of why you did it. If I was satisfied with your response, I would send you a letter granting you permission to do so. If I believed you were malicious in your intent, then you would get a cease and desist and destroy letter from my attorney. That is what is required of me to do in order to protect my rights to my work. If I didn't, and through my inaction my work fell into the public domain, my publisher would not have to pay me any further royalties as I would no longer own the rights to the work. Should Hollywood want to make a movie of that work (I could only wish), they would not have to negotiate with me for the rights to make a movie (and my purchase levels on this site would not increase, lol). Those are some examples of the financial harm that could befall me and my estate.
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07:12:34pm
Walden writes;
" ...I agree that distributing or otherwise profiting from copied material would violate copyright law, but I don't see how making copies for personal research use would constitute a violation. Such photocopying would be no different from reading the book. For example, if I check out a book from the library and haven't finished reading it by the time it is due, I see no problem with photocopying/scanning the remaining pages so that I can finish reading the book on my own time and make notes directly on the pages...."
I understand that you may not see any problem with violating the Intellectual Property Rights laws by copying a book or even in most situations an entire chapter.
IPR laws are very complex and I believe that most law schools spend at least two semesters trying to explain the intricacies involved, so it is to be expected that the average person might not be well versed in its use and application.
However here is an example of why such copying is illegal and, truthfully, immoral.
In one of the posts recently someone mentioned that he (I think it was a he) had copied a country section of a Scott's catalog to send to another collector. The reason seemed to be to allow that second person access with out spending the money to purchase the whole volume. In doing so, were there a legal hearing involved, the courts would see it as depriving the author of the benefit of his work.
Plain and simple it is stealing the work of someone and the fact that the copying person did not make a dollar profit is immaterial. The author has the right to his work and the profits it generates. By that action the fellow receiving the copy didn't have to spend the money to buy that book and thus Scott lost the potential revenue.
Now, it seems to also be true that Scott, the property owner, and others in that situation might just ignore that usage as not being worth their while to send an slightly polite letter demanding the copying cease. Not doing so is not the implicit, or by inaction, the granting of permission.
Now as to schools, there is an educational institute exemption. A school may copy a significant portion of an author's work in its usual classroom effort to educate without always seeking the permission of the author. For instance the school may copy the words to a song and have the class or the choir sing away to their hearts content, or perhaps a play so that the actors may have a script to work from.
One of the requirements is that the usage be for use in the classroom for face to face instruction in the normal course of the schools educational efforts. They can't sell the copied play in the college book store, and they cannot give copies away will-nilly to students not enrolled in the particular course involved. I think that this exemption is limited to non-profit schools.
There is also a "Fair use" exemption which applies to people copying a limited part of an author's work for news reporting or commentary, research, scholarship and such. There is also the right to parody the author in an article for whatever reason.
That means that if you are writing a post here and want to quote some segment of something that was written elsewhere by another person, you can "cut and paste" the part you need but it should be limited to only what is necessary to explain your point and you must provide appropriate attribution. I might add that you should liberally use "quotation marks" so that there is no chance of someone mistaking what you copied for your original work. Personally I like to use "italics" in addition to the " ....".
Actually the legal world of IPR law is still being sorted out as today's cyber world is very different with just about every house having at least a PC or two a printer and scanner and, of course, access to the internets.
For those who are interested in the subject just Google "Intellectual Property Rights" or "Fair Use Doctrine" and be prepared to be inundated by links to several dozen sites that seek to explain the concept and its sometimes complex interactions.
Beyond this simplified explaination, things get complicated.
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Charlie's example of the copied pages sent to china is a perfect example of a violation of copyright law. The sender may NOT copy those pages and he may certainly not send them to China in order to allow a Chinese buyer to forgoe the cost of a Scott Volume. Scott is out the $125 or whatever they charge. Amos, which famously defends its copyright, could certainly seek redress here, especially since there was a violation and it is here in black and white to be used as evidence.
I believe most publihsers would allow a sight=impaired user to copy its work at an enhanced percentage; but they don't have to.
Universities, as I indicated earlier, must obey the same laws as we do. They typically belong to aggregator agencies that collect fees on the publishers' behalf. Classroom usage is not immediately exempt. If it were, the text book publishers would cease to exist.
And, the example of copying a book because we hadn't finished reading it is similar to our NJ Scott copier: it is making a copy for one's convenience and denying the publisher the profit from the additional copies that might have otherwise been had if said person and all his friends demanded that the library always have 5 copies, not 4, of the latest Jennifer Donnelly novel.
In all cases, the individual is convenienced at the publishers' expense. Because few of us make our livings as publishers, we see little wrong with this. But if i take your stamp because it's easier for me to do so than to actually pay you for it, the pain becomes clearer.
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Well, you are correct about the publishers losing money through lost sales, but you have to remember that the authors get the tail end of sales receipts by means of royalties. If the publisher doesn't sell books, then the author doesn't get paid for his/her work either.
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Here are a couple I found in my book...............very WWII types.
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Here is one of 28 different first day cachets that I've managed to acquire for the U.S. Iwo Jima issue (Scott 929). Sadly, Mellone's lists 61 different cachets so I'm far from completing the collection.
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David, I have to disagree with you about patriotic covers being discounted by Helbock if you are referring to as a source for that information the Forte and Helbock book on APO's.
I quote from the introduction: "While patriotic designs used on APO covers are not uncommon, they do deserve a premium." Further statements about the size of a premium address philatelic nature versus actual APO usage.
Bruce
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Bruce, I revisited Helbock and Forte; I stand corrected; or better yet, crouching in the corner corrected. I completely misremembered him.
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Hi All,
I was given this cover recently and would like to know more about it.
What I do know, other than the obvious;
1) not a first day issue
2) made by artcraft
3) no markings on the reverse
That's about it. Any further info is very welcome. I like the cachet!
Thanks in advance!
Randy
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re: WWII patriotic cover
It is an Artcraft World War II patriotic cachet, one of many cachetmakers that produced patriotic envelopes for people to use during the war period in their regular mailings. I am not aware of May 25, 1942 being a significant day during the war.
Dave Ahl's site (http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Pat/index.htm) has many examples of patriotic cachets in a myriad of varietyies.
Cheers,
John
fdcusa.com
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re: WWII patriotic cover
The cover is typical of a "class" of such "humorous" covers that represent Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo as little more than pests to be swatted like flies, and then the world will be OK again. Similar covers present those leaders as well as the German, Italian, and Japanese people as morons incapable of fighting a modern war; they are often shown as comic strip caricatures, not as men capable of destroying democracy.
Such misrepresentations increased the danger to American servicemen, who often went into combat in the mistaken belief that they were supermen facing an ill-trained, poorly supplied enemy soldiers who would throw down their arms at the first hint of defeat. In the Pacific, particularly, they were unprepared to face an enemy that simply wouldn't give up.
History, of course, tends to repeat itself: In the first months of what Vietnamese called the American War and Americans call the Vietnam War, Americans from generals down to privates saw the Viet Cong (whom we confused with the Viet Minh) as "slant eyes" and "gooks" whose primitive weapons and training could not possibly stand against American military might. And to some extent they were correct, because the U.S. never lost a battle against the communists in Vietnam, but many of their victories were Pyrrhic victories. My own battalion was literally decimated by the "gooks" in only one operation. When the U.S. Congress withdrew financial support for the war and American troops came home, 58,000 servicemen and woman had died in the line of duty.
At least the Vietnam War didn't produce many of the silly cachets of the types seen in the Second World War. I have just one in my collection: it pokes fun at the U.S. Army Military Police, and was sent by a Military Policeman. All of the other cachets in my collection are have serious patriotic or military themes, or somber reminders of the nature of war.
Bob
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05:55:15pm
re: WWII patriotic cover
May 25, 1942 (taken from internet postings)
A combined group of eight 13th and 90th Squadron crews of the 3rd Bomb Group flew a bombing mission against the Japanese airbase at Lae, New Guinea. For most of the men it was not the first time against this, their regular target. It was their job to make the airfield untenable for Japanese bomber operations against their own forward base at Port Moresby. As usual they were flying without any fighter escort against some of Japan’s best trained and most experienced fighter pilots. The weather that day did not permit their preferred flight plan and the altered course permitted their detection by Japanese spotters who sent an advance warning of the attack. This allowed time for a greater than usual number of Zero fighter planes to intercept the B-25 Mitchell bombers. Despite the best evasive efforts of the pilots and defensive fire of the gunners five 3rd BG planes were shot down that terrible day. Twenty-three men made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
German submarine U-593 sighted a convoy off the coast of New Jersey in the afternoon of May 25, 1942. Kelbling, submerged and attacked in only eight fathoms of water. He hit the tanker Persephone with a torpedo on the starboard side. The tanker’s cargo began to burn and the Master gave orders to abandon ship. Persephone’s crew was rescued by a Coast Guard patrol boat. The convoy escorts, supported by aircraft, counterattacked damaging the boat. The tanker's bow section was salvaged and towed to New York, where 21,000 of 80,000 barrels of oil were salvaged. Her midship house was removed intact and placed on the tanker Livingston Roe. The stern section was later blown up by the US Coast Guard after passing ships collided with it.
A small Japanese fleet steams out of Hokkaido en route to Alaska. The Japanese stage an attack on the Aleutians that they hope will draw attention away from the real target of Midway Island in the South Pacific.
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re: WWII patriotic cover
...so does anyone have an idea as to a value for a cover such as this?
I have a Scott FDC price guide, but as was mentioned, this is not an FDC.
My guess - and this is most definitely just a guess - would be anywhere between $1 & $5.
....opinions?
And by the way -
thank you to all for the info up to this point!
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re: WWII patriotic cover
Randy,
I love to discuss covers, but this one is just outside of my realm. Yes, I could tell you everything you wanted to know (actually more than you wanted to know) about the cancellation, but this would not speak to the significant element of the cover -- which is the cachet. For the same reason, the conincidence of what happened that day is interesting, but again does not capture why this cover usually would be collected for -- which is the cachet.
So if you are interested to learn more about patriotic envelopes of WWII, "to the point" information can only come from the literature on the specific subject of WWII patriotic cachets. There is a recent book by Lawrence Sherman "United States Patriotic Envelopes of World War II"
The Sherman book may be difficult to find. There also exists a reprint of a 1940s work by George Linn
Catalogue of Patriotic Covers of WWII
I don't have these books, and unless we find someone who has access to these books, or somehow you get them yourself (interlibrary loan?), any information on value would be just guessing. Many of these patriotic covers have survived; essentially because these envelopes were inspired by collectors and, thus, meant to be kept. Therefore, it is true that many of these covers sell in the $2-5 range. However, there are also some that sell for $10 and more. Unless we consult the same literature that serious buyers of such material are also likely to consult, it is impossible to separate the common from the uncommon and the rare patriotic cachets. We just don't know what makes such cachets desirable from the perspective of WWII patriotic cachet collectors.
Not really much help -- sorry.
Arno
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re: WWII patriotic cover
The American Philatelc Research Library would doubtless have a copy of the book Arno mentions. APS members can request photocopies of individual pages for a very reasonable fee.
In my experience, common patriotic covers, and most are common, sell in the range Arno suggests -- $5 a $10.
Bob
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re: WWII patriotic cover
Bob,
True...and being an APS member, I might just have to eventually "borrow" that one!
Arno,
Not much help fact-wise, maybe...but some great food for thought nonetheless! I always appreciate input such as you and Bob.
Thank you both!
Randy
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re: WWII patriotic cover
the other factor to consider is one to which Arno alluded: collector-inspired and therefore meant to be kept. Helbock, in his APO listings, generally discounts the value of any APO on a patriotic cachet for precisely that reason.
David
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re: WWII patriotic cover
I do not mean to "hijack" Randy's thread, but the advice to use the APS philatelic library has come up several times in various contexts now and I can't help but wanting to comment on it. I am an APS member, but have never used this servic.
I believe the APS library is perfect if you are interested in specific articles from philatelic journals. Also, as Bob says, if you want specific pages -- but how do you know which pages you need -- the library is great.
However, if you want to borrow a book, assuming the book is on the shelf and and readily available if you need it (which may pose an unforeseen additional problem), you are looking at a $10 base fee plus $13 for the first book plus $5 extra if you are not an APS member. That is $28 and I am not sure if these fees include the postage for sending the book back. Moreover, copying the book you will receive is illegal, because it violates copyright laws, and also will cost you money. The Sherman book lists 11,0000+ cachets and has 426 pages. That is about $20 in costs of copying at around 10c per page plus the cost of binding it -- and I am not even talking about the pain to copy 426 pages.
To sum it up, I do not see how borrowing a book from the APS makes any sense, if the book is still available in print for about up to around $50. In addition, if you don't like it you can sell it. Quality philatelic literature keeps its price and you will usually recover your purchase price, while the APS fees and cost of copying are sunk.
Now this is from someone who has never used the APS library service. But for an item like the Sherman book, if I was interested in the subject, I'd just buy it and have it as a permanent reference. I assume, one will probably be able to recover the price with the knowledge to spot elusive and highly priced items in bargain boxes.
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re: WWII patriotic cover
I've used the APRL on two occasions. Once I asked for information about wartime British wartime slogan cancellations. On another occasion, I requested information about the handling of mail from the 1954 aircraft collision over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. (An RCAF Harvard trainer and a Canadair North Star airliner collided in clear skies, killing everyone on board the airliner, the pilot of the Harvard, and a woman on the ground.)
The APRL staff is exceptionally accommodating — they did the research, photocopied material that they thought would be pertinent, and mailed it to me for a cost of about $10 each time. I'm sure they would appreciate having page references, titles of books, etc., but it's not a requirement. I will certainly use their services again when I need them.
The photocopies I received all came from philatelic journals, monographs, etc. I don't know what the APRL's rules are on copying pages from copyrighted books (although, as I understand it, virtually everything is copyrighted by virtue of being written by a human being, who automatically owns the copyright to any original writing). Not that I can claim to understand copyright law, which varies country by country, and is currently in flux. Many of you will remember Anne Mette Heindorff, who had to remove most of the images from her huge art-on-stamps web site when the Copy-Dan (Copy Denmark) association threatened legal action if she didn't comply with a demand to pay for the use of the images or remove them. I understand that similar associations now operate in many countries.
Bob
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re: WWII patriotic cover
It is OK to photocopy books in the U.S. under most circumstances, provided you are not copying them for resale or distribution (and even then, you can always copy up to one chapter from a book). Copyright law includes provisions for educational or research purposes.
Better still would be to scan copies of the pages; this way you will save trees and money, and you will have a digital copy if the hard copy ever becomes lost or damaged.
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11:52:02pm
re: WWII patriotic cover
Being a published author, I must clarify what you said about "it's OK to photocopy books under most circumstances." That is flat out wrong!
Copyright laws are very restrictive. You may not make copies of copyrighted material to share, give, provide, etc. with anyone else! For research and educational purposes, the work must be properly footnoted and credited in papers and reports resultant from the research that utilized the material.
Read the copyright notice in a book and you will see how restrictive the laws are, such as this notice from "The Whitechapel Fog":
"All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews."
Copyright laws are governed by international convention and apply to almost all countries in the world.
Now, Scott does grant limited license through written permission printed in its catalogs for the use of its numbering system, but even then Scott reserves the right for the need to grant permission based on someone's desired level of use of the catalogs.
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re: WWII patriotic cover
Michael is correct on this. One may NOT copy material, regardless of intent, without first securing permission and, where indicated, paying a fee. Classroom use is also prohibited UNLESS one's university has arrangements with Copyright Clearance or other aggragators, but even in this latter instance, fees are being paid to the publisher for the right to copy the work. One may use small quotes, etc., but that's not copying, that's citing.
There are exceptions and caveats and such, but most work from mid-20s onward is securely protected, unless otherwise stated.
this comment refers solely to US material in the US.
I suspect that part of the fee assessed by APRL goes to copyright clearance or similar body. I'd be surprised if the library, which so openly promotes its copying services, doesn't have such an arrangement (or would risk the huge potential fines for flagrantly flauting copyright law).
David Teisler
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re: WWII patriotic cover
I agree that distributing or otherwise profiting from copied material would violate copyright law, but I don't see how making copies for personal research use would constitute a violation. Such photocopying would be no different from reading the book. For example, if I check out a book from the library and haven't finished reading it by the time it is due, I see no problem with photocopying/scanning the remaining pages so that I can finish reading the book on my own time and make notes directly on the pages.
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re: WWII patriotic cover
To provide another example: what about someone who owns a copy of a book, but has poor eyesight and scans pages from it to enlarge the print?
I must admit that copyright law is something I know little about. As a graduate student with access to a major research library, photocopying/scanning research materials is commonplace. The average university professor usually has several or more photocopied books in their office, and many have dozens of scanned books and articles.
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02:00:54pm
re: WWII patriotic cover
In some of the examples you gave: copying a few pages for personal and private use, enlarging the print, copying a few pages from a catalog to take to a dealer or show, I doubt there would be much of a fuss over that made by the copyright owner. However, the copyright owner has to take action against the person if it becomes known that unauthorized copies were made. If the copyright owner fails to do this, then there is the risk that the work will be considered under copyright law to have fallen into the public domain. It's the same as trademark infringements. The owner has to be proactive at protecting the rights to the work.
Say you took one of my books and copied a few chapters and I found out about it. I would have to contact you to find out the nature of why you did it. If I was satisfied with your response, I would send you a letter granting you permission to do so. If I believed you were malicious in your intent, then you would get a cease and desist and destroy letter from my attorney. That is what is required of me to do in order to protect my rights to my work. If I didn't, and through my inaction my work fell into the public domain, my publisher would not have to pay me any further royalties as I would no longer own the rights to the work. Should Hollywood want to make a movie of that work (I could only wish), they would not have to negotiate with me for the rights to make a movie (and my purchase levels on this site would not increase, lol). Those are some examples of the financial harm that could befall me and my estate.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
28 Nov 2011
07:12:34pm
re: WWII patriotic cover
Walden writes;
" ...I agree that distributing or otherwise profiting from copied material would violate copyright law, but I don't see how making copies for personal research use would constitute a violation. Such photocopying would be no different from reading the book. For example, if I check out a book from the library and haven't finished reading it by the time it is due, I see no problem with photocopying/scanning the remaining pages so that I can finish reading the book on my own time and make notes directly on the pages...."
I understand that you may not see any problem with violating the Intellectual Property Rights laws by copying a book or even in most situations an entire chapter.
IPR laws are very complex and I believe that most law schools spend at least two semesters trying to explain the intricacies involved, so it is to be expected that the average person might not be well versed in its use and application.
However here is an example of why such copying is illegal and, truthfully, immoral.
In one of the posts recently someone mentioned that he (I think it was a he) had copied a country section of a Scott's catalog to send to another collector. The reason seemed to be to allow that second person access with out spending the money to purchase the whole volume. In doing so, were there a legal hearing involved, the courts would see it as depriving the author of the benefit of his work.
Plain and simple it is stealing the work of someone and the fact that the copying person did not make a dollar profit is immaterial. The author has the right to his work and the profits it generates. By that action the fellow receiving the copy didn't have to spend the money to buy that book and thus Scott lost the potential revenue.
Now, it seems to also be true that Scott, the property owner, and others in that situation might just ignore that usage as not being worth their while to send an slightly polite letter demanding the copying cease. Not doing so is not the implicit, or by inaction, the granting of permission.
Now as to schools, there is an educational institute exemption. A school may copy a significant portion of an author's work in its usual classroom effort to educate without always seeking the permission of the author. For instance the school may copy the words to a song and have the class or the choir sing away to their hearts content, or perhaps a play so that the actors may have a script to work from.
One of the requirements is that the usage be for use in the classroom for face to face instruction in the normal course of the schools educational efforts. They can't sell the copied play in the college book store, and they cannot give copies away will-nilly to students not enrolled in the particular course involved. I think that this exemption is limited to non-profit schools.
There is also a "Fair use" exemption which applies to people copying a limited part of an author's work for news reporting or commentary, research, scholarship and such. There is also the right to parody the author in an article for whatever reason.
That means that if you are writing a post here and want to quote some segment of something that was written elsewhere by another person, you can "cut and paste" the part you need but it should be limited to only what is necessary to explain your point and you must provide appropriate attribution. I might add that you should liberally use "quotation marks" so that there is no chance of someone mistaking what you copied for your original work. Personally I like to use "italics" in addition to the " ....".
Actually the legal world of IPR law is still being sorted out as today's cyber world is very different with just about every house having at least a PC or two a printer and scanner and, of course, access to the internets.
For those who are interested in the subject just Google "Intellectual Property Rights" or "Fair Use Doctrine" and be prepared to be inundated by links to several dozen sites that seek to explain the concept and its sometimes complex interactions.
Beyond this simplified explaination, things get complicated.
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re: WWII patriotic cover
Charlie's example of the copied pages sent to china is a perfect example of a violation of copyright law. The sender may NOT copy those pages and he may certainly not send them to China in order to allow a Chinese buyer to forgoe the cost of a Scott Volume. Scott is out the $125 or whatever they charge. Amos, which famously defends its copyright, could certainly seek redress here, especially since there was a violation and it is here in black and white to be used as evidence.
I believe most publihsers would allow a sight=impaired user to copy its work at an enhanced percentage; but they don't have to.
Universities, as I indicated earlier, must obey the same laws as we do. They typically belong to aggregator agencies that collect fees on the publishers' behalf. Classroom usage is not immediately exempt. If it were, the text book publishers would cease to exist.
And, the example of copying a book because we hadn't finished reading it is similar to our NJ Scott copier: it is making a copy for one's convenience and denying the publisher the profit from the additional copies that might have otherwise been had if said person and all his friends demanded that the library always have 5 copies, not 4, of the latest Jennifer Donnelly novel.
In all cases, the individual is convenienced at the publishers' expense. Because few of us make our livings as publishers, we see little wrong with this. But if i take your stamp because it's easier for me to do so than to actually pay you for it, the pain becomes clearer.
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12:23:00am
re: WWII patriotic cover
Well, you are correct about the publishers losing money through lost sales, but you have to remember that the authors get the tail end of sales receipts by means of royalties. If the publisher doesn't sell books, then the author doesn't get paid for his/her work either.
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re: WWII patriotic cover
Here are a couple I found in my book...............very WWII types.
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re: WWII patriotic cover
Here is one of 28 different first day cachets that I've managed to acquire for the U.S. Iwo Jima issue (Scott 929). Sadly, Mellone's lists 61 different cachets so I'm far from completing the collection.
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12:01:57am
re: WWII patriotic cover
David, I have to disagree with you about patriotic covers being discounted by Helbock if you are referring to as a source for that information the Forte and Helbock book on APO's.
I quote from the introduction: "While patriotic designs used on APO covers are not uncommon, they do deserve a premium." Further statements about the size of a premium address philatelic nature versus actual APO usage.
Bruce
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re: WWII patriotic cover
Bruce, I revisited Helbock and Forte; I stand corrected; or better yet, crouching in the corner corrected. I completely misremembered him.
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