Ningpo

09 Jul 2014
03:49:20pm

I just found this post from a Spanish member on another board. Have I understood it correctly? :

 
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Bobstamp

09 Jul 2014
04:49:27pm

re: The sun in Spain seems mainly to affect the brain!

Well, that's not exactly a universal opinion! The writer obviously doesn't understand that stamps and covers are artifacts, and that covers are artifacts on steroids!

Here's what a stamp might say if it were removed from a cover: "Hi. I'm a stamp. I've been places, but I can't tell you where, or even when, for that matter. If that postal administration, the one where I was mailed, had bothered to apply a readable cancel, I could perhaps tell you more about my life, but you'll just have to guess. I might have been posted soon after I was issued, or years after. I might even have been re-used if I didn't get cancelled the first time around. That's about all I can say about myself. Oh yeah, please don't assume that I'm evil because of the portrait on me. I had no choice. Someone just ran me through a printing press and there he was, Hitler himself. I understand that he got some of the money that was paid for me." Here's what I look like:



Here's what a cover might say: Hi. I'm a cover. As you can see from the various bits of information, I was posted in Leipzig, Germany the day before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. I was headed for Kyoto, Japan, but censors got in my way, and I got stuck in New York City for the duration of the war. At some point (I don't know when) I found myself in San Francisco. In 1948 or possibly even later than that, I was sent to Tokyo, where I was censored again. I got to my destination eventually, but I can't tell you if the person who was supposed to receive me ever did. Oh, yes, about that stamp, or at least the Hitler Head stamp. Apparently, no one along the way minded having Hitler's evil image consorting with other letters in the mail stream. If they had minded, someone might have disfigured his evil face. But they didn't. And I have to live with the fact that a real loser will be stuck on me until I crumble into paper fibres."





I've been collecting covers/postal history for almost 20 years, and attending stamp shows and bourses since 2001 when my wife and I moved to Vancouver. It's been interesting to see that more and more dealers are selling covers rather than stamps, and that more and more exhibits include covers or feature covers exclusively. At the last VANPEX, only two or three dealers out of a dozen or so were selling only stamps.

Finally, of course, there's the question of value. Most Hitler Head stamps are cheaper than borscht; apparently thousands of sheets of them were "liberated" from German post offices as the Allies swept through Germany in 1945. Covers from that period aren't so common, and can be very pricey. I paid over $100 for the cover above.

Bob

 
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