What Was In Your Mailbox Today??

@Lawrence

Interesting cover. Too bad about the pen cancel.

Thank you dkabq8 for your kind words!

The pen cancel is the bane of the modern philatelist I feel!

Here is my newest pride and joy! 1916 $1.00 Benjamin Franklin - Unwatermarked: Perf 10 Pity about the bung perf



and the back

Was glad to have received these classic forgeries of Sedang (Vietnam) locals in the mail today. As Varro Tyler tells in his "Focus on Forgeries", these forgeries were "promoted by banker and entrepeneur Dorsan Astruc" and "sold in large quantities to stamp dealers by the printers whom Astruc failed to pay." This happened in 1889 in Paris, France.

In March, I started a thread on Irish overprints. https://goscf.com/t/53500&SearchTerms=Ireland I was missing the SC 38. I had tried to buy this stamp three times. The first time the seller told me there was an "inventory mix-up." I took that to mean he didn't get what he wanted for the stamp. The last two times I was sent a SC 14 instead of a SC 38. It's not a real difficult stamp to ID. A defining difference is that the distance between the "h" and the "é" on the Sc14 is 1 mm. It is 1/2 mm on the 38.

Trying again on US ebay, I had a brain cramp. I'm used to searching by Scott number. I typed in the SG number (46) instead. This stamp came up. It was listed without a Scott number! It was in my price range (30% CV) so I pulled the trigger. The fourth time was a charm!




It is MLH with the signature of Alberto Diena (1874 - 1977) on the back. Diena was a noted expert in classic Italian stamps. What he was doing certifying an Irish stamp is beyond me. I guess work is work.







It also came with a cert from Diena:







I checked the signature. It seems legit. I'm happy with my purchase. Now I'm going to get this stamp mounted before I do something dumb like spilling coffee on it!

Dan

Absolutely awesome, Dan. I'm still hunting a good #38 but for today I will be emerald green with envy.

Cj,

Thank you!. May you have the Luck O' the Irish too in hunting this stamp.

Dan

Hi all

I received a full pane of the 1895 U.S. News Paper stamps, I have been searching for one for years, finally won on in a specialist auctions.

Mine are really simple and all three are Canadian. I want a mint Christmas stamp from the early 1990s, the Canadian version of the St Lawrence Seaway. The last is a real dream , THE FAMOUS BEAVER STAMP.

I THINK the Christmas stamp is one of the best looking ever made,but that's me.

Mkfarm, I agree, it is one of the best!

Today I got an ebay purchase in the mail, a postcard sent from Russia to Switzerland in 1890, written in the international auxiliary language Volapük.





This is the 25th Volapük postcard I've managed to get since I started collecting them twenty years ago. They're not terribly easy to find, and when I do find them, they're often too rich for my blood.

This one is particularly interesting, because it was written by Waldemar Rosenberger (1848–1918), who is a significant figure in the history of Volapük. Rosenberger gave numerous lectures on the language in St. Petersburg, and he was instrumental in getting the censors to allow Volapük materials to go through the Russian mail. He became the head of the Kadem Volapüka (Volapük Academy) in 1892, but under his leadership the Academy began to work toward a language that was easier to understand, learn, and use than Volapük. In 1898 the Academy changed its name to Academi Internasional de Lingu Universal, which published a new language, called Idiom Neutral, in 1902.

Very interesting erilaz.
Didn't knew the existance of Volapük.
Thanks for sharing.

An envelop with some old french stamps I bought.

The envelop:


The stamps:

Thrilled to get my GB#2....

I got another postcard written in Volapük from ebay. This one was sent from Hannover to Paris in 1890.




And here's what it came in. How often does anyone get mail from Åland?

I received a couple items to fill some spaces in my US collection.