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 Replies: 11 / Views: 2,080 |
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Valued Member
United States
360 Posts |
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I am posting this with the kind permission of the moderators.
I've built a site dedicated to postmark collecting. It's located at collectpostmarks.com and offers a how-to I've developed in my twenty years of pursuing the hobby; a calendar of currently-available pictorial and first-day postmarks; and a gallery of selected items from my collection.
For now it focuses on collecting U.S. postmarks, but I hope to expand it to other countries.
I'd love to get the community's feedback before I start distributing it to a wider philatelic audience. Let me know what you like, what could be improved, and if you think I got anything wrong. Looking forward to your comments (here or by email).
Thanks!
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
2423 Posts |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
2423 Posts |
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I like the site! It's very informative and geared toward the new collector.
My own interests are more historical and I wonder if you'll be adding material that looks more to the past and the various cancels used. Even if there were a sprinkling of older material shown, I think it would help place contemporary collecting into a broader, more meaningful (?) perspective.
Also, you might consider adding a note as to why you ask what is two and two. Then again, maybe that is a practice common to everyone but me. |
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Valued Member
United States
360 Posts |
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Thanks for the feedback, KGB! All good ideas. Regarding the date, you're suggesting changing the wording to "Founded 2016", right? (The reason for math question is to prove that it's not an automated spam bot sending contact emails.  ) |
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Pillar Of The Community
United Kingdom
544 Posts |
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Perhaps rename collectusastamps - I haven't been able to find a single mention of any non-USA.
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
2423 Posts |
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Yes, "founded" makes more sense to me for the present. "Since 2016" will sound great in a few more years! |
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Moderator
United States
4788 Posts |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
849 Posts |
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It's a nice-looking site, well-designed. I am a little surprised that there is no reference to the Postmark Collectors Club. In terms of site design, the strong focus is on modern, sent-for postmarks, and I would ask the question if that's the intended scope of the site, or if you ultimately intend to include older material (and more traditional postal history, in which case state postal history societies and a large swath of philatelic literature also become relevant). One of my favorites in that regard is the North Carolina Postal History Society's online catalog of NC postmarks ( http://ncpostalhistory.com/project_...talog.aspx), which covers not only 19th century material but also modern material, up to present. In the description of types of postmarks, there is no actual reference to machine cancels (i.e., metal die postmarks impressed by mechanical processes) - the discussion skips directly from hand cancels to spray markings. I'm the President of the Machine Cancel Society so definitely a topic of interest to me! :) [in fact, the spray markings don't really fit in the traditional definition of "machines", but the Society recognizes that technology changes and that the purpose of these spray markings is the same as a traditional postmark and cancel]. |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
663 Posts |
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Valued Member
United States
360 Posts |
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It's taken me several days to get back to this thread because of technology crises at work. Sorry for taking so long to respond to your comments.
KirkS:
Thanks for the kind words, Kirk!
paperhistory:
A link to the PMCC was indeed a glaring omission. Thanks for pointing it out. I've updated the sidebar.
Your comments were very helpful. In this first version of the site, I've focused on what I know rather than delving into topics that I know little to nothing about — as you rightly point out, this includes machine cancels, and I would love to pick your brain over email for useful information to add!
I'm unsure yet about the eventual scope of the site. I guess it depends primarily on how much more I learn and how many contributors I can gather.
oldguy:
I'd love submitted images of sent-for cancels listed on the site. I'd feature them with attribution, in the pattern following what I used for my own cover for the Jackson County, Indiana Bicentennial postmark (see the "User Contributions" section on that page). Anything beyond that exceeds the current scope of the site.
I also stayed up half the night and added what I think is a useful feature: a Post Office Search where you can start typing the name of a town and it will autocomplete matching post offices in the United States. When you select a name, it shows you which states have a post office with that name, and each listing is a link to the USPS website where you can find information about the post office, including its mailing address.
And as a final thing (for now), I wanted to show the cachet cover I received back in the mail today. The person applying the postmark got a good strike. I think it turned out great. Very pleased.
 Thanks for your comments, and I'd welcome more feedback. |
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Pillar Of The Community
2013 Posts |
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Quote:
g it to a wider philatelic audience. The term for the study of postmark is marcophily and sometime call marcophilately The project look nice I will check later when I have other thing than a phone to browse |
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| Edited by area66 - 01/17/2016 07:59 am |
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Rest in Peace
United States
4052 Posts |
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Re your link http://collectpostmarks.com/available-postmarks/ ... postmarks that are currently available for request You have assigned yourself the sort of task that obligates you to pour time into your site on a very regular basis. Put another way: every few weeks, without more of your time, your site will be 'out of date'. I'd give that a longer think. Meanwhile, as long as you are providing a link to postal bulletins, you might add: http://www.uspostalbulletins.com/ ... US Postal Bulletins 1880-1971 ... digitized & searchable online Lastly, I would give some consideration to what is already being done, and think about what you can do to add value or make a difference. http://www.cubafil.org/MemberPages/.../Slogan.html ... Cuba Machine Slogan Cancellations Cheers, /s/ ikeyPikey |
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Replies: 11 / Views: 2,080 |
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Posted 01/12/2016 11:02 am
