Interesting Book From The 1890-S

What Philately Teaches by JOHN N. LUFF
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1571.../15713-h.htm


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Thanks for sharing!

For those unaware:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Luff

For the last 30 years of his life he was generally considered the most knowledgeable person in the world on US stamps.

Not only did he have a sense of humor, but he wrote of a still popular collector's angst:

"History is sumptuously illustrated in the series of stamps issued by our Government to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the new world by Columbus and to celebrate the settlement and growth of the great west. Portugal also has celebrated, in an elaborate issue of stamps, the voyage of Vasco da Gama to India. Other countries have been quite too ready to do likewise until we have feared we were in danger of being drowned in the flood of commemorative and celebration stamps, many of which we felt were designed to replenish an empty treasury rather than to honor the glorious deeds of the past".

Sound familiar?

Was he an expert?

Apparently reading is not one of your skills.

ULTINAM LOGICA FALSA TUAM PHILOSOPHIAM TOTAM SUFFODIANT

So your implying he is using faulty logic?

By the way, the word is Utinam not ULTINAM.

Good find vacuum man

It's available as a PDF at https://archive.org/details/cu31924030135572

Thanks for sharing the link.

I have noticed in older books on collecting that commemoratives were looked down upon by some collectors of the time. It's amazing to think of such an attitude now. Though I could see the allure of collecting only definitives, especially those of the classic era.

Dale