About Stamp-Collecting

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 31, 1911

About Stamp-Collecting

About 1860 the practise of collecting postage-stamps began, and very soon there were offices opened in the great cities for their sale and barter. One dealer boasts that he sells annually two million stamps and thirty thousand stamp albums. A fine collection is said to cost from $10,000 to $50,000. There are, however, special collections worth a far larger sum. A Spanish nobleman, son of the Duchess de Galliera, is said to have spent more than $300,000 in postage-stamps. A collection belonging to Mr. Arthur Rothschild is also valued at nearly $300,000. There are collections in Paris worth $30,000, $50,000, and $100,000. Sometimes the dealers in stamps make successful speculations, as did the one who, foreseeing the unity of the Italian states into one Italian kingdom, bought up all the stamps of the small states—Modena, Lucca, the States of the Church, and Tuscany.

There are some stamps now worth fancy prices; for instance, the French orange one-franc stamp of 1848, which is worth 200 francs if new, and sixty francs if canceled. There are two blue republican stamps of 1852, one for three sous (fifteen centimes), and the other for six sous (thirteen centimes), which are and worth about $200. A Sandwich Island stamp of the first issue, with figures in place of a design, is generally worth $200 if in good condition.

The rarest stamp of all is that of the island of Mauritius in 1850. Be it red or be it blue, canceled or uncanceled, provided it has the word post-office upon its margin, it is worth $300. No doubt every young collector will hope that some day he will have the good fortune to find one, but I regret to assure him that this is very improbable; for all embassies and consulates the world over have been repeatedly entreated to keep a lookout for one.

The white Mexican half-real stamp, marked Guadalaxara, 1867, is worth, canceled, $50; a round British Guiana stamp, black or yellow, of 1850, brings $55; the telegraphic stamp of Bavaria, 1870; brings $24 uncanceled; the two-real red Spanish stamp of 1851 is held at $50 if new, and $20 if canceled. Apropos of this stamp it is said that in 1873, when Don Carlos II was ravaging the northern provinces of Spain, he issued postage-stamps for Biscay, Navarre, and Catalonia, and forbade any inhabitant of those provinces, under pain of death, to put any other stamp upon a letter. As his cousin Alfonso XII at once issued a counter order making it death to use the stamps of Don Carlos, the inhabitants of northern Spain had no resource but to give up writing letters.

In 1852 a mail steamer was stranded on her way home from South Africa. Her letter-bags were some time under water, but were at last recovered. All the blue triangular Cape of Good Hope stamps had turned black, and these black stamps are now in demand; value from $10 to $20.

The monks of the Chartreuse at Ghent have a room papered beautifully with postage-stamps. There are Chinese landscapes, Spanish chateaux, Swiss chalets, dogs, flowers, arabesques, and inscriptions,—Harper's Young People.