Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Jun 1, 2023 2:08:05 GMT
Her is a brief article from the January 1897 issue of "The London Philatelist." My questions will appear in a follow-up post.
OFFICIAL REISSUES - U.S.
In the New York Notes of Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News, “Iberius," a writer who is always well posted on matters Philatelic, announces the reissue of the obsolete periodical stamps. We append his description, and cannot but express our hearty concurrence with his remarks thereon. Sets of U.S. periodical stamps, one cent to sixty dollars, of the old types and values, printed by the Bureau of Engraving, have been placed on the market by a syndicate of dealers who undertake to guarantee that only 50 sets have been printed. The price asked of collectors is but $125 a set for stamps of the face value of about $205; and it is one of the mysteries of that mysterious and incomprehensible Bureau that such special issues, apparently without benefit to the U.S. Treasury, should be permitted to be made by the P.O. officials. The set will probably be catalogued; in fact, some of the small values have been known, and are catalogued already as printed by the Bureau; but whether the guarantee of dealers, here or in Washington, is worthy of consideration is a question which I leave to the discriminating care of would be buyers. It would be useless to enlarge at this juncture upon the peculiar and rather unsavoury methods of Bureau and postal officials who pretend to despise collectors and stamp collecting, on the one hand, but are ever ready to make an honest (?) dollar (in league with some intermediate dealer) out of stamp collectors.”
OFFICIAL REISSUES - U.S.
In the New York Notes of Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News, “Iberius," a writer who is always well posted on matters Philatelic, announces the reissue of the obsolete periodical stamps. We append his description, and cannot but express our hearty concurrence with his remarks thereon. Sets of U.S. periodical stamps, one cent to sixty dollars, of the old types and values, printed by the Bureau of Engraving, have been placed on the market by a syndicate of dealers who undertake to guarantee that only 50 sets have been printed. The price asked of collectors is but $125 a set for stamps of the face value of about $205; and it is one of the mysteries of that mysterious and incomprehensible Bureau that such special issues, apparently without benefit to the U.S. Treasury, should be permitted to be made by the P.O. officials. The set will probably be catalogued; in fact, some of the small values have been known, and are catalogued already as printed by the Bureau; but whether the guarantee of dealers, here or in Washington, is worthy of consideration is a question which I leave to the discriminating care of would be buyers. It would be useless to enlarge at this juncture upon the peculiar and rather unsavoury methods of Bureau and postal officials who pretend to despise collectors and stamp collecting, on the one hand, but are ever ready to make an honest (?) dollar (in league with some intermediate dealer) out of stamp collectors.”