I've been thinking a lot about my father, who died 20 years ago this week. As has been obvious from these #stampoftheday posts, he was, for a time, an avid stamp collector. I think his collection started with Scott's International Postage Stamp Album, Junior Edition. Published in 1933, the book it is almost three …
All Essays
"I thought this was supposed to be a work of fiction," a member of my book group wrote just before we met to discuss Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America." Published in 2004, the book imagines that Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and, naturally, how that affected a Jewish family …
What are the Argonauts doing on a stamp about the California Gold Rush? I'm asking because today's #stampoftheday, a classic 3-cent stamp, issued on January 24, 1948 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of gold in California, pictures Sutter's Mill where, it notes, "James W. Marshall's Discovery Started Rush of Argonauts." "Argonauts?" I said to …
I haven't seen the eyes of Isabella Gibbons, which look out from the exterior wall of the new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. But reviewers say they are haunting, in part they are so lightly etched in the stone that they are only clearly visible at dawn and dusk. They also are …
How could a stamp issued in 1935 mark the centennial of a state that didn't officially join the union until January 1937? And could the stamp provide some useful ideas to help Joe Biden manage the pressure of being president? Those are the questions behind today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued in November 1935 that clearly …
Another day and another tarnished hero appears in my #stampoftheday annals. This time it's John James Audubon, the famed ornithologist, naturalist and painter. Audubon, who died on January 27, 1851, appeared on a 3-cent stamp that was one of the 35 picturing "Famous Americans" issued in 1940. As I've noted in previous posts while many of …
I don't know what you would do, but I want to know more when I see a listing that says: "NEWS OF THE WORLD OF STAMPS; In Honor of the U.N.'s Weather Bureau - - Swedish Railways Worldwide Coverage SWEDISH RAILWAYS CASPARY SALES BEE MAN FIRST-DAY SALE STAMP DAY." That was one of three listings that …
"The Kansas Overprint," sounds like it could be the title of a "a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of-and paean to-the world of stamps." This non-existent book would have been written, of course, by Richard Powers, author of "The Overstory," which, as Powers website contends, really is …
Maybe it's something in the water or perhaps it's the famous fog but San Francisco, apparently, has a thing for name changes. One hundred and seventy four years ago today, the Alcalde (or mayor) of a hamlet called Yerba Buena changed its name to San Francisco, which already was what the adjacent bay was called. To …