Author: Scott Tiffney

APRL acquisitions, March 2018. To request loans, copies, or scans, or to search our catalog, visit the APRL website.

Adema, Kees; Groeneveld, Jeffrey. The paper trail: World War II in Holland and its colonies as seen through mail and documents (London [Great Britain]: Royal Philatelic Society London, 2018).[IP67522]

Baer, Martin. CH perfins: Die privat Gelochten Marken der Schweiz = Les timbres perfores privees de Suisse = The private perfins of Switzerland (Zürich: Martin Baer, 1998). [G6041 .P438 B14c 1998]

Barrett, Rick. Buffalo cinderellas: the gentleman, the huckster and the Pan American Exposition (Houston, TX: Rick Barrett Publishing, 2018). [HE6184 .E96 B27b 2018]

Continue reading “New Books at the APRL, March 2018”

One of the more diverse collecting interests within philately in recent years, whose popularity initially waned after the first World War, are stamps not normally listed in some of the more recognized stamp catalogs such as Stanley Gibbons and Michel. Revenue stamps, also known as fiscal or tax stamps, are stamps used to collect taxes and fees for a variety of goods and services by governments, either national or local, or by other official bodies.

Continue reading “Resource of the Month – Barefoot Revenue Catalogs”

Just this past month a frequent visitor to the library came by to conduct some research and was stuck by and pleasantly surprised to find a resource at the American Philatelic Library (APRL) that hadn’t occurred to him that we would collect or include as part of our collection. There on the first floor of the public space of the APRL tucked between a row of U.S. and international government documents and our collection of domestic show programs is a single bay of 24 shelves housing a small but growing collection of U.S. and international stamp albums. At first glance this collection of stamp albums, usually considered philatelic material meant possibly for resale in the gift shop, may seem to be an odd choice for inclusion in what is ostensibly a research-oriented philatelic literature collection that includes primarily books, journals and auction catalogs as well as the aforementioned government documents and show programs. After all, what research value could old stamp albums have for the serious philatelist? The answer to that question isn’t as complicated as their discovery at the APRL may seem. Continue reading “Resource of the Month – Stamp Albums”

One of the most frequently asked questions heard from visitors when on a tour for the first time of the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL), especially when it involves non-collectors, is something like “and all of this is just about stamps?” To clarify often the tour guide will respond to the interested visitors “not just stamps, but also postal history.” Those not familiar with the terminology will often then ask “what is postal history?” The answer to that question is not often an easy one that can be summed up in the brief moments of a library tour, but this month’s Resource of the Month is one of the most recognized and comprehensive sources for postal history information at the APRL particularly for the histories of British colonies, the Edward Wilfred Baxby “Ted” Proud series of postal history publications. Starting in 1961 as a stamp dealer, Edward Proud established the Proud Bailey Company in Heathfield, East Sussex, England which sought to produce a series of books about the postal histories of various British colonies. Proud enlisted the expertise of prominent postal historians as well as postal history specialty societies in order to produce what has become one of the most highly regarded series of postal history publications.

Continue reading “Resource of the Month – Edward Proud’s Series of Postal History Publications”