The Graduate.
This Department is conducted in the interest of Stamp and Coin Collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department.
Collectors in the West are warned against an old-time philatelist who is going about offering "specimen" sets of the U.S. stamps at very low prices. Several of these sets have been sent to me for examination. They prove to be card-board proofs rubbed down with pumice-stone, gummed, and perforated. The word "specimen," instead of being printed, was then applied, by means of a rubber-stamp, in aniline ink. These are very dangerous frauds, as few young collectors are familiar with the genuine originals. Unused U.S. stamps and "specimen" sets are always saleable in New York city at fair prices. When any one offers these stamps at "bargain-counter" rates, it is safe to say that there is something wrong in the transaction.
The Nova Scotia "find" made a very little flurry in this country, but in England it has developed into a first-class sensation. The leading dealers are involved, and letters to one another and to the philatelic press abound; but, curious to say, no definite information is given. The facts seem to be that one large dealer was offered sets at sixty-two cents, and several weeks later another large dealer advertised himself as the sole agent for the sale of these stamps, and fixed six dollars as the price of the set. In the absence of any statement as to the true quantity of each of the stamps, collectors refuse to buy except at very low prices.
A Western philatelic paper proposes the riddle, "What is the difference between stamp-albums and clocks?" and answers it as follows: "The latter points out the hours, the former causes us to forget them."
The auction season has begun, and most of the larger sales will be held in the hall of the Collectors Club, 351 Fourth Avenue, New York. The value of stamps sold by auction in London during the past season was nearly $200,000, and the auction sales during the same period in the United States amounted to a somewhat larger sum.