This interesting piece of postal history tells an unusual story. I bought the envelop in a job lot of Canadian material.  But i was surprised by the number of times that this particular envelop was endorsed with rubber stamps. The earliest endorsement is 30 May 1878 from Esquimalt in British Columbia. On the other side of the envelop there is another endorsement from Victoria in British Columbia - the state capital which is about five miles from Esquimalt. This also appears to have been endorsed on 30 May, The envelop ..read more

Last week, for the first time in my life, i found myself in trouble with the US Treasury. The error i made was trying to sell some Cuban stamps on Ebay. Let me make this clear.  The US Treasury has a policy of financially isolating Cuba. It maintains that Cuba is an oppressive regime and supports other oppressive regimes and that the US want to ensure that it doesn’t have access to foreign currency. Under Barak Obama, there were moves to relax sanctions against Cuba. But President Trump insists that the sanctions should be toughened. No matter what you think of this policy (and personally I d ..read more

seePen and Sword publishers have produced a book on Mainline Railway Stamps. It’s a good subject, but unfortunately the book is a missed opportunity. Let’s start with the good aspects. The book is very well produced (hardback) and has some really nice pictures of stamps. And it’s all in colour. For such a well produced book, it’s reasonably priced and there is some interesting information on various countries and their train services. However the text is poorly organised and many interesting aspects have been largely ignored. Most countries have stamps featuring mainline railway trains. But ..read more