New book explores America's greatest stamps
Dentuck
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NEW BOOK EXPLORES
AMERICA’S GREATEST STAMPS
Whitman Publishing announces the release of 100 Greatest American Stamps, by Donald Sundman and Janet Klug. In this beautifully illustrated book, the authors take the reader on a personal guided tour of these important historical artifacts of Americana.
“Each of the 100 Greatest was voted into place by leading stamp collectors, dealers, researchers, designers, and historians,” says Whitman publisher Dennis Tucker. Inside the reader will find prized and seldom-seen rarities—the unique and high-valued stamps that collectors dream about. The book also explores more readily available and widely popular stamps: pieces so beautiful or with such fascinating stories that everybody wants one. The famous 1918 inverted Jenny, the 1847 5¢ Franklin and 10¢ Washington, the 1893 $5 Columbian, and dozens more are pictured in striking full color.
The book includes a foreword and appreciation by hobby legend William H. Gross, the only philatelist to form a complete collection of 19th-century United States postage stamps. An illustrated introduction tells the history of stamps in America and how they’ve evolved. Market values from the past and present (going back to the 1920s), recent auction results, and tips on collecting each of the 100 Greatest give a view of today’s market. The authors describe how to collect and enjoy stamps, aspects of the marketplace, grading, conservation, and smart buying.
“100 Greatest American Stamps is not just a price guide or a fancy picture book,” says Tucker. “It’s a time machine that takes the reader to a hundred different points in American history. And it’s a fascinating introduction to the hobby of collecting these important pieces of material culture.”
Steamboats and astronauts, biplanes and buffalos, army officers and Indians, politicians and explorers—all of these and more await the reader in 100 Greatest American Stamps. Readers will travel back to colonial America, before the Revolution, and to the early days of the defiant young nation. They will cheer the Father of His Country, George Washington, just as coin collectors did at the height of Washington mania in the 1860s. They will relive the drama and tension of the Civil War, and they will celebrate the nation’s great festivals and expositions of the early 1900s. The book includes some familiar faces, such as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Winston Churchill... and readers will meet some unique and colorful characters including Jefferson Davis, Elvis Presley, Benjamin Franklin, and many others.
The book is coffee-table-size, 144 pages, richly illustrated in full color, with photographs and stories for each stamp. It also includes market values, field populations, quantities printed, and catalog references. Retail price is $29.95. A special leather-bound Limited Edition will also be available.
100 Greatest American Stamps will be available in October 2007 at hobby shops and bookstores nationwide.
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Coauthor Donald Sundman is the president of Mystic Stamp Company, located in Camden, New York. He serves on the Philatelic Foundation’s Board of Trustees and is actively involved with the American Philatelic Society. He has sponsored more than 4,900 collectors for membership—a record number in the history of the APS. Don serves as chairman of the National Postal Museum’s Council of Philatelists and co-sponsors its Maynard Sundman Philatelic Lecture series.
Jerry
Watch for an article in American Philatelist, the journal of the American Philatelic Society.