postage

The British Post Office From Its Beginnings to the End of 1925

The author of this masterpiece, British lawyer Chapman Frederick Dendy Marshall (1872 – 1945) was a railway historian. He was also a philatelist. At age 56, he was awarded the coveted Crawford Medal by the Royal Philatelic Society of London for this exact publication. The Crawford Medal is awarded by the Society for the most valuable contribution to philately published in book form. The medal is named after the 26th Earl of Crawford, a philatelic bibliophile. Mr. Marshall was a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Institution of Locomotive Engineers.

The Gold Yuan Stamps of China

This is a small orange booklet printed in a tiny typeface. Published in 1977 by the chief authority on Nationalist China postage stamps at the time, this catalogue is number 502 of 1000 printed. It contains stamp listings, general philatelic information, postal history, and an index. What makes this volume special? The fact that the author actually came into contact with all of these stamps.

Black Gold

Kenneth J. Kutz is the former President of Texasgulf Mining Corporation. He is also the former President of the Collectors Club of New York. The Collectors Club of New York was founded in 1896, making it one of the oldest existing philatelic societies in the United States. This book is about the philatelic history of oil. Stamps and covers (envelopes) are interwoven with postcard illustrations in chronological order of when the events depicted occurred. The book begins with Noah making the ark with coats of pitch.

African Americans on Stamps

This thin, thirty-paged color booklet was published by the United States Postal Service in 2004. The Black Heritage stamp series began in 1978 and ever since, African American heroes and heroines have been honored on postage stamps. The Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) votes on which candidate will be the next postage stamp. Harriet Tubman was the first Black Heritage postage stamp. This booklet is arranged alphabetically from A to Z beginning with the dancer Alvin Ailey and ending with Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Whitney Moore Young.

African Americans on Stamps

At over two hundred pages long, this hardback book is basically an encyclopedia of African American heroes on postage stamps, both from the United States and around the world. Arranged alphabetically by last name, it provides short biographies, followed by black and white illustrations of each postage stamp. The stamps are numbered and references to the numbered stamps are in the biographies. For example, Michael Jordan, illustration #289, Tanzania postage stamp.

The African American Tradition

This gigantic "book" is actually a stack of unnumbered color plates, arranged in alphabetical order, by the last name of the African American hero featured on each. The author, Thomas Blackshear, is a contemporary African Americna artist who draws, paints, illustrates, and sculpts. Mr. Blackshear's artwork is seen on the 25c Ida B.

Gold Fever

Author of eight books in the National Postal Museum Library alone (including Gold Fever, California Gold, Black Gold, Klondike Gold, and Victoria Gold) Kenneth Kutz is a gold enthusiast. This 400-page book tells the history of gold prospecting around the world and the effect it had on early explorers, settlement, and colonization. Gold incites both romance and excitement, not just in California, but all over the world.