Mik – thanks for that. We missed Burns Night because we were in Texas, where of course haggis (pudding, not pachyderm) is illegal. You may remember that President Bush the younger was once at a G8 summit at Gleneagles and was asked by the press wh…
Grand Bassa, Republic of Liberia
This postcard is for your stamp album. This morning we arrived here from Monrovia, where I was on land for 3 days. The President of the Republic learned about my (upcoming) articles about Liberia / send him any copie…
Of course, Col. Rogers knew whereof he wrote, and there are accounts in the early newsletters in the LPS website archive that set out this history of the 1950s origin, from Rogers (#22, April 1968) and from Francis Northrop (#21, March 1968).
I'm w…
Having just asked whether covers to/from Johann Büttikofer are commonly found, I just came across another one, also addressed to him at the Dutch factory, the following year (also offered at auction, this time among a 127-cover lot starting at CHF 8…
Greg -
I see clearly the top-left-to-lower-right pair of lines, and less clearly the bottom-left-to-top-right. But what is happening horizontally, just below their crossing point?
It looks in the scan like the paper has been pulled rightwards fr…
I agree. I am curious that the wording, "sent from Berlin to Hamburg, where they were canceled with names of the largest cities in Liberia", possibly over-interpreted, suggests that cancellation would have been at the hands (supposed) of J.W. West,…
Really none. In museums or preserved heritage, things from the German period are quite common perhaps because they are distinctive or lauded as old/early, but from the South African mandate period nothing - except maybe a rail-mounted "Hippo" armou…
Greg - I agree, and I am less inclined to be sympathetic to those who might not be supportive of Ukraine right now.
The vessel you saw is a 134-passenger expedition cruise ship, refurbished in 2009 and run (as the logo on the funnel suggests) by…
I see that this P.J. Smit elephant used on Liberia's 1906 stamp (the watercolour, I see, is still for sale, incidentally) has just turned up on two 2021 souvenir sheets "from" Djibouti: on one as a stamp, and on the other as a label. The hippo imag…
Greg - thanks for the tip. I took the plunge ... and the experience has been every bit as bad as we might have feared (only error messages, no actual access, concern that details have been given but cannot be cancelled because there is no clear acc…
Albert's pair of 66A (Buchanan, May 10th 1902) appears in the intervening time to have come into my possession. I have a single too, also Buchanan, possibly also May 10th. Sadly, my photos of these have failed to upload using the icon above the dr…
I am no lawyer, but I concur with Mik's points on UK copyright. There are exceptions for fair use, including inclusion in learned journals whose purpose is not to make profit, and a fact cannot be subject to copyright (but adopting the choice and sc…
Way back, Mike Lester asked whether we know anything about the designer and signatory, John Webb. We do – just a little.
We know that he also designed the 1936 commemorative / air mail triangular issue #C3A-C3F, for which similar approved, reduced…
Mik –
Well done.
I was doing a bit more reading today that closes some loops here:
In “Chats on Postage Stamps”, Fred J. Melville, T. Fisher Unwin, London (1911)
Chapter X (“Royal and National Collections”), page 305:
“King George V. probably owes…
I was curious about this one, not least because the Prince of Wales in 1906 (normally the immediate heir to the throne) was the future George V, not an Edward at all. So:
• Who are we talking about? and
• What happened to those Liberian stamps?
I…
For those who feel that they do not yet have enough Liberianness in their lives and living spaces ... I should note that the brand "East Urban Home" offer (at a very much lower price point) reproduction wall-art versions of more than thirty Harry Jo…
Albert - Well there is a cultural lesson. In the non-US world (where for example the output of chemical industry is expressed in thousands of metric tonnes, rather than millions of lbs) standardised international "A" sizes of paper would call your …
Albert - I am glad you liked the find. (I assume that you meant A5, or your album is an Album of the Gods). From the 1906 issue I also tracked down the image that must have been the basis for the 10-cent Giant Plantain-eater or “Great Blue Turaco”…