a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5UaT1n1CbI/AAAAAAAAD9E/XIeIolwj6A8/s1600-h/postmaster-3-4.jpg”img style=”float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 225px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5UaT1n1CbI/AAAAAAAAD9E/XIeIolwj6A8/s200/postmaster-3-4.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446288252488452530″ //aAn article on the New Canaan, Connecticut emAdvertiser/em website leads with, “With a quarter of a century of United States Postal Service experience under her belt, Nancy Cornelio is ready to be the first female postmaster at the New Canaan post office since the position was first created in 1818.” br /br /Reporter Carrie Schmelkin pens, “In addition to her daily tasks of overseeing retail windows, customer services and day-to-day operations, Cornelio said she is ready to continue to build on the relationship between the office and the community by creating weekly and monthly traditions.”br /br /According to Carrie, “At the top of her list is holding Wednesday Philatelic Days, where residents can learn the art of stamp collecting as well as monthly seminars about the importance of businesses using direct mail as opposed to e-mail announcements.”br /br /Shown above, New Canaan post office’s new postmaster, Nancy Cornelio, greeting a customer.br /br /To read the entire article, a href=”http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/ncadvertiser/news/localnews/51405-at-the-post-office-town-welcomes-permanent-postmaster.html”click here/a.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11420717-3508407415319572139?l=stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Sometimes I find myself writing these notes add very odd hours. This time I’m dealing with the “pleasures of child family” as stomach flu has hit few of my kids and I’ve been awake for few hours already.
Anyway, I don’t know if there exists any stamp promoting proper washing of hands (and [...]

a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5VZIUfBI-I/AAAAAAAAD9U/Om-WYHZlrxo/s1600-h/untitled.bmp”img style=”float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 175px; height: 225px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5VZIUfBI-I/AAAAAAAAD9U/Om-WYHZlrxo/s320/untitled.bmp” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446357323847115746″ //aPostmaster General John Potter announced yesterday the appointment of Janet Klug, the former president and current member of the board of directors of the American Philatelic Society, to serve on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC). br /br /According to a a href=”http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2010/pr10_023.htm”USPS press release/a, Janet, a lifelong stamp collector who says she “never met a stamp she didn’t like,” is the current chair of the New Initiatives Committee on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s Council of Philatelists.br /br /Postmaster Potter is quoted as saying, “Janet brings a wealth of expertise and knowledge to the committee. She represents one of the many voices of the stamp collecting community and we welcome her to CSAC.”br /br /Janet writes regular columns about stamp collecting for emLinn’s Stamp News/em and emScott Stamp Monthly/em, and her work has also appeared in American Philatelistem, Stamp Collector and Global Stamp News/em. br /br /Her recent publications include emGuide to Stamp Collecting /em(2008) and em100Greatest American Stamps/em (2007), which she co-authored with Donald Sundman. br /br /Members of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee are appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the Postmaster General. The committee, established in 1957, is composed of 15 members, whose backgrounds reflect a wide range of educational, artistic, historical and professional expertise. All share an interest in philately and fulfilling the needs of postal customers.br /br /Janet will join the committee in April.br /br /To read an interesting interview with Janet about her stamp collecting interests, a href=”http://www.gbstamps.com/gbcc/gbcc_klug_intvw1.html”click here/a.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11420717-6668035701944008088?l=stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

As some of my single country collections have lately reached over 50% completion level, I’m beginning to approach the situation where I have to start making some major decisions about the final storage and output of these collections. Should I continue to keep them on stock book, or transfer them to pre-printed stamp [...]

a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5PpabxwrEI/AAAAAAAAD80/78t8dMzFZys/s1600-h/doc4b93c989a4c164822003863.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5PpabxwrEI/AAAAAAAAD80/78t8dMzFZys/s400/doc4b93c989a4c164822003863.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445953014763400258″ //abr /”Plane crashes are today’s headlines, but train wrecks were the major newsmakers 100 years ago,” writes reporter Matt Surtel on New York’s emDaily News/em website.br /br /According to Matt, local resident Mark Milcarek came across four old postcards that documented a train wreck that happened more than a hundred years ago.br /br /”The resulting impact was horrific. It left locomotives, train cars and wreckage strewn over the countryside. Photographs taken the next morning were quickly made into postcards,” pens Matt.br /br /Mark, who found the images online, is quoted as saying, “I just came across them and because they had a date and some information with them, they were something you could trace.”br /br /After buying the postcards, Mark began researching the accident looking through old newspapers and learned that the wreck occurred in early January 1907 after a northbound Buffalo, Rochester Pittsburgh coal train lost its air brakes heading north in the town of Gainesville.br /br /Ken Wilson writes on his a href=”http://www.ken-wilson.com/postcardhistorylinks.html”Postards [sic] – A Brief History of Postcards Postcard Collecting website/a, “The use of postcards exploded in the early 1900s. They were the “e-mail” of their day.Cards included advertising, artwork, and documentation of current events, and places.”br /br /To read the entire train wreck postcards article and see additional pictures, a href=”http://www.thedailynewsonline.com/articles/2010/03/07/news/doc4b93c989a4c16482200386.txt”click here/a.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11420717-2079693689385959438?l=stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Patricia Raynor writes on the National Postal Museum blog, “If your vacation destination this year happens to include Walt Disney World® in Florida, try playing the game of who can spot the most mailboxes. From Main Street U.S.A. in the Magic Kingdom® to the international pavilions at Epcot,® careful observers will discover a variety of mailboxes scattered around the many park attractions.”br /br /a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5Kabk8UTCI/AAAAAAAAD8c/rtjRqVhhsvQ/s1600-h/6a01157147ecba970c01310f2f1e7e970c-120wi.jpg”img style=”float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 160px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5Kabk8UTCI/AAAAAAAAD8c/rtjRqVhhsvQ/s320/6a01157147ecba970c01310f2f1e7e970c-120wi.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445584698008161314″ //aAccording to Pat, “If you begin your park journey at Main Street USA, you will be transported to the turn-of-century-the 20th-century American small town with a lamp-post mounted collection box that fits right in to the time period. At Epcot®, you will find collection boxes such as the United Kingdom’s eye-catching red pillar post box or the American turn-of-the-century Owens- style lamp mail box (shown here), on loan to the park from the U.S. Postal Service. Disney cast members collect mail from this box each day for eventual delivery to postal service facilities in Orlando, Florida.”br /br /To read the entire post, a href=”http://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2010/02/the-happiest-mail-boxes-on-earth.html”click here/a.br /br /To see and learn more about American mailboxes, a href=”http://www.arago.si.edu/flash/?sf=0|sq=234863.100 |tid=2032050|s1=2|”click here/a.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11420717-1720581039089367561?l=stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5E5FsHh5VI/AAAAAAAAD8U/1cwlVe9jUrY/s1600-h/021510city_embedded_prod_affiliate_50.jpg”img style=”float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 150px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5E5FsHh5VI/AAAAAAAAD8U/1cwlVe9jUrY/s320/021510city_embedded_prod_affiliate_50.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445196194372511058″ //aTom Buckham writes in the emBuffalo News/em about a “serendipitous convergence of business and art.” br /br /Tom reports, “When Ashton Potter USA Ltd. in Amherst bid last year on a contract to print a series of postage stamps commemorating the art movement known as abstract expressionism, no one there realized that Albright-Knox Art Gallery owned four of the 10 featured paintings.”br /br /The printer, Ashton Potter, the world’s largest producer of postage stamps with secure printing plants, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery are both located in and around Buffalo, New York.br /br /The Albright-Knox works in the commemorative series are Pollock’s iconic “Convergence,” Mark Rothko’s “Orange and Yellow,” Robert Motherwell’s “Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34” and Arshile Gorky’s “The Liver Is in the Cock’s Comb.”br /br /Yesterday evening the gallery held a special event celebrating stamps and art. br /br /Titled, “The Hobby of Kings: Stamp Collecting and the Albright-Knox,” members of the public were given tours of the paintings and invited to create postage stamp scrapbooks. Also on hand was stamp expert Lou Montesano from Lincoln Coin Stamp Company, Inc. who answered questions about stamps and stamp collecting.br /br /To bring the evening to a close, the gallery showed Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s emDekalog /em(1989), an episode from the acclaimed a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decalogue”Decalogue series/a which featured estranged brothers slowly developing a fanaticism for the stamp collecting of their late father. br /br /To read the article about the printer of the new stamps, a href=”http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/02/15/957012/local-printer-makes-its-mark-in.html”click here/a.br /br /For more on the Albright-Knox Gallery, a href=”http://www.albrightknox.org/geninfo.html”click here/a.br /br /Shown above, Barry Switzer, chief executive officer of Ashton Potter USA, displays a press approval sheet for the postage stamp series honoring abstract expressionists.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11420717-387975716442978794?l=stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Carol suggested in a recent blog comment that I should write a piece about the stamps you see on the blog’s header image. Tough each of the stamps has been covered thoroughly on the blog during year 2009, newer readers of the blog might not be familiar with them. A common nominator for all these [...]

As some know I’ve been having my winter holidays this week. Although things didn’t go quite as planned (I got some heat/fever for few days), I still did have a quite enjoyable week with my family and some stamps.

Here’s my youngest kid playing with her own stock book and some stamps. Though the stock [...]

a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5ABgU6GiRI/AAAAAAAAD8M/N0s-6_43QdY/s1600-h/historiclobby-1.jpg”img style=”float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 250px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S5ABgU6GiRI/AAAAAAAAD8M/N0s-6_43QdY/s200/historiclobby-1.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444853604370778386″ //a”James” writes on his emEveryday Correspondence/em blog about visiting the lobby of National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.br /br /He points out that,”Originally the main post office serving the District, the museum building was designed in the Beaux Arts style, and was completed in 1914…On one side of the grand hallway are post office boxes, and on the other, mail windows where clerks would receive outgoing mail. And, in the middle of the grand lobby, wonderful, ornate marble counters.br /br /”As it would happen, the lobby area was renovated in the 1950s. According to the docent leading the tour I was on, it had less to do with improving fixtures and increasing efficiency, than because the marble floors and plaster ceiling were held to be “dated,” and in dire need of modernization. br /br /”So, in the grand wisdom of our forefathers, the ceiling of the lobby was dropped, the lighting replaced with what look to be fluorescent light bulbs, and, again according to the docent, the marble covered with formica. Below is a picture of the lobby area taken during that (what I call) dark time.br /br /a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S4_-kH6hKqI/AAAAAAAAD8E/5amSFAj1DC8/s1600-h/National+Postal+Museum+Pre-Renovation.JPG”img style=”float:left; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 225px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bTvISTq6I5I/S4_-kH6hKqI/AAAAAAAAD8E/5amSFAj1DC8/s320/National+Postal+Museum+Pre-Renovation.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444850371067456162″ //a”While all of the original plaster work was destroyed during the modernization process, the lobby area has been restored with very well crafted and sculpted replicas.And, by golly, if you didn’t read the placards, and ignored the fact that people were snapping pictures with digital cameras, you might just be able to make yourself believe it was 1914, and you were there to buy a sheet of 3 cent stamps to mail off a bundle of letters.”br /br /To read more about James’ trip to the NPM, a href=”http://www.everydaycorrespondence.com/2010/03/national-postal-museum-victim-of.html”click here/a.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/11420717-4530582173382483579?l=stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div