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Hi, all! Long time, no post, so I thought I'd drag out my rusty html
skills and try to post on this weekend's meeting topic.
At first, I couldn't imagine how the subject of the relationship between
currency and stamps had any implications for Japanese stamps, which I have
collected from time to time, and I was about to let this meeting topic pass me
by. Then I had a Homer Simpson "d'oh!" moment:
There's an early series of Japanese stamps that are often referred to as the
"koban" stamps. (1876 - 1892, Scott #55-84). Well, "koban" is the
name for a type of Japanese coin, and the stamps' design was thought to resemble
that coin.
Here's an
illustration of the koban coin (the one in the middle).
And then here's an
illustration of the koban stamps.
Now, as it happens, there's a footnote in the Scott catalog that says some of
the stamps in that series are found with telegraph or telephone cancels, used to
pay for that service. So, I suppose that's another tie-in to the meeting
topic: stamps used as currency (for very specific services).
Scott also says that those telephone and telegraph cancels sell "at
considerably lower prices than postally used copies". Unfortunately, they
don't illustrate or describe the cancel, so there are a lot of telephone cancels
floating around out there being priced at regular catalog values. So I
thought I'd turn this into a learning opportunity. In the
stamp link, the 3rd stamp on the bottom row (orange, 20 sen), has a nearly
full-on telephone cancel. (And they look kinda like the old-fashioned telephone
dials.)
Thanks for letting me chime in! (And I'm keeping my fingers crossed about the
html ...)
Best to all,
-- Dave
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) 
on May-20-07
at 21:10:06 PDT
) 
)
on May-20-07
at 20:10:37 PDT
) 
member
)
on May-20-07
at 15:38:03 PDT
Remember the Philatelic High School !! :O)
) 
