2008 12 December Newsletter

VOLUME 8, NUMBER 12 DECEMBER 2008 MAILED DECEMBER 1, 2008

Hobby Notes - newsletter of the Warrenton Stamp and Coin Club Fauquier County Courthouse in Old Town Warrenton

Special points of interest: 

Door prizes donations are still needed (especially coinrelated)



Changes to the Club ByLaws approved

D e c e m b e r 4 th M e e t i n g : First Day Covers of the Alexandria Bicentennial Stamp The topic of this month’s program is the First Day Covers of the Alexandria Bicentennial Stamp. The presenter will be Rollin Berger, editor of the Graebner Gazette, the monthly newsletter of the Graebner First Day Cover Club, who last presented at our Club in May 2006. The stamp (Scott Catalogue #C40) shows the Carlyle House and Gatsby’s Tavern in Old Town Alexandria. It is a 6¢ airmail stamp issued on May 11, 1949 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of Alexandria, Virginia.

Inside this issue: Meeting information

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About the Club

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Upcoming programs

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Noted in passing

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Website spotlight

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Upcoming Hobby Shows 3 Ray’s Column

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At Last Month’s Meeting

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From the Editor

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Club Officers

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This month's stamp

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Amended Club By-Laws Last month, Emilio Castelar presented the proposed revisions to the Club’s by-laws. (In preparing for the WSCC’s application for non-profit status, which required a copy of the Club’s by-laws, he had noticed that some of the sections were outdated). After some discussion and minor additional revisions, the bylaws were adopted by the membership. Tony suggested that the revised bylaws be posted on the WSCC web site, which your Editor will try to do.

HOBBY NOTES

M O N T H LY M E E T I N G S

Guests and new members are always welcome. Drop by and join us.

Meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month (except for the December holiday dinner) at the SunTrust Bank in Warrenton. The bank is located in the Warrenton Center shopping center, at the intersection of Routes 17 & 29. (Enter the front doors of the bank and go downstairs to

the Meeting room). The meetings start at 7:00 pm. We conduct our business, and then begin an informal 30minute program, which alternates between coin and stamp coin topics. The program is followed by an auction of stamps, coins, and other hobby items. We finish around 9:00 pm.

SunTrust Bank 680 Warrenton Center Warrenton, VA 20187

ABOUT THE CLUB

“If you like stamps or coin, you're welcome to join”

The Warrenton Stamp and Coin Club is based in Warrenton Virginia, but has members from all over the region, including Centreville, Leesburg, Culpeper and Fredericksburg. Meetings are held each month, and the programs are broad enough to interest both stamp and coin collectors. Annual dues are $12 for adults (although junior members pay no dues). Visitors and guests are always welcome. Prospective members shall be able to receive two consecutive editions of the newsletter before being dropped for non-payment of dues. The Club actively supports the Boy Scouts’ merit badge programs, and has raised funds for local high school scholarships.

UPCOMING EVENTS FOR WS&CC:

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January

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traditional holiday meeting at a restaurant

February

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Ancient Coins (tentative)

March

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Selling Coins at a Retail Store (tentative)

March

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2nd Annual Stamp & Coin Show

VOLUME 8, NUMBER 12

Noted in passing... Linn’s Stamp News reported that Great Britain will begin issuing definitive stamps with slits in the paper, which will prevent the stamp from being removed from the envelope, and presumably being reused. It remains to be seen if that change will result in used stamps being damaged when soaked from the paper. The USPS recently decided to save money by letting printers forego water-soluble gum on US stamps, but it frustrates collectors who soak stamps from envelopes. Most collectors began collecting used stamps this way. The two postal services are undermining the hobby. Doug Harms pointed out at the November meeting that the price of copper had declined recently, so that the Mint may no longer be losing money in striking the penny. In the Washington Post a few days later, I saw that the price of “copper fell from about $8,900 a metric ton in June to $3,800, [and] aluminum from $3,000 a ton to $1,900.” I expect that the Mint is very pleased. March is just around the corner. Why not rent or share a table at the WSCC’s 2 nd annual Stamp and Coin Show?

WEB SITE OF THE MONTH: The featured site this month is http://www.virtualstampclub.com/hotlink.html#software which provides dozens of links to sites related to stamp collecting. Included topics are: societies, dealers, philatelic software, expertising, stamp identification, shows, publications, postal agencies, general resources and my favorite, “interesting pages.” I found sites showing scans of every issue of Kyrgyzstan since 1998, all the stamps by master engraver Czeslaw Slania, the Hand-Drawn and Hand-Painted First Day Cover Society chapter, the site for Michels’ online 600,000+ listing stamp catalogue (for a monthly fee) and many, many more. What fun.

Upcoming Hobby Shows Jan 23-25

MetroExpo, Hilton Washington at Dulles Airport, Herndon, VA

[sorry, but that’s all I saw in our area for the immediate future]

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Ray's Column — notes from the President FAKES Here’s some thoughts about fakes and forgeries in our hobbies. BANKNOTES: “Hey, I found this bank note in a 19th century Bible and I wonder what it is worth?” For years, Historical Documents Co. has mass produced “antique parchment documents” as well as colonial, Confederate and obsolete bank notes. You can buy them in numerous gift shops after which some are hidden away to be found by your heirs or these items appear in various on-line auctions. Reproductions can represent fun for children and Civil War buffs but have no value. Pay attention to the following tips. Reproductions use the wrong kind of paper, so beware if it is stiff and crinkly tan with dark brown “aged” edges - 100% fake. Real notes are printed on high rag content fine paper, even Civil War notes. Colonial notes were sometimes printed on thick stock unlike parchment. Items handwritten with a quill pen and brown ink such as serial numbers and signatures are in black ink on the fakes. Vignettes and backgrounds of portraits on fakes are dark and muddy. Reproduction notes only use black ink but later 19th century notes used one or more extra colors to foil counterfeiters. If made after 1973, reproductions must have COPY along the bottom margin in keeping with the 1973 Hobby Protection Act. STAMPS Fake: a genuine stamp altered to change its appearance. Forgery: a label made from scratch to defraud collectors. Counterfeit: a label made from scratch to defraud dealers. Jean Sperati has earned the title of master forger; he produced over 500 examples. In 1942 he sent a packet of supposedly valuable stamps to a dealer in Lisbon which the French customs seized. An expert put a value of 223,000 French francs on the stamps. In order to avoid paying a fine, Sperati was required to prove they were his forgeries and admitted he had been doing this for 30 years. In 1954, when he was 70 years old, the British Philately Association bought him out for about $40,000 and he had to promise never again to make any counterfeit stamps. Stamps cataloging for $50 or less are the most commonly forged items and the best way to detect one is by side-by-side examination with a genuine one. The two types of forgeries: 1) philatelic: made to defraud and deceive the collector, and 2) postal: made to defraud the government. Years ago dealers also made facsimiles, unofficial reproductions used to fill empty spaces, but these included an inscription telling that the item was not genuine. Some recently recognized noteworthy fakes. 1990: Brown envelopes franked with forgeries of Nigerian Scott 560B, 50 Naira Rock Bridge stamp. 1981: 18c flag coil was the first U.S. coil stamp issued with added plate numbers at the bottom of individual stamps at established intervals and therefore plate 6 was quite a rarity until one faker started making his own by adding a 6 at the bottom where the genuine plate number should occur. 1999: The Royal Philately Society of London examined a purported an 1856 1c Magenta from British Guiana and it was declared a fake after sophisticated analysis, being an altered 4c Magenta.

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At Last Month’s Meeting... At the November meeting Tony presided in Raymond’s absence. We briefly discussed the date and site for our holiday meal in January, but reached no resolution. Emilio has submitted the Club’s application for nonprofit status, which may be acted upon in time for a discount when we rent space for the upcoming Stamp and Coin Show. We discussed the feasibility of using a nonprofit postage rate for the newsletter; we learned that there is a $75 annual fee for the permit, and our mailing is too small to qualify for savings. Postage savings could be realized by emailing the newsletter, but a large majority of the membership prefers receiving a hard copy of the newsletter. We discussed the proposed revisions to the Club’s by-laws, added a few more, and approved the changes. We agreed that the newly revised by-laws should be posted on the website, and your Editor will upload the pages. There was much discussion about encased coins as a fund raiser. We also considered a show cancel cachet, perhaps with a pocket/sleeve for the encased coin. Gregg will explore the various options regarding the encased coins and their cost. In discussing local interest to enhance fund raising, we considered the 250th anniversary of Fauquier County in 2009, and what tie-ins might be possible [note: while researching the anniversary date, I found the following on Wikipedia: “Fauquier County was established on May 1, 1759, from Prince William County. It is named for Francis Fauquier, Lieutenant Governor at the time, who won the land in a poker game, according to legend.”] The County is already planning a parade and many other activities. It was also discussed that the Mint will issue four new designs for the reverse of the penny next year in recognition of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth and 100th anniversary of the first issuance of the Lincoln cent. Although we could use the new penny designs as our encased coins, dollar coins might be more popular, especially since among the first issues are four of Virginia-born Presidents (a total of eight Presidents were born in Virginia). A lot of planning will be required to prepare souvenir for sale in time for the Show in March. After the lengthy discussion we competed in the Scavenger Hunt that Gerry devised. All agreed that the challenge was very clever, and the answers required quite a bit a thought. The stamp collectors had most difficulty with the coin questions, and vice versa. Official scores were not recorded, but Doug seems to have faired best, with Gregg close behind (Tony probably had excellent results as well, but I missed his score). There was lively discussion about some of the answers, and those subjects are certain to be raised at the December meeting. We concluded with the usual auction. - BCS

from the Editor... Once again, the WSCC’s 2nd Annual Stamp and Coin Show is scheduled for March 2009. You can rent a table to sell stamps or coins, or you can display some of your collection. Even though we won’t have a competition for exhibits, we should be able to display some items of interest to our visitors. After all, we advertise the event as a Show rather than just a bourse or a sale. Any ideas? I have thought about showing a selection of picture post cards of Fauquier County, or some covers showing Warrenton postmarks over the years. Does anyone have a National Bank Note from Fauquier County that they would like to show off? - BCS 5

Current Officers WARRENTON STAMP AND COIN CLUB APS #182214

President:

Raymond Maguire 540-428-7023 [email protected]

Vice-President:

Tony Tripi [email protected]

Secr./Treasurer:

Gerry Hoffman 540-937-2201 [email protected]

Newsletter Editor:

Brian C. Saxe 540-349-0940 [email protected] 5329 Forrest Court Warrenton, VA 20187-4503

ANA #C-173784

Address correspondence to: WSCC c/o Gerry Hoffman 6211 Old Glory Lane Rixeyville, VA 22737-1958

540-347-9212

This month’s stamp on your envelope The featured stamp this month is the Holiday issue showing four nutcrackers, designed by Derry Noyes of Washington, DC. Nutcrackers have been around for centuries. They range from simple utilitarian devices to elaborate collectibles, with a host of creations that fall somewhere in between. During the winter holiday season, nutcrackers of all shapes and sizes are familiar sights in toy stores, on Christmas trees, on mantel pieces, on book and magazine covers, and in performance venues.

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