Inside Linn’s: Explore mysterious Transylvania through stamps

By Charles Snee

The Feb. 28 issue of Linn’s Stamp News just landed on the presses and goes in the mail to subscribers Monday, Feb. 14. And if you subscribe to Linn’s digital edition, you’re at the head of the line with early access Saturday, Feb. 12. While you wait for your issue to arrive in your mailbox, enjoy these three quick glimpses of exclusive content available only to subscribers. 

Explore mysterious Transylvania through stamps

“Mention Transylvania and the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is the home of vampires, werewolves, ghouls, witches and other denizens of the horror movie universe. This is almost entirely attributable to one Irishman, Bram Stoker,” writes Rick Miller in Stamps of Eastern Europe. However, there is so much more to learn about Transylvania, as Miller artfully explains after providing a brief preface on Stoker and his famous gothic horror novel, Dracula. He looks at Transylvania’s close ties to Hungary and Romania using stamps that celebrate key events linking Transylvania to the two countries. Miller’s history lesson, which spans the better part of two millennia, makes for an engaging read.

The rights and wrongs of cachetmaking

Given the numerous legal minefields out there today, it can be quite a challenge for first-day cover enthusiasts to produce cachets that abide by all the rules. In First-Day Covers, Lloyd de Vries provides an excellent overview of the many ways cachetmakers can avoid legal difficulties, and he provides links to vast online repositories of digital images maintained by the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. He offers a warning to cachetmakers who “choose to ignore intellectual property rules, hoping to fly under the radar and escape notice. This may work for covers not intended for sale, but offering them for sale invites a raid from the copyright police.” He concludes with a rather famous monologue from a movie starring Clint Eastwood that serves as a caveat to those who hope not to get caught taking images off the internet.

Kitchen Table Philately: worldwide stamps on stock cards

In each weekly issue of Linn’s, either E. Rawolik VI or E. Rawolik VII dissects the contents of a stamp mixture offered to collectors. E. Rawolik is a pseudonym that is also the word “kiloware” (a stamp mixture) spelled backward. This week, E. Rawolik VII reviews a half-sample from an assortment of worldwide stamps on stock cards. Included are stamps from two countries that Rawolik VII seldom encounters in mixtures: Fujeira and Sharjah. The oldest stamp, issued in 1887, was from Great Britain, and a 1989 stamp from Ireland was the newest. The highest Scott catalog value went to an 1890 postage due stamp from Italy. Rawolik VII reveals that value and much more in this upbeat review.

Connect with Linn’s Stamp News: 

    Sign up for our newsletter
    Like us on Facebook
    Follow us on Twitter