Secret Service visits Czyl’s Penny Post: Inside Linn's

By Molly Goad

The June 11 issue of Linn’s Stamp News just landed on the presses and goes in the mail to subscribers Tuesday, May 29 (due to the Memorial Day holiday). And if you subscribe to Linn’s digital edition, you’re at the head of the line with early access Saturday, May 26. To heighten your anticipation even further, enjoy these three previews of exclusive content available only to subscribers.

The day the U.S. Secret Service came to call on a cinderella collector

With the constant onslaught of millions of modern postal counterfeits from China (and almost no way to trace them to the source and prosecute), writes Odd Lot columnist Wayne Youngblood, it is hard to believe that the United States Postal Inspection Service once took the counterfeiting of stamps seriously.

Very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it regularly investigated all reports of possible counterfeiting activities and even called upon its colleagues, the Secret Service, to help when other crimes were being committed in tandem, which was usually the case.

An unusual use of customs collection process

Even though the United States customs duty collection process is almost entirely concerned with collecting duties on incoming foreign mail, there is one exception: duty collection on incoming U.S. Armed Forces mail. This week, Tony Wawrukiewicz takes a look at this process with a letter mailed in 1943 from APO 788, essentially a leased defense base, to Duluth, Minn.

Mixture includes many quality stamps

In the Kitchen Table Philately column in each issue of Linn’s, E. Rawolik VI or E. Rawolik VII analyzes the content of stamp mixtures offered to collectors. E. Rawolik, of course, is a pseudonym that is “kiloware” (a stamp mixture) spelled backward. This week, E. Rawolik VII reviews a pleasing mixture from Saracino (New York) that includes a variety of countries, a mix of mint and used and generally satisfactory cancellations.

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