0:01

Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production

0:04

of I Heart Radio. Hey,

0:11

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:13

and there's Chuck and Jerry just laughed.

0:15

So it's just me and Chuck being

0:18

bad boys going through our stamp collection.

0:20

Oh yeah, that's right, the purposefully

0:23

silent Jerry. By the way, Yeah,

0:27

it's her own choice. Yeah, she's

0:30

a real, live human being, Jerry said.

0:32

Plenty of chances we've asked her, and she

0:34

loves being in the background and not

0:37

being on the show. I just want to make that clear. She's

0:40

a wallflower. M a

0:43

lazy, semi useless

0:45

wall flower that

0:47

we love like a sister, that's right, and

0:50

who keeps us in line, an who

0:52

may or may not even exist. That's

0:55

right. Let's talk about stamps, baby,

0:57

So I already said we're talking about stamp

0:59

collect thing. Oh and by the way, this is stuff

1:01

you should know. I think that it's

1:04

not an official episode until

1:06

I say that. What do you think that's our

1:08

watermark? Okay, yeah,

1:10

nice reference, Chucks. We're gonna talk about

1:12

those there. Wow, you have been doing

1:14

this for a while, haven't you a couple of years?

1:17

So, um, we're talking stamp collecting. I

1:19

don't collect stamps. I never have collected

1:22

stamps. Um,

1:24

I've never been friends with somebody who collected stamps.

1:27

As far as I know, no relatives of collected

1:29

stamps. Do you ever collect anything?

1:31

I collected baseball cards,

1:34

the usual, you know, But it turns

1:36

out I would I would posit that

1:38

stamp collecting is vastly more

1:40

popular than baseball card collecting. As

1:43

as popular as baseball card collecting is,

1:45

I think, if you're talking worldwide, probably

1:47

so, yeah, for sure, because I mean

1:50

over in some countries they don't even care about

1:52

baseball. They're like, I don't even know who Freddie

1:54

Freeman is. I like the alliteration,

1:56

but I don't know who he is. They should, he's

1:59

great. I remember

2:01

when he was a rookie. Do you have a rookie

2:03

card? No? I stopped collecting

2:05

baseball cards when I

2:08

aged out of the well

2:10

baseball card age. Yea, but

2:14

yeah, it was long before Freddie Freeman. No, I

2:16

don't have one of his cards, do you. No?

2:18

I don't collect baseball cards. I collected banks. I

2:20

think I've talked about that before. Uh

2:23

No, I don't know why

2:25

it's weird. I think I just had more

2:28

than one of them and then said, well, this is a start

2:30

to something. And I

2:32

collected, Like, I mean, technically there were

2:34

piggy banks, but none of them were big, So

2:37

you know, I think I had like thirty or forty

2:40

banks at one point when I was a kid, little banks.

2:42

I suspected you were talking about

2:44

banks, banks like you'd walk around and like slap

2:47

your hand on like a fifth third and been like, I

2:49

just collected this bank something

2:52

like that. So piggy

2:54

banks that weren't pigs yeah,

2:57

you know, it was like a just

2:59

bank. Little banks. Yeah, what was the coolest

3:01

one you had? I

3:05

got one from like a NAPA Auto Parts

3:07

that was a car battery bank, and that was that

3:09

was kind of cool. I remember

3:12

that stands out in my memory for some reason I

3:14

can imagine, but cool, I don't

3:16

know is the right word for it. But okay,

3:18

that's the only one who can really remember. I had a Mickey

3:20

Mouse bank, but who does think it went too I

3:22

had a Spiderman piggy bank the

3:25

bust of you know, myteen

3:27

seventies spider Man and

3:30

I broke it open with a hammer and used

3:32

all the money inside to buy candy

3:35

and two lunches at school for

3:37

a stretch. It was like I was walking around

3:39

like I was the King of England in the cafeteria.

3:41

I thought you gonna be like my first pack of cigarettes.

3:45

There was just a few short years

3:47

before then. But yeah,

3:49

stamp collecting, I've never known anyone who's

3:51

done it, but it is hugely popular and

3:54

it seems like a really kind of lovely

3:56

pleasant thing because, as is pointed out

3:58

here in this uh article,

4:01

who was this was this ed grabstr

4:05

Uh, it's like, you know, collecting little pieces of art,

4:07

little tiny works of art exactly.

4:09

But even more than that, stamps

4:12

have a very deep, detailed,

4:15

intricate, arcane history,

4:18

and I mean stamps in general, but also

4:20

every single individual stamp and

4:23

the stamp collecting community really

4:26

loves to dig into that history

4:28

and you know, all about all the different

4:30

stuff about every single stamp um

4:33

and so there's a lot of information to absorb

4:36

while you're collecting, which I think is one of the

4:38

big draws of collecting anything, is the

4:40

background information to it. To definitely,

4:42

like look at you can enjoy a stamp

4:45

just on its face, pretty its neat

4:47

is really well done usually, or at least the ones

4:49

that are worth collecting. But the idea

4:52

sure that too, but the idea and

4:54

it has you know, a history just

4:56

from sometimes being old, but then also

4:58

the idea that it has a backstory to Um,

5:02

it's just about as as well rounded a

5:04

hobby as as you could find. So

5:07

another term for stamp collecting is

5:09

called hi lately p h i l

5:12

a t e

5:14

l y. It's not the easiest

5:16

word to spell until you stop and think

5:18

about it, but it's derived

5:21

from the words philo or love of

5:23

like philosophy, love of knowledge. But

5:25

this is love of atalia,

5:28

and that is exemption from payment.

5:31

So you would use a stamp to show that

5:33

whatever you were sending or whatever is exempt

5:36

from payment. You already paid. So

5:38

really hi lately means love of

5:41

stamps in a really round about way. To

5:43

see, I heard it pronounced philately.

5:47

Really we'll go with that one

5:49

then, because I've just been pronouncing

5:51

that that way in my head for a very long time.

5:56

There you have it. Who

5:58

is that with you? Her

6:00

name is uh mispronunciation,

6:03

Emma says mispronunciation,

6:07

Yeah, ms, mispronunciation.

6:09

We're not going to assume anything, you know. One

6:11

of the things very good. One of the things that

6:14

that I've noticed in queuing episodes

6:17

is how many jokes of your slide right

6:19

past me while you're saying them,

6:21

and I don't catch him until I'm queueing an

6:23

episode later on. So so many hats

6:25

off for all those jokes that I've missed. If

6:28

you're gonna get into philateli or

6:30

be a philatelist, then you

6:33

should know that it's not like a get

6:35

rich quick thing. You do it sort of for the

6:37

love of the hobby itself, and

6:40

as you go along over the years, you may

6:42

eventually acquire some stamps that maybe worth

6:44

some money, but it's not the kind of

6:47

thing where, um just get

6:49

into it with the the intentions

6:52

that you should have, which is you're

6:54

not gonna make a ton of money doing this kind of thing.

6:56

Yeah, get into it for the love of collecting

6:59

stamps. Yeah, way to do it. Yeah,

7:01

that's kind of eye opening and surprising, I think,

7:03

to most of us on the outside

7:05

of the Philadeli world looking

7:07

in, because you know, we hear about

7:09

these auctions where stamps go for

7:11

millions of dollars, and every

7:14

once in a while they'll pop up as like a mcguffin

7:17

in a movie or something like that. Um,

7:20

so the idea that almost all stamps

7:22

are the wildly vast

7:24

majority of stamps are really

7:27

not worth much at all. Is is kind of surprising,

7:29

or it was to me at least, But also

7:32

it just makes me love stamp collectors that

7:34

much more, you know. Yeah, And I

7:36

think one thing I really love about stamp

7:38

collecting, which is sort of towards the end of this

7:40

research, but I'll go ahead and say

7:42

it now, is that it seems like

7:45

the stamp collecting purists only

7:48

collect stamps that are actually used

7:50

to mail things like get

7:52

out of here with your special edition

7:55

collector thing that is just printed up

7:57

for some certain you know, to give to

7:59

a dignitary, like they want

8:01

stamps like mail in

8:03

letter stamps. That's right. And

8:06

as a matter of fact, there's a kind

8:08

of considered one of the big authorities

8:10

on stamps, the Scott Catalog. They

8:13

apparently don't even recognize stamps

8:15

that aren't released by governments

8:18

for the purposes of mailing postage to

8:21

the general public. If it if it's

8:23

not released like that by those authorities,

8:26

then it doesn't exist as far as that's

8:28

concerned. Yeah, I mean, it seems like part of the

8:30

fund is finding these things on an old letter

8:33

like a cool discovery, and

8:36

uh, I just I like the idea of it. I'm probably

8:38

not going to get into it just because I don't have the time for this kind

8:40

of thing, but I can certainly appreciate it.

8:42

And then there's one other aspect of it too that

8:45

I kind of turned up from this, and

8:47

I'm sure it's not entirely correct

8:49

across the board, but it seems like a

8:51

person stamp collection is a very personal

8:54

thing. It says

8:56

like I am interested in this, so

8:58

I went through the trouble of ending these things.

9:01

And in that sense, it almost bears

9:03

a resemblance to that super

9:05

adorable coin collection that Owen

9:08

had throw Mama from the train. Remember

9:11

when he pulls out his coin collection and instead of some

9:13

rare coins, it's like a quarter that he had

9:15

he got changed for when he was at Coney

9:17

Island with his dad when he was twelve. It's

9:20

it's kind of like that, you know, it's a

9:22

really endearing hobby. I think, yeah,

9:25

because it's not like you're like, all right, I'm gonna get

9:27

into stamp collecting, and you

9:29

know, what are the best stamps to collect

9:31

for? You know, the best stamps

9:33

to collect are the ones that speak to you. So if

9:36

you get into it for a little while and you're like, boy,

9:38

the stamps from the Roaring twenties really

9:42

are are pretty cool looking to me,

9:45

or stamps with dogs on them,

9:47

or you could collect many, many kinds of stamps. But a

9:49

lot of people sort of get into stamp

9:51

collecting and realize, I like these kinds

9:53

of stamps. So that's what my collection is going to

9:56

reflect exactly. That's exactly

9:58

right, very cool. So that's am collecting

10:00

everybody. Should

10:02

we take a break? Should we already?

10:05

Sure, let's do it, chuck, Let's throw caution to the

10:07

wind like every average stamp collector

10:09

does. Okay,

10:35

we're back, and um we should

10:37

say chuck. I think if this seems a little weird,

10:40

if the tone seems a little weird today

10:42

this is one of our less

10:44

than usual Thursday

10:46

recording sessions. So it's it's always

10:48

a little like more foot loose, you know what I mean?

10:51

Sure, my feet are very loose.

10:55

So we should probably give some terms

10:57

here if you're interested in getting a

10:59

stamp collector, if you just want to know a little more

11:01

about it. There is a lot

11:04

of arcane jargon in slang

11:07

in the world of stamp collecting, and one of the reasons why

11:09

it's been around for almost

11:12

a couple of hundred years now, and over

11:14

that time there's just kind of

11:16

been successive generations who have kind of added

11:18

and refined and contributed to it. But they all

11:20

have to know what they're talking about to

11:22

one another, so they've kind of come up with a bunch of different

11:25

terms to describe things. Yeah,

11:27

like in true stuff, he'sho know, fashion. This is a broad

11:29

overview. Their entire podcast

11:32

dedicated to this kind of thing, right, Uh,

11:34

So we're gonna go over some of those broad definitions.

11:37

And the first one we have to talk about is the

11:39

gum, which is that sticky

11:41

stuff that killed George

11:43

Costanza's wife or fiance. Well,

11:46

here's just from looking envelopes, right or was it stamps?

11:49

I guess it was envelopes, wasn't it? But it's

11:51

still gum exactly. I forgot

11:53

about that because he got

11:55

the cheap the cheap stuff he cheaped out

11:59

um. So this is what's

12:01

used to stick the stamp on. If the stamp

12:03

has never been used at all, it's

12:05

like this pristine little thing. It's

12:08

it's called full original gum,

12:10

and then it's called new gum

12:12

if you have a stamp and you want to add a little

12:15

uh gum to it to stick it into your

12:17

collection, which we'll get to as well. Yeah,

12:20

so the sticky stuff equals gum. Right,

12:23

pretty simple. Let's get a little

12:25

more complex, Chuck, what's a block?

12:28

A block is a group of stamps that are

12:31

still connected to their little friends.

12:33

But it's got to be at least four

12:36

and a and they can't be four in a row either.

12:39

For my research, it's two

12:41

and two. It's got to be a square block.

12:44

Yeah, I saw that there, as long

12:46

as therefore it can be irregular

12:49

shapes, because sometimes blocks

12:52

of stamps get added to, or

12:54

messed with or just changed over the

12:56

decades or the century. So I've seen

12:58

that more than at but in a

13:00

less regular shape is still considered a block.

13:03

But what about four in a row in a strip? Does

13:05

that count as a block? I believe

13:08

so. I think as long as it's at least

13:10

four and that there is although

13:12

I guarantee there's another arcane term

13:14

for what you just said, um,

13:17

But as long as it's not all of the

13:19

ones that were originally attached together,

13:21

that would be a sheet. Okay,

13:24

al right, okay, alright,

13:26

nowhere are Um. One

13:28

other thing about stamps that you have to realize

13:30

is, you know, you tend to think if you collect

13:32

things, when you collect things that are

13:35

not quite right, like a slightly

13:38

off version of what it's supposed to be, that

13:40

it would be much more expensive

13:42

and collectible. And in some cases

13:45

that's true, Like there there's a um,

13:48

there's somebody in the stamp collecting

13:50

world, uh that is collecting

13:53

stuff that nobody else is. Like, there's

13:55

always going to be somebody out there who wants something. But

13:58

in the standp world, you want something as

14:00

precise and pristine and centered and perfectly

14:02

done as possible. That that usually tends

14:05

to be the higher valued stamp. The

14:07

other kind that are just kind of

14:09

off the printing

14:11

was slightly off center, that kind of thing. Those

14:14

are called errors, freaks and oddities

14:16

e fos in the stamp collecting

14:18

world. Yeah, it's

14:21

it's like, uh, you're talking about if like

14:23

there's an obi wan Kenobi figure that the

14:26

first thousand that they made

14:28

he was missing a left ear. Uh,

14:32

in that world, that would be the most valuable

14:34

thing probably ever made exactly

14:37

in the history of the world. But yeah,

14:39

like you're saying, with stamps, they generally

14:41

they want as far as value goes, they

14:43

want them that are nice and tidy, right.

14:46

But so I mean with with those terms

14:49

error free, errors, freaks and oddities,

14:51

those are just kind of wildly overstating

14:54

what they describe. Like we're talking about a

14:56

stamp that's just the printing is slightly

14:58

off center for the perforation are

15:00

just a little bit off or whatever maybe kind

15:02

of half got through there. That would be considered a freak,

15:05

you know, like that's how precise stamp printing

15:08

is meant to be. So um, some

15:10

people do collect that, but for the most part, yeah, you want

15:12

as as close to perfect to stamp as possible.

15:15

It sounds like a record album title, Air's

15:18

Freaks and oddities, like the

15:20

best of Guided by Voices or something that's

15:23

a good one or just a

15:26

you know, off brand Discovery Network

15:28

Channel's new show, you

15:32

know. So

15:34

um, there's cancelations

15:37

too. That's another good term to learn if

15:39

you're getting into stamp collecting, and everybody

15:41

knows a canceled stamp. It's where they take

15:43

a like a ink stamp stamp

15:46

over the postage stamp and

15:49

it's canceled. You can't reuse it. It's meant

15:51

to say this has been used, it's okay,

15:54

let it through the mail, but don't try to reuse

15:56

it again. And that's a canceled stamp.

15:59

And still you can still collect those stamps.

16:01

In fact, you know, most

16:04

stamps I think that people collect have been used

16:07

and found on these letters, which we'll talk about

16:09

that are called covers. But sometimes

16:12

that postmark is on the stamp itself, and

16:14

sometimes it is off to the

16:16

side, you know, because it's not those

16:20

people at the post office they're just stamping

16:22

those things. They got a lot of work to do. So

16:24

sometimes you'll just barely get a little bit of cancelation

16:27

on the stamp, and the rest of the goodness,

16:29

including the date and where it was mailed from,

16:31

might be just on the envelope itself. Yeah,

16:34

and there's a lot of information that can be contained

16:37

in just a plain old cancelation

16:39

stamp. Um

16:41

some you know, like some people collect disaster

16:44

stamp. So like if you had a

16:47

letter that was postmarked, or an envelope

16:50

and a stamp that was postmarked on September

16:52

eleven, two one in New York, somebody's

16:55

probably collecting, you know, canceled

16:57

canceled stamps and covers like that interest

17:00

s thing. I never really thought about that. That makes perfect sense.

17:02

Also, while we're talking about the people

17:04

working at the post office, I feel we would be remiss

17:07

if we did this whole episode without doing a shout

17:09

out to our favorite postal worker, Van Nostrin.

17:12

That's in a great state of Washington. And

17:15

I don't know where the ads fall, but

17:17

if there's a stamps dot Com ad on this

17:20

total total coincidence, that's

17:22

right. Some people I saw um collect

17:24

machined um stamps

17:27

meter postage too. And

17:29

like you said, there's probably a subset out there

17:31

for kind of anything. There definitely

17:34

is every rule you see, there's some rebel

17:36

group out there breaking it. In the Philadeli

17:38

world, the covers

17:40

what I mentioned, don't you dare

17:42

call it an envelope? Yeah,

17:45

you'd really reveal yourself to be uneducated

17:48

rube if you did that, which there's probably a

17:50

word for that too. Yeah,

17:53

like in a beginning beginner philadelist

17:55

is probably come

17:59

licker. That's good.

18:01

Uh So the

18:04

cover, like I said, as the envelope, Um, sometimes

18:07

you will keep that whole envelope at

18:09

least for a little while. Sometimes it's a little you know,

18:11

they're easier to hang onto than a tiny

18:13

stamp sometimes, so you

18:15

might not want to cut it out right away, and

18:17

you can keep up with those envelopes until you

18:20

want to get that stamp off. Or like we said,

18:22

if it's got some of the really

18:24

valuable information that makes

18:26

that stamp special is on the cover itself,

18:30

you may want to keep the whole thing forever

18:32

and just have it on the envelope. Right.

18:35

And again, these are things that people pay

18:38

attention to in the stamp world or collect. And

18:40

then there's another thing that that

18:42

you know, most of us who just use stamps as like normal

18:45

human beings UM have noticed

18:47

but don't really pay much attention to our the perforations

18:49

that we used to separate stamps. Like way

18:52

back in the day, stamps came in sheets

18:54

and you colonial person or

18:57

you know, UM second Industrial

19:00

age inhabitant, we're expected

19:02

to pull out your scissors and cut the stamps

19:04

into you know, little individual

19:06

singles. Then finally, UM,

19:09

an irishman named um

19:11

Henry Archer from Dublin came

19:14

up with a perforation tool. And

19:16

all you're doing is making the paper

19:19

at certain points thinner so that it's

19:21

easily torn at those points. And

19:24

so the first perforated stamp that came

19:26

out was the eighteen fifty British Penny

19:28

Red, which is pretty pretty quickly

19:31

after stamps were first invented postal

19:33

stamps um. And with

19:35

that Henry Archer created

19:38

this whole sub

19:41

category of stamp I

19:43

guess some categorization, a

19:46

subcategory of categorization that

19:48

is categorical. But

19:51

stamp collecting people philatilists.

19:54

Um. I'm i'd

19:56

like it the way I say it, more philatelists.

19:59

Now I should probably loud

20:03

um. So philatilists um, really

20:05

pay attention to perforations. It's

20:08

like a really important part of stamp

20:10

collecting. Yeah, because it can be

20:12

a big clue. I mean, it can be a clue as

20:14

to where it actually came from, because these people

20:16

know how they

20:18

have perforated things with different

20:21

machines and different parts of the world in different

20:23

eras. So it can be a

20:25

very big clue as to the age of the stamp

20:27

and where it came from. If they don't

20:29

have those perforations, they're called imperforate

20:31

imperforate, and then

20:34

you know, I talked about the little strips of stamps,

20:36

the coils those obviously you're just

20:38

gonna have the perforations on the sides and not the

20:40

top or the top, just not

20:42

both. Uh. Oh

20:44

interesting, I've never really. I guess it depends

20:47

on which way the art is oriented, right. Uh.

20:50

And then you've got the sheets

20:52

or the pain, and if it's on the outer

20:55

edges of that sheet or pain, it

20:57

probably won't have those perforations either. And

21:00

uh, it is a big deal. You'd be surprised.

21:03

Yeah. And those outer margins even have their

21:05

own word, chuck, salvage, which

21:08

also applies to like, you know, the the

21:10

hem of like your shirt or something that's

21:13

that's sewn in a certain way to keep it from unraveling.

21:15

That's called salvage too. But in the stamp collecting,

21:17

it's basically the margins, the sheets um

21:20

and sometimes they have you know, um

21:22

registration marks or dates or

21:24

you know, the number of the print run printed

21:27

in there. Some people collect that of course

21:29

as well, salvage stamps. I

21:31

love learning new words salvage.

21:34

I learned one yesterday. Parapet

21:38

mm hmm, you know what that is? No,

21:43

I mean, I've seen it before. I just cannot bring to

21:45

mind what it means. It's like the little And

21:47

I learned this because uh oh,

21:50

and it was gonna tell you this anyway. I had our buddy Wyatt

21:52

Sinek on movie Crush yesterday.

21:55

Oh cool, what do you talk about Blazing

21:57

Saddles? And there's

21:59

a scene where and I've seen Blazing

22:01

Saddles probably three

22:03

dozen times. It's up there with spinal

22:05

tap as far as comedies that I've seen, and

22:08

I know it basically by heart. And there's

22:10

a scene where mel Brooks's Governor Lepetta

22:12

Maine comes into the room and

22:14

he said, sorry, gentlemen, I was just out walking

22:16

the parapet and I never bothered

22:19

to look up what that meant until yesterday.

22:21

And it's the little if you're on top

22:23

of the building, it's the little half wall that

22:26

goes around the top of the building to keep you from

22:28

falling off off you

22:30

know more interesting. Yeah,

22:32

right, really banks up maschins

22:35

on your way down. So I never knew

22:37

that before walking the parapet. Yeah,

22:40

okay, So he was saying like he was basically walking

22:42

on the edge of a high wall.

22:44

I guess a low wall, Yeah, low

22:47

wall, high up with his selvage.

22:49

I got you. Oh

22:52

boy, so um, let's say Chuck

22:54

that you said I care about

22:56

perforations. I want to know more about these

22:59

registration marks on salvage. How

23:01

do I get into this filati um

23:04

as a hobby, Chuck? What would what

23:06

would you recommend people do to start?

23:08

Get a bank loand

23:12

no, you know, it is really one of the

23:14

cool things about stamp collecting is it's a very

23:16

low barrier to entry. You

23:19

need to get these little special

23:21

tongs, these little baby tweezers with rounded

23:23

tips, and you know,

23:26

if your your skin oils can mark a stampa,

23:29

you want to try and handle them with these little little

23:32

tweezers so you don't ruin them.

23:34

That's a good little tool to have. Uh,

23:36

you're gonna want to get an album or a binder, and

23:39

they make them especially you know, don't get on

23:41

one for like photographs. They make them specially for

23:43

stamps. And sometimes

23:46

they have little pockets that you can slip them in that

23:48

are adorable. And sometimes they have

23:50

hinges, which are little strips of

23:52

paper with a little bit of gum on them

23:54

to put the stamps on. You

23:56

might want to magnifying glass or a Jeweler's loop,

23:59

but you don't need a

24:01

microscope or anything. I think about

24:03

a ten X is probably the most

24:05

kind of magnification you'll need. Yes,

24:08

um eventually too, you're going to find

24:10

that you have perforation fever, and

24:13

you're going to get yourself a perf gage, which

24:16

is basically a specialized transparent

24:19

ruler that that you line

24:21

up the lines to the perforation

24:23

marks. And uh, the

24:26

gauge of a perforation is how many

24:28

perforation holes there

24:30

are per two centimeters. And

24:34

this is important because you know, some

24:36

stamps are exactly the same as other

24:38

stamps. The only difference is is like they

24:40

were printed on they were perforated

24:42

with slightly different machines or something like

24:44

that. Or you know, like the stamp

24:47

collecting community knows when a

24:49

perforating machines pin brakes.

24:52

They know about that machine, and it's

24:54

then so they can tell you where

24:56

that thing was printed and when and

24:58

what run it will is out of how many

25:01

just because there's a

25:03

a what's called a blind perforation where

25:05

the hole wasn't punched through where it should have been

25:08

in the one position on this one stamp,

25:11

Like that's how intensely

25:13

known stamps are by

25:15

the filate pilately community.

25:17

It's it's really cool. I think that's

25:20

one thing I like about it is how my opic it

25:22

can get and how specific it can

25:24

get. It's just, you know,

25:27

it's it's time well spent. And I bet

25:29

it's very calming. Yes, yeah,

25:31

just just researching it is calming.

25:33

You know, I fell asleep a few times. Stuff.

25:36

Stuff like that really comes through. When you're researching

25:38

something, you find you're relaxed. The

25:40

thing you're doing would be even more relaxing.

25:43

I think like making

25:45

flies, or painting like duck Decoy,

25:47

Yeah, yeah, I love that,

25:50

or or painting stamps like and

25:53

Fargo Margie's

25:56

husband. It's just the two cent norm

25:59

norm was great. I love it. Uh.

26:02

So you might want a internet connection.

26:05

Um, you will probably want to get a

26:07

stamp catalog and we'll talk about this sort of the big

26:09

books that are out there, uh

26:11

in a bit. But all of this stuff

26:14

is basically online now. But

26:16

you also might like having a book. If you're into stamps.

26:18

I bet you dollars to donuts

26:21

you might rather hold a book in your hand every

26:23

time you say that. You said that on Tuesday two

26:25

in one of the episodes. And yeah, every time

26:27

you say that, I think of this when Simpsons

26:29

where Homer goes deal and puts

26:31

his dollar down. It's

26:34

weird because I don't really say that expression much,

26:36

but I've said it twice in a week. Yeah, you

26:39

definitely did, because I thought about it the other day

26:41

too. Also did my that dumb

26:45

what we do in the Shadows guy in like two episodes

26:47

in a row. Yeah, and another point

26:49

too. It's so funny because I think it's a mild

26:51

transgression when we kind of cop

26:53

one another's words.

26:57

You use droll. Um.

27:00

I can't remember what episode, but you said droll,

27:02

and then I used it recently too

27:05

after that, and as I was saying it, I was like,

27:09

yeah, and I just use it. It's okay

27:11

if I use that word, So it's

27:13

fine. I'll lend you droll. Thank you,

27:16

buddy. I appreciate that. Uh, you

27:18

might want watermark detector fluid.

27:20

Actually that's a pretty good album name too. Um.

27:25

Sometimes stamps will have an anti counterfeiting

27:27

measure put in place with

27:30

a water mark, and sometimes

27:32

you can hold up stamp to the

27:34

light and see the water mark. And sometimes

27:36

you will need to dive a bit deeper and

27:39

put that water mark detector fluid

27:41

on there, and uh,

27:44

it's not that much money, but it's not necessarily.

27:46

The first thing you need in your kit is

27:48

a is a beginning gum liquor,

27:51

right, I mean, you're you're gonna basically

27:53

just be be looking at

27:55

well, that's a neat picture. I like that picture,

27:58

like, that's that's a cool stamp. And then

28:00

eventually you'll be like, what's on the back, what's the

28:02

secret hidden message that I'm missing

28:04

on this? That's right. I also saw there's machines

28:06

that you can get for about two fifty dollars

28:09

that are basically like those you know, those old

28:11

timey projector things

28:13

that they use in class, like

28:17

an overhead projector. Yes, yeah, but

28:19

this is a this is one that projects into

28:22

some sort of magnifier that you lean over and look

28:24

into. Um, there's like a light

28:26

bulb and you don't have to use any fluid.

28:28

It doesn't have any impact on your stamp

28:31

whatsoever. It's just just shows

28:33

you the watermark. It's pretty neat, all right.

28:35

I mean that's for the well healed philatilists.

28:38

I'm out. So

28:40

there's another thing you need that's really really

28:42

important. It's a basic part of stamp

28:45

collecting, that is stamps, That's

28:47

right. And if you're just getting started,

28:50

Uh, one thing you can do is go online

28:53

and you can buy just a lot or a collection

28:55

of stamps, a sort of a

28:57

grab bag that you have no idea what's in there

29:00

are And that can be a really fun way to get

29:02

started, because, like I mentioned earlier,

29:04

that's where you might poke through

29:06

and get inspired and say,

29:08

you know what, it turns out I really like this

29:11

particular kind of stamp or two, and

29:13

I think that might be what my focus should be.

29:16

And that's a good way to find that out. Yeah,

29:18

I mean, getting a grab bag of anything. It's

29:20

a good way to really find out who you who you really

29:22

are? You know

29:26

so, and that is something you can do. You can order

29:28

it online. If you live in a big enough city there's

29:30

probably a stamp collecting store.

29:33

Um. You can also like

29:35

I read this pamphlet by I think the American

29:38

philatli Association

29:40

or Society APS. I believe

29:43

they wrote the pamphlet um

29:46

and they yeah philatltic,

29:48

philatlic damn

29:51

that word, Okay,

29:54

philadelic. I think I got it right. Yeah,

29:57

okay. Um. The American Philadelic

29:59

is so Man

30:02

had a pamphlet and they basically said, if you're

30:04

a little kid and you don't have any money because your parents

30:07

don't give you an allowance or anything, you

30:09

could still get into stamp collecting. And they give

30:11

all these ideas of how to get free

30:13

stamps. Go to

30:15

like offices and be like, hey, you got any

30:18

mail, you guys get a lot of mail, You got any envelopes

30:20

you don't want anymore? Or start

30:23

find a pen pal in another country because

30:25

they'll have stamps that are a diamond

30:27

dozen to them, but to you it's

30:29

a foreign stamp, and you can just start sending each

30:32

other letters with you know, cool

30:34

stamps or even stamps inside

30:36

the envelope. Who knows. Um. There's a lot

30:38

of ways to get into stamp collecting, basically

30:41

for free or for the cost maybe

30:43

of a stamp. Um that that

30:45

which is again one of the one of the reasons why

30:47

stamp collecting is just so accessible. It costs

30:50

noct next to nothing to to get

30:52

into to get started with, and even when

30:54

you really get into it, it's not an expensive

30:57

hobby. No. And

30:59

if you know, if you get a bunch of stamps,

31:01

or you get a bunch of covers with stamps and

31:03

you're just beginning your your

31:06

journey. Um, you're gonna

31:08

get them all lamb out in a room, look

31:10

at him. Decide what you like. And

31:13

you don't want to just remove all. I

31:15

mean, you can do whatever you want, but uh,

31:18

I would advise that you decide

31:21

what you wanna um separate

31:23

from the cover because there

31:25

is a process involved that we're gonna go over now.

31:28

And it's not the hardest thing in the world.

31:30

But you don't want to do that to twenty

31:33

or thirty stamps that you're like, no, actually don't like

31:35

these after all, it's a waste of time.

31:37

Yeah, I mean, it's like that next level of preservation.

31:40

Um. And once you pick those out, what you do is

31:43

you get a bowl with warm

31:46

water, warm tap water. You

31:50

lose control of your bladder. Then

31:53

you start the stamp sorting process. That's right.

31:55

You go pp just a little bit, and

31:57

then you float that stamp if you have cut it away

31:59

for in the cover. If you decided to do that, leave

32:02

yourself a few centimeters around

32:04

the stamp, you know, don't get too close. Yeah,

32:06

but you make a good point you you want to go through

32:08

everything first and be like, are there any cool um

32:11

you know, cancelations on? Here? Is

32:14

this envelope just need you?

32:16

You don't necessarily want to separate all stamps

32:18

from envelopes

32:20

or exactly,

32:22

So you you want to make that decision

32:25

first, and then once you decide that you want just

32:27

the stamp, then you start cutting out and leave a

32:29

little envelope around it. Right, So you

32:31

float that little bad boy in

32:33

some warm tap water. Yeah,

32:36

you gotta float it stamp up, and

32:39

you can do a few at a time. But I wouldn't get too crazy

32:41

if you're just a little gum liquer and

32:44

I would wade into those warm waters. And

32:48

if it's from a Christmas envelope or something,

32:50

if it's like a red envelope, yes,

32:52

beware because that can very much discolor

32:55

your stamp. Hopefully it's

32:57

just like a good old fashioned white envelope. Wait

33:00

about ten or fifteen minutes and that stamp

33:02

will start to that gum will just sort of dissolve

33:05

away, and that stamp will kind of separate

33:07

and then float off on its own. Get

33:10

those tongs, those little tweezers out. You

33:12

don't want to just grab it with your grammy

33:15

old human fingers and

33:17

just kind of pat it dry,

33:19

and you've got yourself a stamp. You

33:21

want to be really careful though, because a wet stamp

33:24

is unsurprisingly very fragile.

33:27

A lot of people put um, there's

33:30

they're wet stamps on paper

33:32

towels. You want to make sure you've gotten all

33:34

the gum off first though. Um.

33:36

And then they put those paper towels in a heavy

33:38

book and then let the let

33:40

it dry like that. That's I mean

33:42

what we just described as phil

33:45

atalytic um

33:48

state of the art. Basically, that's

33:51

right. So you want to take

33:53

another break and they come back and talk a little stamp

33:56

history, famous stamps, that kind of stuff.

33:58

Yeah, I love this part. Let's do that alright.

34:24

So you mentioned stamp history. Uh,

34:28

they've been collecting stamp since the first stamp,

34:30

which is kind of cool. I don't know why someone said, you

34:33

know, I want to hang onto this, but someone

34:35

did. And uh. After May one,

34:38

Great Britain issued the Penny Black, the

34:41

very first postage stamp. It

34:43

was supposed to roll out on May six

34:45

as far as being used, but

34:47

they sent him out a little bit early to post offices,

34:50

so they were ready to go on May six, and

34:52

some post offices said, let's

34:55

just go ahead and kind of get the ball rolling because I've

34:57

been feeling we're going to be behind really quickly. And

34:59

so some of those little penny blacks are

35:01

dated earlier than May six, and

35:04

those will be worth a little bit more money,

35:07

but they are not like there were a bunch of penny

35:09

black So it's not like the Honus

35:11

Wagner baseball card. It's

35:14

not like the penny Black is the most valuable stamp

35:16

ever made. It's a little counterintuitive,

35:18

but rarity for any collection

35:21

is what makes it valuable, and they're just not as

35:23

rare as you might think, right, But that's

35:25

a good example of that cancelation

35:27

that people um will will collect

35:30

because you wanna canceled penny

35:32

black that pre dates that May sixty

35:35

team forty date because it's just unusual

35:38

and rare totally. That's

35:40

also I think May one, so

35:42

May one was the date where they

35:45

started issuing them, even

35:47

though that was five days early, so

35:49

that would be what's called the first day cover. It's

35:51

an envelope with the stamp that's

35:53

canceled on the first day of

35:55

issue. And sometimes there's even a special stamp

35:57

that they'll use, say first day issue. People

36:00

collect covers like that too. They

36:03

even have like ceremonies for these

36:05

kind of things, especially, I swear to God

36:07

if they're releasing a commemorative stamp.

36:09

In particular, there's definitive

36:11

stamps, which are your everyday, you

36:14

know, American Flag Forever stamp

36:16

um that they basically release

36:18

an unlimited quantities. Then there's commemorative

36:21

stamps. They usually have a more limited run.

36:23

They're available for a limited time. They

36:25

often commemorate a person and events something

36:28

like that um, And when they release

36:30

those stamps, they'll have like a ceremony

36:33

um at a specific post

36:35

office in a specific city with dignitaries

36:37

and famous people there. Sometimes they'll

36:40

print programs and everything. And if

36:42

you're a stamp collector, you want to be

36:44

at that first day ceremony or at

36:46

the very least you're collecting those kind of covers

36:48

too, if that's the kind of thing you're into, Yeah,

36:51

I think it's kind of awesome

36:54

that when you go to the post office still and you go

36:56

and ask for a book of stamps, if you have

36:58

no interest at all in stamp

37:00

collecting, they will present you, usually

37:03

with a few things, ago what kind of stamps you want?

37:06

And and anecdotally

37:08

I can say that most people choose

37:10

something rather than saying I don't care, I

37:13

just want something, to mail something, give

37:16

me questions. I've been plenty of post offices

37:18

and most people go, oh, those

37:20

dogs look nice. I'll take those. Yeah,

37:23

dogs playing poker even better, It's

37:25

cute. I love it. I pick out my stamps. I

37:27

don't spend a lot of time on it, but if they

37:29

present me with a few, I'll kind

37:32

of give them a quick once over and say, well, I'd

37:34

like to mail that represents me a little

37:36

bit, and that's kind of what it is. Give me those

37:38

Mr Rogers stamps. How are

37:40

there some? I'm sure there is. Yeah, I'll bring

37:42

you one. I'll mail you something

37:45

with one on it. Yeah,

37:47

I do, Okay, send me something for

37:49

sure, I will. Uh. You

37:52

mentioned the first day cover though, they people

37:54

will collect first day covers of just

37:58

very regular, commonly

38:00

issued stamps just because it's

38:02

the first day cover. Because you never

38:04

know that thing might be worth something one day. Right,

38:07

But that's what I'm saying. That's what they have those ceremonies

38:09

for two sometimes and then if

38:11

you have, like a something that's designed

38:13

or a design that's printed on a stamp is called

38:15

a cache. Yet another arcane jargon

38:18

term um. And people

38:20

spend a lot of time, by the way, I looked up

38:22

into the cache a world, and

38:25

there are stamp collectors

38:27

that very much get into making their

38:29

own caches and uh

38:32

special made caches, and it's a whole

38:34

other subset as well. Yeah, it's

38:36

basically you know, if you if you've ever seen an

38:38

envelope with a stamp of an angel

38:40

blowing a trumpet around Christmas time or something

38:42

like that, that's cache. Well,

38:45

I mean a cache is an additional like ink

38:48

stamp put on the envelope. That's what I'm saying,

38:50

Okay, like a stamps. Yeah,

38:53

I know that we need another term. I think that's what confused

38:55

rubber rubber ink stamp, A rubber ink

38:57

stamp of an angel blowing a horn around Christmas

39:00

time. I got you, I got you. So

39:02

um. America got into the stamp releasing

39:05

act less than a decade

39:07

after Great Britain, and Great Britain, by the

39:09

way, being the first nation on

39:11

the planet to issue postage

39:14

stamps, didn't bother to put

39:16

the nation of origin. If you look at every

39:18

other stamp ever issued by

39:20

a government authority, it has the nation

39:23

on it. Somewhere there's some signifier

39:25

that this came from America or Zimbabwe

39:28

or something like that. Um, Great Britain

39:30

still to this day doesn't because they were

39:32

the first, and so they still don't don't put

39:35

Great Britain or UK or anything on their stamps.

39:38

Right, it's pretty cool. Yep. So America

39:40

got into it in eighteen forty seven July

39:42

first, No less, there was a five cent Benjamin

39:45

Franklin at ten cent George Washington

39:47

And what else did we need? You know? Yeah?

39:51

And this is not you know, we It

39:53

can get confusing when you think of like the Stamp

39:56

Act and you know, stamping t and things

39:58

like that. Those were different kinds

40:00

of stamps. We used to stamp tax

40:02

bills and permits and any kind of government

40:05

sort of thing exchange might

40:08

be stamped. That is a revenue

40:10

stamp, and you it's

40:13

sort of just a different world. Like if

40:16

you collect postage stamps, you

40:18

might also collect revenue stamps,

40:20

but there you keep them separate. You don't

40:22

put them together. You don't tell

40:24

your friends who collect postage stamps

40:26

that you're collecting revenue or fiscal stamps

40:29

that's your postage. Stamps

40:31

are kind of where the bread and butter is for stamp

40:34

collecting. I think so, like we said

40:36

um before, the kind of like

40:38

one of the recognized authorities on stamp

40:41

collecting and stamps in general is the Scott

40:43

Catalog, which has been produced from

40:45

a company in Ohio since eighteen

40:48

sixty eight, and they basically just

40:50

started tracking stamp after

40:52

stamp. So the lower the number

40:54

associated with the stamp that the Scott

40:56

Catalog has given that stamp, the earlier

40:59

the stamp is released, and

41:01

so over time it's grown into I think

41:03

a twelve volume collection

41:07

catalog the Scott Catalog has,

41:09

but it's so widely known and

41:11

widely used that a lot of stamps

41:13

are just are discovered or described and

41:16

talked about by their Scott Catalog

41:18

number rather than you know, whatever

41:21

common name they have, right.

41:23

And there are prefixes and suffixes,

41:26

uh if there are different special issued

41:28

stamps or some of those errors you're talking

41:30

about, or some rad purse Um,

41:33

the inverted Jenny which we'll talk about in a minute,

41:36

like that's known as C three A in

41:38

the stamp world, this C denotes

41:40

airmail stamps. Yeah,

41:43

which is great and little

41:45

counterintuitive, a little

41:47

bit. Sure it would be an A in my world

41:50

you would think so, But I think A is

41:53

for awesome. The most awesome

41:55

stamps is what the A has reserved

41:57

for. There's also the Michelle Catalog

41:59

from Germany, and that is

42:01

around to fill in the gaps that the Scott

42:04

Guide does not cover, because the Scott Guide

42:06

is American and they're like, we don't want

42:09

Cuban stamps in our book.

42:11

Can you believe it? Yeah, it's weird. If

42:13

there were nations that are embargoed or whatever,

42:16

h sometimes they will not be I think North Korean

42:18

stamps too, are not in the Scott

42:21

Catalog. So the Michelle Catalog comes around

42:23

because they're German and they're like, sure, we'll cover

42:25

it. It's fine, sure. Um.

42:28

So it turns out that there's

42:30

actually been a pretty decent amount of famous

42:32

people who collect stamps.

42:35

Um. Just because there's so many

42:37

people who collect stamps, some of them are

42:39

bound to be famous. Right. John

42:41

Lennon, Yeah, I read

42:43

about his stamp collecting. He seems to have inherited

42:46

his cousin Stanley's stamp collection

42:48

basically changed the name on the cover

42:50

of the album to his name, and then you

42:53

know, added a few more stamps. He doesn't seem to have been

42:55

a passionate philatilist by any stretch.

42:57

From what um

43:00

Eine Rand was I

43:03

know. Uh. And then

43:06

Patrick Dempsey I saw reference

43:09

here there. Yeah.

43:13

And then Queen Elizabeth the Second

43:15

apparently as a stamp collector um.

43:18

And then Sally Ride was a very famous

43:20

philadelist as well and ended up on a stamp

43:22

her self. Yes, sadly.

43:25

Um. This is something that I think is

43:27

super cool, the fact that Sally Ride

43:29

was fine. She didn't die in an act that was

43:32

Christie mcculloff. That's what I was thinking of. Did

43:35

you ever see that Challenger documentary yet? I

43:37

still haven't. It's a man, it is

43:39

just astounding. You can't

43:41

believe it. I can't believe the interviews that

43:43

they got and what they got the people to

43:45

finally admit to. It's crazy amazing.

43:48

Amelia Earhart, I think this is super cool. She

43:51

actually funded some of her aviation

43:54

expeditions, uh, including

43:56

some of those transatlantic flights with

43:59

stamps. She would get covers

44:02

and she would sometimes their cash cachide

44:05

and she would get stamps, and she would

44:07

fly to places and get them postmarked,

44:10

and it would be obviously super valuable.

44:12

She might even sign it sometimes

44:14

and sell them and this would be like, boy,

44:17

this is a cover and a stamp from

44:20

Amelia Earhart's flight across the

44:22

ocean. Uh, stamped

44:24

here and in like England or something,

44:27

or stamped in England or canceled. I guess

44:29

in England. And Uh.

44:32

When she went down in that plane there were

44:34

five with along with poor fred Noonan, there

44:37

were five thousand covers that she had pre

44:39

sold to fund that flight that were

44:41

stamped and postmarked for her stops

44:43

around the world. Very

44:45

cool fact that brought to mind the

44:47

mail on the Titanic. Remember we were making fun

44:50

of people dropping off their mail. Apparently

44:52

there was a lot of mail on the Titanic and

44:54

I didn't think about it. But it wasn't just

44:56

people dropping off their mail. Passengers

44:59

on the titan and mailing postcards.

45:02

R MS stands for Royal

45:05

Male Ship, so the RMS Titanic

45:08

was a mail carrier too, so it was carrying

45:11

British and Irish and European

45:13

mail over to America as

45:16

well. And from what I could tell, none

45:18

of it survived. There's a surviving letter

45:20

that was not mail, that was written on Titanic

45:22

letterhead, but it was kept in somebody's belongings.

45:25

But I guess all of the male workers

45:28

on the Titanic died basically trying

45:30

to save the mail, but they were unable

45:32

to and it's still down there. But they think

45:35

it's possible some of it still preserved

45:37

and they might bring it up someday. President

45:40

Roosevelt was a very dedicated

45:43

stamp collector FDR pre

45:45

presidency and then through his presidency,

45:48

which was many, many years. And

45:50

this is interesting and that the president has

45:52

the ear of the Postmaster General

45:55

and it seems unfair. Well, I

45:57

mean, I think it's kind of cool though, Like he got into it

45:59

and he wasn't just like, yeah, just print

46:01

a bunch of stamps, it's fine, like every other

46:03

president. Um. In the nineteen

46:05

thirties he got together with General James A. Farley

46:08

of the Postmaster General and

46:10

said, you know, let's help. I want

46:12

to help design these things, and let's brainstorm

46:14

colors and themes and designs. And but

46:18

if he was terrible at it, and

46:20

Farley would see him come into like oh

46:23

here comes another bad idea from FDR

46:26

figures had like gigantic hands and

46:28

stuff. But he was

46:30

the president, so Farley had to release the

46:32

stupid stamps. That's pretty funny,

46:35

uh, but it's kind of cool though. He did

46:37

sketch out ideas apparently, and in

46:39

his collection he had some full

46:42

sheets and he had some die proofs and stuff

46:44

like that, so he did he did have

46:46

a an advantage for sure. Yeah.

46:48

Apparently they used to release a lot of pictures of him

46:51

collecting stamps as part of like calm

46:53

reassurance to the nation that there was like a steady

46:56

hand um literally and figuratively

46:59

and leading the country, which is kind of

47:01

cool. Can we talk about the Inverted Jenny

47:03

the coolest stamping? Yeah, there's

47:05

a bunch of famous stamps, we should say, the Inverted

47:07

Jenny is not the most, the most

47:10

the high the most valuable stamp that

47:12

goes to the um the British

47:14

Guiana magenta, right,

47:17

Yeah, which isn't that great looking,

47:19

but it's just rare. I guess I think there's

47:22

only one of it in in um

47:24

in existence, the British Guiana one sent magenta,

47:27

but the the far and away the Inverted

47:30

Jenny is the the most famous

47:33

stamp of all time has to be. Yeah.

47:35

So in nineteen eighteen, the U

47:38

S commissioned to stamp to commemorate the

47:40

first air mail service

47:42

going on. And so they decided

47:44

on a two color stamp with a plane

47:46

on it OC Curtis j N four.

47:49

And when you do something with two colors, you print

47:52

the first thing. In this case, it was the red frame

47:54

around the plane, and

47:56

then the second thing that they would print with the the blue

47:58

plane itself. And there was an

48:01

error at one point, and there were a few pains

48:03

where it was flipped upside down and it was either

48:06

the sheet or the printing plate was upside

48:08

down, and so that the jenny was

48:10

inverted, and you've got this upside

48:13

down plane. And all of a sudden,

48:15

stamp collectors get winded this and they're

48:17

like, oh my gosh, there was a mistake. We

48:20

need to get our hands on some of these. Yeah.

48:22

This guy named William Roby showed up at

48:24

the printing press and said, do you

48:26

have any that are messed up that are upside

48:29

down? And they had found that

48:31

they had printed some accidentally. Uh,

48:33

and all but one sheet was destroyed.

48:35

So one hundred inverted Jennis

48:38

were produced, which makes it not one of the

48:40

rare stamps around. Remember that that British

48:42

key on um one set in Jenna. There's only one.

48:44

There's only one Benjamin Franklin z Grill.

48:47

There's a hundred of these things. But

48:49

um, people just love them. They go bonkers

48:52

for them. Uh. And as a matter of fact,

48:54

one of the reasons why the Inverted Jenny

48:56

has become such a a sought after

49:00

part of the stamp collecting world is

49:02

because it's it's just been

49:04

in the spotlight so much like there's been some

49:06

really high profile thefts

49:09

of inverted Jenny's over the years. There was

49:11

some one block of four called the McCoy

49:13

block that was stolen in nineteen

49:15

fifty five, and every couple

49:17

of decades one of them is recovered and there's

49:20

a big to do about it. Um.

49:22

There was another theft from the New York Public Library

49:24

nineteen seven that was finally

49:26

recovered years later. Um. It's

49:29

just something about that stamp makes

49:31

it the most the most famous of all

49:33

time, that's right. And then that's

49:35

one case there was a dealer or

49:38

those This man who purchased the sheets sold it

49:40

to a dealer dealer sells it to this

49:42

wealthy businessman, and the

49:44

dealer had penciled in numbers on the back

49:46

of these stamps individually

49:48

so you could identify the stamps,

49:52

which of course it meant it was not in mint condition,

49:54

but they were at least identifiable. And

49:57

I think the story goes that one of these was

49:59

stole one and it turned up in the

50:01

eighties with the perforations cut off

50:04

and the number on the back was changed to a nine,

50:07

which wasn't a stamp that had ever been circulated.

50:10

So they knew that it was the stolen stamp,

50:14

right, but they thought that it could

50:16

have been this nine that had never been

50:18

circulated, that it made its way in a circulation.

50:20

But it wasn't until two thousand two

50:23

when a woman's locket, the wife

50:25

of Colonel Edward Green, the

50:27

guy who bought that original block

50:29

of one that businessman um

50:32

she died in her locket made its way

50:34

into auction and somebody opened

50:36

it up and found that the inverted jenny

50:38

in the number nine position was actually

50:41

in the locket, So the other one was found to

50:43

be a fraud that way, which is just

50:45

you can't write this stuff, you know, I

50:47

think you met Colonel Mustard. It's Mr Green,

50:50

I know. I thought the same thing, Professor

50:53

Plum. Pretty cool story though.

50:56

I think the last one in nineteen

50:59

sold for one three five mills, So yeah,

51:01

there was a block of them. I think, not the most valuable,

51:04

but pretty pretty brighty plus.

51:06

Also, it made its way into

51:08

one of the better movies that came out of the

51:10

eighties, Brewsters Millions, Remember, Oh

51:13

sure was that in there? Yeah, he burned up

51:15

like a bunch of money by mailing a postcard

51:18

using the inverted Jenny

51:20

is mail. That's a fun fact. Yeah,

51:23

yeah, pretty cool. Huh. I

51:25

love it. And that ties in with Blazing Saddles because

51:27

Richard Pryor almost played Sheriff

51:29

Bart Oh nice. What was

51:31

the name of the actor who did in? Said Cleveland

51:34

Little, who was a great But Richard Pryor was a

51:36

writer on the movie. Okay, uh,

51:39

you got anything else about Richard Pryor or philatili

51:42

Nope, neither do I. But

51:44

there is a ton out

51:46

there, Like I read an article about the

51:48

serial number that's written on the side of the

51:50

plane on the Inverted Jenny and how

51:53

Philatilists got to the bottom of

51:55

why that serial number was used. Like

51:57

I mean, there is a lot of information

51:59

out there, and there's a lot of stamps to collect.

52:01

So go forth and try out a new hobby

52:04

and see what you think. And since I said go forth,

52:06

that means, of course it's time for a listener, ma'am. I'm

52:11

gonna call this heartfelt thanks. Hey guys,

52:13

as we mark the one year anniversary of the COVID Lockdown,

52:16

I'm compelled to write and thank you for what you've done, what you do,

52:18

and hopefully what you will continue to do.

52:20

Yours was my first podcast subscription

52:23

from several years back, and as

52:25

a stay at home mom, that has uh,

52:27

that list has grown substantially across several genres

52:30

and I'm plugged in constantly when I cleaned, cook

52:32

exercise, et cetera. When Lockdown

52:34

was first initiated here in California, I

52:37

try to keep as normal as schedule as possible. Despite

52:39

all three of my children relegated to home for

52:42

distance learning. UH, none

52:44

of my at least dozen podcasts

52:46

seemed appropriate to absorb except

52:48

for yours. The funny ones seemed too trivial,

52:51

the crime ones too gruesome, the historians too

52:53

dry, and none could keep my attention

52:56

again except for yours. Your show

52:59

is such the perfect balt between knowledge, lightheartedness,

53:01

sincerity, and understanding, and the

53:03

true friendship radiates from your voices.

53:06

Uh, and it's incredibly soothing. I

53:08

revisited your past episodes for ten months

53:10

before I was able to keep listening to

53:12

anything else. I'm sure I'm not alone when

53:14

I say I don't know how I would have gotten through this past

53:16

year without YouTube filtering out all the negative

53:19

vibes in my head. You two are the

53:21

bestest friends I've never met. Keep

53:23

on keeping on, and that is Zeneida

53:26

Johnson of San Jose, California.

53:29

Man, that was a bang up email, Zeneida,

53:32

thank you very much for that. It is and

53:34

believe it or not, we need to hear that stuff too,

53:36

so we really appreciate it. Yeah,

53:39

I mean, well, I'll never get tired of hearing that.

53:41

But it's all, you know, It's just we talked

53:43

about a pat on the back, you know, being hearing

53:46

that we help people get through the pandemic.

53:48

Is that's about as high praise as you can get

53:51

these days. Means a lot. Yeah, thanks

53:53

a lot, Zeneida. Um, and uh, we're

53:55

glad that we could help you out and everybody

53:57

who we helped out and everybody who

53:59

we sly lee, annoyed or made laugh or did

54:01

anything or last year or thirteen years, thank

54:04

you for listening. How about that if

54:06

you want to get thank you. If you want

54:08

to get in touch of this like Zenaida is it Zenator

54:11

zane Ida Zenaida she even uh

54:13

was kind enough to put a little pronunciation guide very

54:15

nice. If you want to get in touch of this like Zenaida

54:18

did, then you can send us an email to

54:20

stuff. Oh wait, don't forget to lick

54:23

a stamp and slap it on the bottom

54:25

with that stamp and then send it off to

54:27

Stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.

54:32

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54:35

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