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From the Stamp Specialist

Miscellany, Part 1 by George B. Sloane
Volume I, Part I, published in 1939

A “MISCELLANY” collection can be anything that you choose to make it, and I think that is one of its principal attractions—its rugged individualism. You need have no particular goal in mind, you just follow along wherever the material leads. Such a thing as “completeness” is something that you will never give serious thought to, as you acquire one item after another. You can knock off and quit whenever the spirit moves you, and pick it up again at any time in the future and carry on just where you left off.

It is entirely up to the owner, and the collection can constitute fifty pages, just enough to fill an album, or it can be expanded …

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From the Stamp Specialist

Miscellany, Part 2 by George B. Sloane
Volume I, Part I, published in 1939

For another page I have selected two covers as representative of some of the more bizarre types of postmarking designs indulged in by postmasters in the past. In earlier days, the Post Office Department did not always supply the cancellation forms and postmasters were obliged to order them from private manufacturers. Some postmasters with a keen sense of humor ingeniously
devised their own handstamps, usually whittling them out of cork. An artist in this respect was the postmaster at Waterbury, Conn., and his postmarks are …

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