Like any collectible, the philatelic world has its champions – the rarest, the highest price paid at auction. Some of these have long and interesting histories apart from the price paid.
1840 One Penny Black
The first issued stamps, One Penny Blacks, are not extraordinarily rare. Yet one sold over 15 years ago at auction for over [...]

Many enthusiastic philatelist has reached a lull in collecting at some point. The affordable gems are coming less frequently and growing out of your price range. To keep the momentum going, you can start looking for the unusual. Perfins are one of those great oddities that can flesh out a collection.
Perfins are stamps, invented in [...]

Determining the value of a stamp can be a complex affair. It’s made more so by the existence of forgeries.
The motives for producing counterfeit stamps is no doubt very much the same as for forging currency: to increase the value of a piece of paper otherwise worth much less. The methods are often ingenious, since [...]