Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
... but it was worth it!
Lars
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Encased stamps were also used in the early 20th century by France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Austria. Similar to the purpose of the encased stamps used during the U.S. civil war, these metallic currencies hoped to solve a coinage shortage due to wars and other territorial conflicts. The above image shows French, German and Austrian encased stamps.
steve
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This is one of the benefits of removing precious metals from coins: There is not likely to be much hoarding in times of conflict or economic turmoil and therefore no need for encapsulated stamps. US pennies have been copper plated zinc since 1982. We all know dimes, quarters, and halves went from 90% silver to "sandwich" coins in 1965 (75% copper / 25% nickel jacketing a copper core).
Even if you could melt down U.S. coins free of charge and it wasn't illegal to do so, you wouldn't get more than face value in metals so it would make no sense to do so. I suppose hyper-inflation would change the calculus, but I can imagine a dozen other very unpleasant scenarios that are far more likely than hyper-inflation in the western world, at least.
Lars
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Thankyou
I have encased coins in my postal history collection but knew nothing about Postal Currency on treasury paper The search is on.....
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The stamp banknotes are officially known as fractional currency also colloquially known as shinplasters in America and calabashes down under. Most don't have stamps on them so it might be a small collection but generally not as expensive as the coins.
The original contract was given to 2 printers American & National Bank Note. National made them with perfs but this was short lived & good examples are scarce & valuable
I do not believe they all had reverse side printing
A noteworthy item is that fractional currency brought about the "no portrait or likeness of any living person" rule passed by Congress due to certain high ranking Bureau & Treasury officials putting their portraits on them.
In Canada we still have fractional currency that can be exchanged for goods 
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An additional collecting theme related to the coinage shortage during the American Civil War:
Before encased stamps, people would pay for goods and services with stamps carried in their pockets and purses. And vendors would make change for purchased goods with stamps.
All of this usage quickly resulted in damaged stamps with sometimes unrecognizable denominations. The local post offices would not exchange damaged stamps for new ones, so a remedy was needed.
A few enterprising printers provided a solution with small envelopes into which stamps would be placed. On the front of the envelopes would be printed “10 cents,†“25 cents,†or whatever the value of the stamps that the envelope contained.
. 
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Thankyou very much... a new page has been added to my postal history binder...and I have located a few. I shall watch and see it one falls within my price range. This is why Stamporama is the best group of stampers...awesome friends
ps make that 2 pages Nelson and Phil
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Yes Nelson and that Canadian Tire plastic points card is making the paper currency more collectable....
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I sold some encased stamps on ebay for my dad several years ago. He had some cool ones from France, New Caldonia and Germany. I was surprised at the prices they fetched.
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Postal currency and fractional currency are two different things in my book. Fractional currency was just normal currency for amounts less than $1. Postal currency was a different animal entirely.
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10-4 on that. Dad also has a complete set of US fractional currency. He is super proud of it and always says that it is "uncirculated". I was looking at his album and one of the notes very clearly had a broad crease through it. When I pointed this out to him and told him that this technically takes it out of the "uncirculated" grade he got a little ticked. I guess I should have kept my mouth shut and just kept telling him how beautiful the notes are; which in fact, they truly are. : )
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As they say, Denile ain't just a river in Egypt.
Several years ago at a club meeting we were having a Show & Tell night, probably related to a letter of the alphabet. Our president had an overprint of which he was justifiably proud, assuming that it was the real deal. It wasn't. I had my 8X loupe with me, and took a look at it. The "overprint" was clearly on top of the cancellation. I said, "George (not his real name), I'm afraid that this is a bogus stamp. The overprint is fake." I offered him the stamp and my loupe. "Here, have a look." George, looking straight ahead in a good imitation of the "Thousand Yard Stare": "Nope." It was clear that he was not about to admit he had paid a lot of money for a fake stamp.
The Thousand Yard Stare by Tom Lea (image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
I understand, sort of, how belief forces believers to ignore concrete evidence. Hence our problems with climate change, which many people deny because they don't "believe" in it despite the evidence to the contrary and in the blind hope — "faith" — that it will go away. An op-ed column in The Guardian this weekend suggests that climate scientists, who to some extent "believe" in climate change because of mostly irrefutable evidence, fail to understand the nature of belief and will never get their point across by pointing to facts. Now, I don't think that George "believed" that his stamp was a legitimate overprint, not after the evidence I presented. But I do think that he couldn't bring himself to admit it, much in the same way that an abused woman cannot admit to herself that she's in a relationship with, at best, a bully, at worst a sociopath.
Bob
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Mounting them is certainly a challenge...
... but it was worth it!
Lars
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re: Stamp or Coin
Encased stamps were also used in the early 20th century by France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Austria. Similar to the purpose of the encased stamps used during the U.S. civil war, these metallic currencies hoped to solve a coinage shortage due to wars and other territorial conflicts. The above image shows French, German and Austrian encased stamps.
steve
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re: Stamp or Coin
This is one of the benefits of removing precious metals from coins: There is not likely to be much hoarding in times of conflict or economic turmoil and therefore no need for encapsulated stamps. US pennies have been copper plated zinc since 1982. We all know dimes, quarters, and halves went from 90% silver to "sandwich" coins in 1965 (75% copper / 25% nickel jacketing a copper core).
Even if you could melt down U.S. coins free of charge and it wasn't illegal to do so, you wouldn't get more than face value in metals so it would make no sense to do so. I suppose hyper-inflation would change the calculus, but I can imagine a dozen other very unpleasant scenarios that are far more likely than hyper-inflation in the western world, at least.
Lars
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10:36:30pm
re: Stamp or Coin
Thankyou
I have encased coins in my postal history collection but knew nothing about Postal Currency on treasury paper The search is on.....
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07:32:10am
re: Stamp or Coin
The stamp banknotes are officially known as fractional currency also colloquially known as shinplasters in America and calabashes down under. Most don't have stamps on them so it might be a small collection but generally not as expensive as the coins.
The original contract was given to 2 printers American & National Bank Note. National made them with perfs but this was short lived & good examples are scarce & valuable
I do not believe they all had reverse side printing
A noteworthy item is that fractional currency brought about the "no portrait or likeness of any living person" rule passed by Congress due to certain high ranking Bureau & Treasury officials putting their portraits on them.
In Canada we still have fractional currency that can be exchanged for goods
4 Members
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re: Stamp or Coin
An additional collecting theme related to the coinage shortage during the American Civil War:
Before encased stamps, people would pay for goods and services with stamps carried in their pockets and purses. And vendors would make change for purchased goods with stamps.
All of this usage quickly resulted in damaged stamps with sometimes unrecognizable denominations. The local post offices would not exchange damaged stamps for new ones, so a remedy was needed.
A few enterprising printers provided a solution with small envelopes into which stamps would be placed. On the front of the envelopes would be printed “10 cents,†“25 cents,†or whatever the value of the stamps that the envelope contained.
.
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09:25:30am
re: Stamp or Coin
Thankyou very much... a new page has been added to my postal history binder...and I have located a few. I shall watch and see it one falls within my price range. This is why Stamporama is the best group of stampers...awesome friends
ps make that 2 pages Nelson and Phil
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Login to Like.
05:09:43pm
re: Stamp or Coin
Yes Nelson and that Canadian Tire plastic points card is making the paper currency more collectable....
Login to Like
this post
re: Stamp or Coin
I sold some encased stamps on ebay for my dad several years ago. He had some cool ones from France, New Caldonia and Germany. I was surprised at the prices they fetched.
Login to Like
this post
re: Stamp or Coin
Postal currency and fractional currency are two different things in my book. Fractional currency was just normal currency for amounts less than $1. Postal currency was a different animal entirely.
Login to Like
this post
re: Stamp or Coin
10-4 on that. Dad also has a complete set of US fractional currency. He is super proud of it and always says that it is "uncirculated". I was looking at his album and one of the notes very clearly had a broad crease through it. When I pointed this out to him and told him that this technically takes it out of the "uncirculated" grade he got a little ticked. I guess I should have kept my mouth shut and just kept telling him how beautiful the notes are; which in fact, they truly are. : )
Login to Like
this post
re: Stamp or Coin
As they say, Denile ain't just a river in Egypt.
Several years ago at a club meeting we were having a Show & Tell night, probably related to a letter of the alphabet. Our president had an overprint of which he was justifiably proud, assuming that it was the real deal. It wasn't. I had my 8X loupe with me, and took a look at it. The "overprint" was clearly on top of the cancellation. I said, "George (not his real name), I'm afraid that this is a bogus stamp. The overprint is fake." I offered him the stamp and my loupe. "Here, have a look." George, looking straight ahead in a good imitation of the "Thousand Yard Stare": "Nope." It was clear that he was not about to admit he had paid a lot of money for a fake stamp.
The Thousand Yard Stare by Tom Lea (image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
I understand, sort of, how belief forces believers to ignore concrete evidence. Hence our problems with climate change, which many people deny because they don't "believe" in it despite the evidence to the contrary and in the blind hope — "faith" — that it will go away. An op-ed column in The Guardian this weekend suggests that climate scientists, who to some extent "believe" in climate change because of mostly irrefutable evidence, fail to understand the nature of belief and will never get their point across by pointing to facts. Now, I don't think that George "believed" that his stamp was a legitimate overprint, not after the evidence I presented. But I do think that he couldn't bring himself to admit it, much in the same way that an abused woman cannot admit to herself that she's in a relationship with, at best, a bully, at worst a sociopath.
Bob
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