THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF MAXIMUM CARDS

Maximum cards were born in Egypt in 1893 by sheer chance. It happened when a tourist mailed a picture postcard depicting a pyramid and the Sphinx to a friend in Germany. Contrary to postal regulations, he decided to affix an Egyptian stamp featuring the said monuments on the view side of the postcard instead of the address/message side. Four months later, under similar circustances, Portugal saw the birth of the second maximum card. Whether it was by design or purely accidental we may never know; what is certain is that it was the beginning of a long journey into philately that culminated in 1978 when the International Federation of Philately (FIP) recognized maximaphily as an official branch of philately.
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A brief introduction to the Stamps of the Aegean Islands

During the second half of the 1800ss Russia, France and Austria opened post offices in Rhodes. Italian interest in the Aegean region began to surface with the blockade of Crete (1897), followed by the opening of an Italian civilian post office at Canea in 1900. During the Italo/Turkish conflict in Libya (1911) it became apparent that in order to win the war the Italians had to engage the Turks on the sea. READ MORE…

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Virgin Island Stamps

Two major collections of BVI stamps and covers auctioned in 2003 (New York) and 2004 (London) resulted in stunningly high realizations totalling in excess of US$650,000. Stamp expert Giorgio Migliavacca, editor of the B.V.I. Specialised Stamp Catalogue 1787-2001, and  author of fourteen books on stamps and postal history, explains why Virgin Island stamps are treasured by collectors worldwide.
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A philatelic profile of Fiume

At the end of World War One the Croatian port of Fiume (now called Rijeka) on the East side of the Northern Adriatic Sea became the subject of controversy between the new nation of Yugoslavia and Italy. Fiume dates back to Roman times when it was called “Tarsatica” or “Terra Fluminis Sancti Viti” (the river-land of St Vitus); Fiume, in fact means river.
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