Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/395

 io> s. i. APRIL 23, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

32$

" C. J. Armstrong, Bexley, Kent, will be glad to exchange foreign postage stamps. And S. G. L., Arbourfiehl, Streatham Hill, Surrey, has also a collection. The latter will exchange, but will accept no remittance beyond postage for his answers to enquiries." August, 1861.

" E. Pemberton, Warstone House, near Birming- ham, would be glad to effect exchanges with stamp collectors per post." September, 1861.

This is interesting as being evidently the first appearance of Mr. Edward L. Pemberton (born 1844, died 1878), the well-known writer on philately. An ' In Memoriam ' notice and portrait are given in the Philatelic Record for February, 1879.

" Extra Prize for January. We have received scores of applications from subscribers to open up a correspondence on the subject of Foreign Postage Stamps, giving the names and addresses of those who are desirous of exchanging or purchasing such stamps. As far as we could, we have done so ; but h'nding it impossible to meet the requirements of all our applicants in this respect, we now offer one of our usual prizes to him who will, on or before the .">th of December next, send us the completest col- lection of Foreign Postage Stamps, such collection to be engraved and published in the Boy's Own Magazine. The collection must be accompanied by an introduction." November, 1861.

"H. Barber, 44, Douglas Street, Deptford, S.E., wishes to announce that he has above 400 foreign postage stamps, many of them duplicates." Decem- ber, 1861.

This seems to be the first trade advertise- ment, as after this H. Barber advertises every month, sometimes mentioning special stamps.

" Foreign Postage Stamps ; Extra Prize for January. There is not a shade of doubt, all thin,, considered, that the winner of this prize is entitled to it, still there are several other very good collec- tions. The best collection possesses the following characteristics : a tersely written introduction, admirable arrangement, great variety, and remark- able neatness in niounting. On the first opportunity we will publish in the Boy's Own Magazine a selec- tion from these foreign stamps. Many of our stamp- collecting subscribers will be pleased to possess the following list of those with whom they may corre- spond with reference to their common pursuit : H. F. Winter, The College, Chester (Prize)," &c. January, 1862.

A list of twelve subscribers follows, several of the addresses being schools. The promisee selection of stamps is not published in thi volume, which is the last of the first series.

" Foreign Stamp Collectors are informed that an advertisement announcing their desire to exchange or sell foreign stamps can be inserted in the Boy. Own Magazine for 1*. 6rf." January, 1862.

In March there are five advertisements foi exchange or purchase, and the number in creases monthly ; by December, 1862, there are two pages of advertisements, doubl columns. By July advertisers offer to senc lists, and special stamps Modena, Xaple &c. are mentioned. In September and the

ollowing months there are advertisements of lew and unused foreign stamps, italicized as- f these were considered specially valuable.

I recently received some interesting re- miniscences from Mr. Samuel Allan Taylor, Boston, the doyen of American philatelic- iealers and editors. I find his advertisements n the Boy's Own Magazine for 1863, and I iave before me vol. i. (the late Mr. Tiffany's- >opy) of his Stamp Collector's Record, begun at Montreal in February, 1864, and continued 1 t Albany and Boston. .Referring to Judge Suppantschitsch's supposed discovery, Mr. Taylor writes :

"I do not think that any German, Frenchman,.

Swede, Russian, Turk, or Southern European

leathen of any kind is entitled to more than a smile

of pity from Englishmen when he attempts to dis-

oyer anything concerned with Philately or any-

hing else in English printed literature The

sarliest notice in print on this side is, as far as I iave ever seen, a paragraph in November, 1860 r which stated that young girls were collecting the stamps of different nations. This appeared in a< nonthly periodical called Littell's Living Age, pub- isbed here in Boston. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the Rebel States quickly issued stamps
 * or themselves special ones first like Mobile, New

Orleans, Nashville. &c. These were counterfeited 9y a Philadelphia firm, and were reproduced in sheets of six (i.e., six of a kind) and sold by news- boys in the street and in stationers' stores, not at all as Philatelic treasures, but as curiosities of the Rebels. They sold some half dozen sheets for lOc. The words 'Facsimile Rebel Postage Stamp, printed by S. C. Upham. Philadelphia,' were printed in* small type on each sheet. This thing was largely instrumental in bringing stamp collecting into vogue. The first person who sold stamps as a business was a man named James Brennan, who opened a small office (a very small place not over 10 feet square) at 37, Nassau Street, New York, in 1863. He pub- lished a list, the type, style, size, &c., having been copied from one printed by James Robinson, of Liverpool. This was a foolscap size, 4 pp. thing, but the prices were filled in with the pen. Before that one A. C. Kline, now dead, of Philadelphia r had issued a ' Manual,' a copy of Mount Brown's first issue merely. Kline was a dealer in antiques, old coins, armour, firearms, &c., and stamps were only a small portion of his business. He kept a quite good-sized store on the ground floor. Another person, \Vm. P. Brown, 212, Broadway, New York, who is still in existence, and who then as now is more of a coin dealer and authority than a stamp man, sold stamps, but only through the medium of the mail, not having any office, he being a printer in a weekly newspaper office (of which his father, a distinguished clergyman, was editor). I believe that for some time he had a stand attached to the railing of the City Hall Park, as also had another man named John Bailey, but the business was largely coins and odd things, even military buttons. No one then knew what stamps existed, until the manuals of Mount Brown, Baillieu, Potiquet, and others appeared. This was all in New York of course. J. W. Scott, who is a native of London,

came to New York in 1863, he being then a lad of fifteen years. He came across Brown at his stand