iHobb.com

San Diego Stamp Show - iHobb.com
We just spent a long weekend at our first stamp show. What a wonderful opportunity it has been to meet many of our online customers in person, and we received invaluable feedback from a broad range of collectors, about what collectors are seeking, and also many kind remarks about our website and service. We are always looking to improve and to better meet the needs of collectors.

The 2022 Supplements have arrived from
Scott and have answered a question that many have asked: How will they deal with the U.S. #5735 Schultz "Peanuts"? Will the stamps be presented as a pane of 20 stamps, but there are only 10 different, which do not accommodate a block of 10. So to be listed as 10 singles or the full pane? Answer: a full pane, which makes for a better showing of the issue, but does require purchase of each stamp twice.

Reichsbanknote Reichsbankhauptkasse
I came upon this beauty in a lot of German Stamps and like everyone I enjoy the engravers art found on banknotes. At iHobb we do not sell banknotes, only selling the currency albums and supplies for banknote collecting, but sure enjoy the beauty of the engravers art.

Appreciation of Japan's friendship with the United States, and our respect for Japan is well represented by one of the more beautiful stamps even produced by the USPS. Featured are the cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. planted in 1912 as a gift of friendship to the People of the United States from the People of Japan.

This was expedited Mail Delivery
Innovation and aircraft and delivering the mail have gone hand-in-hand since the first use of air travel to advance the mail. No more interesting example of this can be found than with the development of catapult mail. Prior to the advance of aviation to a point of reliable transatlantic travel, the North German Lloyd Line founded a mixed mode mail service. North German Lloyd Line outfitted two ships, the Bremen and the Europa, with airplanes and catapult equipment for transatlantic voyages. When the ship approached the aircraft's range off the destination shore, the airplane was catapulted off the ship and the plane would fly the remaining distance with the mail. For the extra postage fee, 1 or 2 days would be cut from the delivery time for the transatlantic mail service. The service operated between May and October, due to the harsh winter weather which made the program impractical during the winter months. The service ran from the test period in 1929 and regularly operation in the summers of 1930 through 1936. With the advance of aviation, transatlantic flights made the catapult mail system unnecessary, but for a period of time it was a successful application of innovation in delivering the mail.