Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stamp

Hangul help

larsks — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:13:43 -0800

Help me find someone with Hangul calligraphy skills. When I travelled to Korea to adopt our daughter, the proprietor of the store where we buy our name stamps heard that I was adopting and made a lovely calligraphy of our daughter's Korean name. I would like to find someone to make something similar for my son. We live near Boston, if that helps.

Dissecting the Photoshop "stamp" filter

BugsPotter — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:34:30 -0800

I'd like to programmatically recreate the Photoshop stamp filter - does anyone know how to dissect what the stamp filter is doing? The Photoshop settings I'm using with the Stamp filter are: Light/Dark Balance set to 25 and Smoothness set to 5. I'd like to be able to recreate this effect without using Photoshop, but I'm not really sure what's going on under the hood. Any thoughts or pointers would be much appreciated. Thanks!!

How do I fix the time on my emails?

lockedroomguy — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:27:51 -0800

Emails I send are time stamped one hour in the future. Emails I receive are time stamped one hour in the past. In mid-March, the emails I receive started getting time stamped 1 hour early. So if someone sends me an email at 10:00 AM, it appears in my inbox with a time of 9:00 AM. I have rebooted many times since then.

But if I send an email at 10:00 AM, it appears in the receiver's inbox stamped 11:00 AM.

If I send myself an email at 10:00 AM it appears in my inbox stamped 11:00 AM.

When I look at my outbox all time stamps are correct.

I'm running Windows XP SP2 on a Lenovo T60. I may not be up to date with all Windows patches--specifically my Windows might not know about last year's change to DST dates. We do not use Outlook or an Exchange server. My email client is Thunderbird 2.0. My Windows time zone is set to Eastern Time Zone (US and Canada) with the DST option checked.

No other users in our network have this issue, and we all use the same mail servers. Any email that someone else sends to me has the correct time.

If this is clearly a Windows DST patch issue, then I can go that route. But since the inbound are off by an hour in one direction, and the outbound are in the opposite direction, I'm suspecting it might be something else.

Any ideas what that might be?

Online stamp album purchase

althanis — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:37:54 -0800

Where to buy a stamp album online? My Dad's an amateur stamp collector, so he has all of them in a little wooden box, and has now retired and has the time to put them all together, etc. However, he has asked me to get him a stamp album for him and I don't know where to get one from.

I checked Amazon, but they only have starter kits for kids. I want to get my dad something really nice, even though he doesn't exactly have rare stamps, and wouldn't mind spending up to about US$50.

I'm not in the US, but can call in and make purchases via telephone using a credit card, and it would have to be delivered to South America.

Hope you guys can help me!

Custom Stamp in Stencil Font?

warriorengineer — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:45:55 -0800

Where can I get a custom made 1/2" and 1" stamp (prefeably self inking) in the Stencil font?

Let's get philatelical

miss lynnster — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:22:31 -0800

About ten years ago I picked up an amazing collection of 114 (mint condition, plastic-sleeved) vintage first day issue stamps/envelopes at a thrift store. Been simplifying my belongings and I'm thinking it's time to sell them. Hey you stamp collectors... what are your recommendations? The person who put this collection together was METICULOUS. I mean, just absolutely anal retentive about their collection. This is why I bought it... even though I'm not a stamp collector I was impressed to my core by their effort and how much passion they clearly had for their hobby.

All of the envelopes are neatly typed to the same person in Colorado, all placed with love into slotted cardboard and sleeved in plastic. Each envelope is the customized first day of issue envelope, with the official stamp and first day of issue postmark. Most of the envelopes are United Nations, American history, government, or arts themed, dated from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s. Here are a few examples of the envelopes and stamps, although my envelopes have a typed address. Many of the them seem to be pretty obscure, I couldn't find their topics online.

Any tips? How should I go about making sure these go to a good home and get a decent price? I know a dealer would offer me less and I should probably get them appraised by a professional, yes? Or should I just hold onto them until the economy gets better? Thoughts please!

What's the best website for your hobby (specifically stamps and old coins)

DMan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:36:25 -0800

Where can I find the best online community for your hobby? Specifically looking for stamp collectors and old coin dealers, but all are welcome! One of the first things I do when I get into a new hobby is find a strong online community with message boards that I can participate in to learn more about it and talk about it with people who understand it and care about it. So what's the premier online community for YOUR hobby?

I'm specifically interested in stamps and old coins because I recently came across fairly large supplies of them and I'd like to be able to show some scans of them and see what they're worth.

How can I make my Christmas gift look authentic?

arnicae — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:24:47 -0800

I'm trying to figure out how to make a stamp look "canceled" for a Christmas gift. My great-uncle collects stamps and loves Disney-ana, but he only collects stamps that are canceled. I've got some good Disney stamps for him this year and intended to send him to them ahead of time (so that they would be canceled and add-able to his collection) but Christmas has snuck up on me.

I am mailing him several today in hopes they'll arrive before Christmas, but I want to have a back-up plan in case I arrive before the mail does. Is there any good way mimic a postmark? (He doesn't have great eyesight, so it doesn't have to look great, just good/decent)

(In case I need to add this, the canceled stamp will never go through the mail in any way, so I don't think I'm falling afoul of any federal regulations- it will just go into a relative's stamp collection)

Thanks!

Hundreds and hundreds of stamps. What now?

Sijeka — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:42:20 -0800

I was going trough my late grandfather's belongings and found a box choke-full of stamps. Are they valuable? What should I do with them? The box contains hundreds and hundreds of stamps which are used (i.e I suspect he received a lot of letters and collected the stamps as they arrived). They are daed from the 1920s to the 1980s and originiated from a lot of different countries - from Peru to Morrocco, but mainly Europe.

My grandmother would like to know if they are worth anything, but there are so many of them, I don't see myself googling each and everyone of them (not sure it's even possible?). So my questions are:

1. Are stamps still valuable if they have been used?
and
2. Can I contact anyone for an appraisal? I live in London if that helps.

Specific custom self inking stamps?

simplethings — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:11:39 -0800

Can you help me find a very specific custom rubber stamp? I'd like to get a custom stamp made. I've spent the past hour or so searching custom rubber stamp retailers online but none have had the format I'm looking for.

I'd like the stamp to be self-inking. It would also have one line.
On the left would be the date (which would have the dials so I could set the current date). On the right side would be my name:

NOV 4 2008 simplethings

This seemed like a typical stamp design but the only dynamic date + static, custom text format I could find is date in the center and text either above or below.

I've seen a similar non-self-inking design where you would have the date followed by a dial with generic accounting phrases (e.g. PAID, VOID, RECEIVED).
However, it's not self-inking and I haven't come across a retailer that would allow me to customize the text dial.

I also came across a retailer that had a very complex alphanumeric stamp designer... this might have been what I was looking for but it was too user-unfriendly for me to figure out.

Can you point me to a legit (and easy to use) website that can take care of my needs?
Thank you!

Incorrectly Issued International Reply Coupon?

c0nsumer — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:07:48 -0800

Are the International Reply Coupons my girlfriend purchased done... wrongly? My girlfriend recently purchased two International Reply Coupons so that we could request tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. However, when she went to the local post office, she ran into some difficulties. At first the employee didn't seem to know what an IRC was, then after talking to peers he found two, but stuck $0.25 worth of US stamps on them, canceled the stamps, then sold them to her for the $1.85 cover price plus $0.25 for the stamps each.

Here is a photo of the two questionable International Reply Coupons with the seemingly odd stamping.

I'm having difficulties finding info on how IRCs are supposed to be issued and none of the photos I can find on Google Images or Flickr seem to be stamped / canceled this way. Before heading back to the post office to question the employee's handle of the situation, I'm hoping that someone here can help me determine if these are done right or need to be returned and reissued.

Thanks!

Don't Stamp for Me Argentina

felix — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:10:39 -0800

Your average every day basic 5 Centavo Argentinian stamp question. What year/provenance is this 5 Centavo Argentinian stamp? What if anything is significant/known about the symbology thereon?

Return Address?

Ignatius J. Reilly — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:37:48 -0800

Am I legally required to include a return address when using a first class stamp with the US Postal Service?

Custom stamp or embosser for a budding book collector?

neilkod — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:32:10 -0800

Book lovers: Do I give a stamp or an embosser to a budding book collector? You know, one of those 'library of' stamps. I've found finestationary.com, but recommendations of shops and designs are welcome.

How is a postage stamp authenticated?

odinsdream — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:00:41 -0800

How is the authenticity of a postage stamp verified in the normal mail delivery process? When mail is delivered, how is a stamp validated? There are so many thousands of stamps from so many different years, all of which are valid postage. Combinations can be made of different stamp types and values. I assume the valuation is done through OCR or image-matching with known stamps. Verifying whether it's a real stamp, though, must be an additional step.

Why can't I print any picture at all on glossy sticker paper and cut it out with "stamp edge" scissors from an art store? Or, if I can, why do people buy stamps?

The point of this question is not to figure out how to fake stamps - it's to better understand how the mail system works, and was prompted by the recent FPP about the absentee ballot stamped with the alleged 100k stamp. Differentiating between rare stamps and very good counterfeits isn't really what I'm curious about; just everyday verification.

USDA art

sharksandwich — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:07:50 -0800

USDA artwork? I'm looking for meat stamps and the like... Stuff like this, but .eps or .ai files that I can work with in Illustrator.

Custom rubber stamps?

griffey — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:36:43 -0800

Where can I get a custom rubber stamp made cheaply (<$30US), within 2 weeks, from artwork I provide...over the Internet? My wife wants to make a rubber stamp for a friend from a custom piece of line art. I'm familiar with all of the technical issues (dpi requirements, line art, .eps, etc....) but can't find a site that looks even remotely trustworthy. I've done this sort of thing in the past via Kinko's, but we're now living far removed from any business like that.

If I wanted to do this with a Tshirt, there are sites where I can upload, pick colors and see the whole thing previewed. Is there nothing like this for stamps?