Philately is more than just searching for rare stamps from the past or those with errors on them that weren't caught by inspectors. And it certainly isn't about putting stamps in a album and forgetting about them. What gets me excited each day is learning about the people, customs and places that lie behind the stamp.
In this book, I explore thirty stamps spanning decades of history, from ships sailing across oceans to indigenous leaders who gave their names to nations, from early motorcycles that changed transportation forever to skiers gliding across snowy mountains. I investigate stamps featuring orangutans that remind us of our connection to nature, clowns drawn by children celebrating circus joy, and traditional costumes preserving cultural heritage. For each stamp, I searched online to find out its issue date and specifications, then used an AI agent to find more facts and details to explore. I didn't just want to be a collector of pretty things, but a researcher, an investigator, a lifelong learner. For as much of my life as I can remember, I have always been curious, wondering why people do what they do, or why something matters to other people. So, I put to work a very talented online investigator, Claude AI by Anthropic, and together we dug through the internet in search of answers to my questions.
The stamps you'll discover in these pages come in shapes and colors that tell remarkable stories. You'll encounter treasures from Tanzania showing revolutionary sailing ships, Nicaragua honoring indigenous heritage alongside airmail innovation, and Romania capturing the ancient art of skiing. Some stamps showcase humanity's ingenuity, like motorcycles that trace their origins to German inventors, space missions that sent chimpanzees into orbit before humans followed, and printing technology that brought the King James Bible to millions. Others celebrate natural wonders and cultural traditions, like Bornean orangutans whose intelligence mirrors our own, Bulgarian folk costumes embroidered with centuries of meaning, and Japanese ukiyo-e art preserved on postal paper. We'll explore mining bees and their evolutionary marvels, witness the passion of World Cup soccer, and discover how postage due stamps solved postal accountability problems. Each stamp is a window into a different corner of our remarkable world.
Sometimes I was perplexed about one of my questions. Some just didn't want to yield themselves to the demands of inquiry, but I persevered. When Claude had trouble finding a particular stamp, I dug until I found it. When I couldn't translate Lao script or Hungarian or Bulgarian, Claude jumped at the task, though sometimes I just went to Google Translate. And best of all, when I would recognize an important topic deriving from a stamp, I would task Claude with helping me research until I felt that I had learned enough to make the adventure worth having. Thirty chapters and thirty adventures, each with new understandings of the people around the world across many generations.
I hope that you enjoy my book. It is the third of ten as I choose to be more than a person who collects stamps. I want to be the philatelist who investigates the people, animals, places and events that have been commemorated for all time on little postage stamps. And if you come along with me on my journey, maybe you will see just how much fun it is to learn about stamps.
