In my capacity as reporter for the Daily Philatelic News it is in my line
of duty to interview the prominent philatelists as to their opinions on
various subjects of public interest, and when news is hard to get I put in
my time looking over some of the larger collections of this country. So
this was the reason the following appeared in the Daily Philatelic News of
Jan. 11, 1910.
"A News young man yesterday had the pleasure of seeing the largest
collection of stamps in the world, that of Mr. Nassau of 29,421 Broadway,
who has been collecting since 1890, and his collection shows the study
necessary to amass such a complete collection. It has been said 'See
Nassau's collection and die.' It is well worth half a life-time to look at
it, and our young man agrees with others who have had the pleasure of
seeing it, that it is the finest, best and most complete known.
"Mr. Nassau has a room specially built in his house for his collection,
which he calls his ‘Philatelic Studio.' In this room, which is fire and
burglar proof, is his collection, mounted in albums specially made for it.
He employs four private secretaries, whose duty it is to mount the stamps
as fast as they come in. Each country or colony is in a separate album.
Some countries, such as the United States, Mexico, England and others,
have more than one album; for instance, the United States has almost one
hundred volumes.
"Mr. Nassau and his clerk showed me the collection in order - the United
States first, Abyssinia next and Zululand last. I will attempt to describe
the collection as near as possible. He collects all minute varieties, the
collecting of which became quite a fad in 1894. His United States
collection is complete, or as nearly so as possible. His provisional
stamps are complete ; his 1847 are the same ; he has seventy-eight
varieties of the five-cent, differing in the number of freckles on
Franklin's neck; his errors and oddities of this issue take up six pages
in the album. His 1869 issue are a gem of the collector's art. He has over
800 varieties of the three-cent of that issue, differing mainly in the
number of spots in the smoke coming out of the smoke-stack, also in the
difference between wood and coal smoke. He also has the rare variety
discovered by Mr. Withers in 1902, the naphtha smoke variety. He has an
elegant collection of double perforation, etc. His collection of grills is
a masterpiece. He has every known variety of this interesting method of
effacing postage stamps of the 1868, 1869 and 1870 issues. Of the 1890
issue he has the two-cent stamp with all sorts of caps on; he has only
eighty-two varieties of this one stamp, and has a standing offer of $100
each for all varieties of this stamp not in his collection. The varieties
of paper are also well represented.
"But the Columbian issue is his special forte. They occupy a separate
album in his studio, and are perfect. The two-cent has been his particular
study. The rumor (published in the dailies) that Mr. Nassau had discovered
a variety of this stamp in which an Indian was offering Columbus a copy of
the Philatelic World/Monthly is announced by that gentleman to be a
mistake ; he authorizes our reporter to say that it is a copy of the
EASTERN PHILATELIST. He has over 360 varieties of the two-cent alone.
"His United States entire envelope collection is recognized as the
standard from which all catalogues and hand-books are now compiled. He has
every variety of gum, from the tasteless variety to the one in which a
drop of whiskey is supposed to exist. This envelope is especially supplied
to the Chicago collectors by the United States Government. The total
number of the United States collection is 600,000 varieties.
"But while Mr. Nassau has, no doubt, specialized in the United States part
of his enormous collection, one can see that he has not slighted his
foreign collection at all. His French colonial collection, with all
varieties of surcharges, fills fifty volumes, everything being complete to
date. Inverted, double, triple and even quadruple surcharges were there in
abundance. The Colombian stamps, with those of the States of that
Republic, were also fine. He has one variety of insured letter stamp with
eighty-two varieties of type, not to mention combinations formed by
different borders, etc. The Austrians are evidently the pride of Mr.
Nassau's heart, for he has them with every one of the Emperor's whiskers
counted. It is wonderful how many different numbers of hairs it is
possible to find. They vary in number from eight to 321.
"The Indian States are another field in which Mr. Nassau has evidently
worked very hard, for he has a million varieties of them. He has
classified the Bulgarian stamps by the number of stripes on the lion's
tail. There are twenty-four varieties of them on each stamp.
To enumerate all of Mr. Nassau's treasures would require more space than
we have in this paper, so we will not attempt it. Suffice it to say that
his collection is contained in 1500 volumes and comprises every variety of
paper, gum, perforation, roulette, watermark, type, engraving and color
known, and consists of over 30,000,000 varieties. It is well worth a
person's time to look it over.
Mr. Nassau is the author of several philatelic hand-books, among them a
description of the stamps of Mexico, enumerating over 100,000 varieties of
surcharged numbers. We hope at some future day to have the pleasure of
seeing Mr. Nassau's collection of Chinese local stamps, of which he is
said to have the finest collection in existence, numbering over 20,000
varieties, the rarest one of these being the one-tael of Wampy Wum,
representing a Chinaman closely pursued by a Japanese."
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