Almost 30 percent of the $1 billion in Internet sales recorded by the United States Postal Service in fiscal 2015 came from stamps and postal stationery. That’s what a breakdown of the sales for the year ended Sept. 30 provided to Linn’s by postal officials indicates.

After more than 76 years, Washington Stamp Exchange has discontinued producing its ArtCraft first-day covers. According to a statement, the company “concluded that the decreasing volume of sales could no longer sustain the high costs of production.”

Born on Jan. 21, 1738, Ethan Allen was a key figure in the history of Vermont, and an important factor in an early Revolutionary War victory for the colonies.

If you want to make sure you have gotten your rant to the right people to hear it, here is the perfect address, from the May 2, 1941, envelope shown nearby: “Senator Stimson Hull & Congressmen/White House/Washington, D.C.” I bet that the letter contained in the envelope (unfortunately no longer there) was from a person weighing in on the subject of involvement in Europe’s war.

February 14 is the day to receive something special in the mail, and the “Love’s Marconigram” shown nearby would certainly get the recipient’s heart beating a little faster. The envelope is franked with a 2¢ Washington Shield stamp (Scott 319) canceled Feb. 11, 1904, in Austin, Texas. Opening this envelope reveals the beautiful enclosure. It is a take-off on a Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. telegram form, and guaranteed to make a great impression.

In this column in the Aug. 24 issue of Linn’s, I referred to the American Philatelic Research Library in Bellefonte, Pa., as a “gift to stamp collectors.” The BNAPS library and the APRL are two of many libraries available to stamp collectors, and some philatelic libraries are available online.

American statesman Daniel Webster was a congressman and senator before serving under two different presidents as the U.S. secretary of state.

A new stamp from Sweden has a United States connection. It shows a reconstruction of a 75-million-year-old fossil found in the United States, according to the press release from Postnord, the company established in 2009 through the merger of Sweden’s Posten AB and Post Danmark.

Benjamin Franklin was a senior statesman by the time he signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, but throughout his life he contributed much to the cause of American liberty.

A Broadway star and an entertainment icon, Ethel Merman won four Tony Awards and had a string of popular hit songs.

A forever stamp will be issued Feb. 2 to commemorate Richard Allen (1760-1831), an important figure in the United States abolitionist movement and the founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal church. The stamp will be issued with a first-day ceremony scheduled for noon at the Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, 419 S. Sixth St. (at Lombard) in Philadelphia, Pa., the site of the first A.M.E. church established by Allen.

The Spink auction firm will present its Philatelic Collector’s Series sale Jan. 27-28 at its offices in London. The sale will offer 1,365 lots of stamps, proofs, postal history, and worldwide philatelic material from Great Britain, the British Commonwealth, and elsewhere. One intriguing item up for sale is an 1863 mourning cover mailed from Ireland Island, Bermuda, to Campobello Island, New Brunswick, struck with a previously unrecorded “American-style” circular datestamp from Jan. 22 reading “Paid at Ireland Island Bermuda.”

Who’s up and who’s down in the politics of a nation is often reflected in the choices made for the subject matter of commemorative stamps. This dynamic is particularly evident in stamps issued in Poland in 1980 and again in 1990.

The Feb. 2-4 Flagship sale by Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions will feature stamps and postal history of the United States, including revenues and U.S. possessions, plus British Commonwealth and other countries worldwide. A highlight of this sale is an 1851 cover from Buckeystown, Md., addressed to Johnsonville, Ohio, and franked with a strip of three of the 1851 1¢ blue Benjamin Franklin stamp.

Linn’s introduced a dedicated web page in mid-January for World Stamp Show-NY 2016 on www.linns.com.

American civil rights leader and Nobel laureate Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against injustice and led peaceful protests in an effort to transform the nation and the world.

The Scott catalog editors assigned No. 5020 to the United States Paul Newman commemorative forever stamp Nov. 3. Other recently issued U.S. stamps to receive Scott numbers are the A Charlie Brown Christmas stamps and the Celebrate stamp with a "2015" year date.

China issued three different stamps in January welcoming the new year and recognizing the Year of the Monkey as identified in the traditional Chinese zodiac. Something that’s caught the attention of collectors and international news reporters, however, is the fact that one of the stamps portrays an adult monkey holding two baby monkeys who are each giving the adult a kiss on the cheek.

My story (Linn’s, Nov. 30, 2015) about a registered cover from Qatar bearing a set of Sheik Ahmad gold-foil stamps that sold for more than $1,100 on eBay precipitated some fascinating feedback from readers. One of the more engrossing of these replies came from Canada dealer and specialist John Jamieson of Saskatoon Stamp Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

American adventurer and envelope-pushing (pun intended) designer, Burt Todd fell in love with the Southeast Asian country of Bhutan in 1972 – landlocked mass border by India, China, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Todd went on to befriend the king of Bhutan at the time, and convinced him to issue postage stamps as a means for raising government funds.