If one Christmas seal is attractive on an envelope or postcard, multiples should be even more so. In my own collection, the best example I have is a 1937 reminder card with 10 seals in two rows. The message on the cards encourages a donation to the 1937 seal campaign. Every year there is pressure to improve over the previous year’s level of contributions, and reminders after Christmas were an effective way to help recipients recall what might have been forgotten in the pre-Christmas rush.

World Stamp Show-NY 2016 opens May 28, and now is the time to start getting ready to attend the largest international philatelic exhibition in the United States since the Washington 2006 exhibition 10 years ago. Hundreds of dealers, thousands of exhibit pages, dozens of stamp societies and postal administrations, and more await you.

Three show cancels are commemorating activities at the American Philatelic Society’s Ameristamp Expo, the winter stamp show and national exhibition taking place Jan. 29-31 in Atlanta, Ga., at the Hilton Atlanta. Admission is free.

Stamps and mail of the post-World War II era are an abiding interest because even issues you don’t collect can help you learn what to look for and where to focus. That’s why I enjoyed the handbook The Rates and Postal History of Canada’s Peace Issue 1946-1952 by H.M. (Mike) Street of Ancaster, Ontario, published in 2015 by the British North America Philatelic Society.

Linn's Stamp News looks ahead to the Ameristamp Expo stamp show taking place Jan. 29-31 in Atlanta, Ga., and the World Stamp Show-NY 2016 in May and June in two of this week's most popular stories.

R.F. Outcault was an Ohio-born cartoonist whose pioneering newspaper feature in New York World, Hogan's Alley, introduced the character The Yellow Kid.

In 1881, J. Bevan & Son set up shop as the Empire City Dispatch Co. at 23 Dey St. in New York City for the purpose of local delivery of mail. The company produced a nondenominated stamp printed in black on green laid paper perforated gauge 12 (Scott 64L1). The government stepped in almost immediately and shut the firm down because it was in violation of the U.S. Post Office Department’s monopoly on the delivery of letter mail.

On Sept. 18, 1961, Switzerland issued a set of four stamps (Scott 406-409) commemorating the authors of the four Gospels in the Christian New Testament. The designs featuring St. Matthew and an angel, St. Mark and a winged lion, St. Luke and a winged ox, and St. John and an eagle were based on 15th-century wood carvings from St. Oswald’s Church in Zug.

I typically like to look at the many exhibits displayed at major stamp shows. Traveling to such shows isn’t always possible, but there are many exhibits available for viewing online.

There has been suspicion ever since color-omitted errors were found on the 15¢ Santa Claus, Christmas Tree Ornament stamp of 1979 (Scott 1800) that some of these errors came from printers’ waste. Printers’ waste is incomplete or misprinted, misperforated and misgummed product that was somehow improperly taken from the printer’s facility, rather than being sold over a post office counter.

Author Horatio Alger was a popular writer in the late 19th century. His "rags to riches" stories include the Ragged Dick series depicted on the 20¢ stamp honoring him.

As the saying goes, “The difference is in the details.” On Canada Post’s six new definitive stamps, the difference is in the very tiny details — the microprinting.

This year’s United States stamp program is rife with possibilities for combination first-day covers: that is, FDCs with additional stamps related to the new issue. This article will address only some topical combinations; less popular but still doable are combinations by date or city of issue or even stamp-design artist.

Philatelic groups hoping to reserve a meeting room at World Stamp Show-NY 2016 need to take action soon.

The author of the popular novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, Jack London was born in San Francisco on Jan. 12, 1876. He is honored on two 25¢ stamps in the Great Americans series.

Three postal administrations began the new year by issuing stamps related to art. Romania pictures Flemish paintings, the Netherlands shows a work by Hieronymus Bosch, and Monaco features examples of circus poster art.

A Founding Father of the United States, Alexander Hamilton became an important voice in the creation of the Constitution, and served as Treasury Secretary under President George Washington.

The United Nations Postal Administration and France’s La Poste participated in a joint issue late last year to commemorate the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21, held from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 in Le Bourget, France. The UNPA issued three stamps Nov. 24 to honor the conference, and La Poste issued a single stamp on that date. All of the stamps are round, representing the planet Earth.

A complex poet with narrative themes that evoke the classics, Robinson Jeffers was commemorated on an 8¢ stamp that was issued in 1973.

One of the most attractive British Empire sets ever issued is Cyprus’ 1928 set of 10 (Scott 114-123) commemorating the 50th anniversary of British rule. This is the key set of Cyprus stamps for British Empire collectors, and many of the stamps have topical appeal for collectors of archaeology, religion, architecture and coins on stamps.