Collectors Club of Chicago:
20% off!!!

The Hungarian Hyperinflation of 1945-1946, Its Rates and Postal History, [NOW $40!] by Robert B. Morgan
Canada’s Registered Mail, 1802 - 1909, from Money Letters through Insurance for a Fee, [NOW $64!] by Horace W. Harrison, George B. Arfken and Harry Lussey
Chicago Mail, [NOW $32!] edited by Harvy Karlen

All of the books are available from the Collectors Club of Chicago, Attn: Duane Larson, P.O. Box 415, Park Forest, IL 60466 USA. Price for the books is postpaid in the USA; shipping to overseas destinations is available for an additional $5 to cover surface mail. Make checks payable to Collectors Club of Chicago.


The Hungarian Hyperinflation of 1945-1946, Its Rates and Postal History is a fascinating account of an inflation that includes numbers a billion billion times greater than those of the post-World War I German inflation.

The author has taken a highly complex subject and created a readily understandable and highly readable reference. It allows the reader quickly to become familiar with the subject in all phases of each of the 27 rate periods. Every aspect of each period is clearly presented and even the most obscure subject receives attention. The subject index covers 86 different postal and philatelic topics. Morgan has done a remarkable job of translating the convoluted postal-bureaucratic language into clearly understood English.

To paraphrase the author, we sincerely believe that this book will result in many major discoveries. Equally important, it will provide the reader with the ability to avoid the purchase of fraudulent covers.

A remarkable feature of the book is an ingenious system of scarcity evaluation of “single stamp” covers and “fewest stamp” franking. It allows the establishment of a numerical scarcity value for most covers in these categories, within each rate period, and takes into consideration the type of service performed.

This publication is the first comprehensive treatment of this subject in English. In our opinion, it will become the reference of choice for both English-speaking and Hungarian-language readers.

The book retails for $50.00 postpaid in the United States.

Canada’s Registered Mail, 1802-1909 is a 500-page book, 8 ½ x 11 page size, with more than 500 illustrations.

The book contains numerous appendices, including extensive rate information, beginning with an 1829 Table of Distances and Rates between important centers of population. Also included are detailed overseas destination rate tables for July 1859, January 1865, March 1869, October 1875, and August 1878. Rarity scale ratings are included where appropriate.

Comprehensive and detailed, Canada’s Registered Mail is an update of the last general treatment of Canadian 19th century registration that was written 30 years ago. The first chapter of this new book is the most complete study of Money-Letters that has even been published. The next three chapters introduce registration for domestic mail, mail to the United States and mail to the United Kingdom. In each case registration is covered through 1875.

The significance of 1875 is that in December, Canada issued the first of three special stamps for registered letters. Five chapters are devoted to these unusual and fascinating stamps. Careful attention is paid to the postal regulations and to the earliest reported usage. For instance, the earliest use of the five-cent registered letter stamp was found on a letter paying both the two cents registration and the three cents postage. Actually the stamp was intended for paying registration for a letter to the United States or on domestic parcel post. It was never authorized to pay postage.

Three chapters include domestic usage of the registered letter stamps including the rare fifth class mail. Here and in other chapters there are detailed tables of postal rates and registry fees. Registered mail to the United States, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world each get a chapter. There are tables listing the earliest registration stamp covers to the U.S. and the covers paying the short-lived anomalous two-cent registration rate to the U.S.

The next chapter illustrates the incredible variety of ways in which writers and postmasters violated the postal regulations governing registration. The following chapter carries registration up to 1909 including AR, Acknowledgment of Receipt and insurance. The final chapter is a detailed study of registered railway post office markings. This book is an essential reference for anyone interested in 19th century Canadian registry usage.

The book retails for $80 postpaid in the United States.

Chicago Mail is a compilation of 26 articles, most of which have appeared previously in print and most of which have been written by the editor, Harvey Karlen, who is considered to be the preeminent authority on Chicago postal history. A number of articles have been written by other authorities on Chicago postal history: Howard Selzer, W. Wilson Hulme II, Leonard Piskiewicz, Barbara Jean Wallace, and Charles L. Towle.

Because so many articles that appear in philatelic journals have a limited existence, the Collectors Club of Chicago has published this volume to make them more permanently available for reference and evaluation. These works were selected for their philatelic interest and significance and because many of them involve subjects that go well beyond their relationship to Chicago postal history.

Areas covered include military history, expositions and fairs, the Great Chicago Fire, the Chicago Perforations, Free Franks, the Chicago Pneumatic Post, etc. Military related subjects include Camp Douglas and Camp Fry Confederate prisoner-of-war camps, Spanish-American War articles and Fort Sheridan: Its Origins and Postal History, (which recently received the Military Postal History Society’s award for the best article of the year in the Society’s publication.). There is an article entitled “Chicago Expositions, Fairs and Shows Before the 1893 Columbian Exposition” and one on the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition.

The book is printed in 8 ½ x 11 format, on archival paper in library quality hard cover binding and retails for $39.50 postpaid in the United States.