Dashboard Manage Your Site - Sun Aug 23, 11:49 PM

Today’s posting by our little robot highlights. A 1933 Vatican cover with the Graffiti Zep. There is a similar cover listed on eBay right now by a dealer in Croatia for around 4 dollars. The dealers does mention that it is a reproduction. Charlie    (08/10/2026 - Cjs)

With all the hard work our little robot is doing in .developing a Vatican stam library, I was wondering. Could Cat Values be added and updated each yr?

Charlie    (08/08/2026 - Cjs)

Any addl information on the Vatican increasing its sales volume to dealers?
Currently, as I understand, dealers are limited to order 100:copies of each stamp. Also, an order can take over months to process. I have written to the Vatican several times and received NO response! Such service will greatly harm the ability to collect Vatican stamps since many collectors, like myself, depend on the dealers. Charlie, Williamsburg, Va.

   (08/05/2026 - Cjs)

Any addl information on the Vatican increasing its sales volume to dealers?
Currently, as I understand, dealers are limited to order 100:copies of each stamp. Also, an order can take over months to process. I have written to the Vatican several times and received NO response! Such service will greatly harm the ability to collect Vatican stamps since many collectors, like myself, depend on the dealers. Charlie, Williamsburg, Va.

   (08/05/2026 - Cjs)

To Jost--Congrats on your new acquisition. Unfortunately the cover you added to your post did not display. It would be interesting to see some of your unique finds.    (07/31/2026 - LFG)

A very exiting Collection by German Expert, and BPP ‘Prüfer’, Hans-Waldemar Vespermann has come into my posession.
It’s not the most rare varieties by value, but very much so by uniqueness - here’s an example 😇    (07/28/2026 - jost)

Also J7-J12 was basically only used by the post office workers when postage was due. This wasn't a regular issue so any FDC on a cover is contrived. A real FDC would look like an envelope from Rome shipping to the Vatican, and it just happened to need all 6 postage due stamps. I think it might be a unicorn.
-Javier    (07/21/2026 - JA)

The world was probably not too focused on Vatican stamp collecting on August 16th. 1945 -- On August 16, 1945, Allied leaders announced that Japan had fully accepted the Potsdam Declaration, meaning unconditional surrender. This was the moment the world understood the Pacific War was truly over!    (07/10/2026 - MJL)

Marvin: I do not believe any Vatican cachet dealers existed in 1945. We have a copy of the J7-J12 set on a canceled cover, dated September 8, 1945, in the VPS FDC file. I do not believe it is an FDC. According to Bolaffi Vatican Stamp Catalogue, the J7-J12 issue date is August 16, 1945.

I have been searching many years for this FDC on eBay, dealer auctions, etc. I have never seen one offered. In the past year a cover containing the set was offered on eBay but was not an FDC. I spoke to David Bayer at Penny Black a while ago. He believes that possibly very few if any J7-J12 FDCs were created.

I will continue my search. One may appear one day!



   (07/09/2026 - DSO)

Dennis - Did any of the cachet dealers make FDC covers for the J7-J12 stamps? I am still trying to nail down the date the Vatican postal folks made their official first special postmarked cover.    (07/06/2026 - MJL)