Did you know National Cheese day is June 4th? Everyone loves cheese in all its many forms. The more the better. Although we can’t pinpoint when cheese was first discovered it was, most likely, during the transport of fresh milk in the organs of animals such as sheep, goats, cows, and buffalo.

This stamp, featuring a cheese maker, is from, where else, Switzerland (1987). There are actually quite a few stamps featuring cheese but none that I could find from the US. Interestingly, maybe this is why.

Back in 1835 in Sandy Creek, New York, Colonel Thomas Standish Meacham had the idea to craft a super large cheese to gift to President Andrew Jackson.

Thomas hired carpenters to build a frame and lined it with cheese cloth. The curd made from the milk from his 150 cows was added daily and the whey squeezed out. At the end it weighed 1,400 pounds. He boxed it up, sealed it and got it ready to present to the President in Washington.

The cheese was placed on a large wagon pulled by 48 horses and loaded on a ship while a band played and cannons fired. When it reached the Capital it was presented to the President with much fanfare.

President Jackson wasn’t sure what to do with the unusual gift. Over the next few months he gifted large amounts of cheese to family, friends and members of his administration. He served it at dinner, had dinner parties centered around cheese and generally tried to get rid of as much as he could. Meanwhile, the cheese was stored in a back room of the executive mansion where the smell of it began to permeate the residence lingering in clothes and furnishings.

President Jackson, exasperated, had the cheese brought to the foyer of the White house and openly invited the public in to have their fill. Thousands of visitors came to have some.

“All you heard was cheese, all you saw was cheese, all you smelt was cheese,” recalled one witness. “The whole atmosphere for half a mile around was infected with cheese.”

At the end of the event there was cheese everywhere. It had been stepped on and ground into the carpet, cheese covered hands had turned doorknobs and been wiped on walls, drapes and furniture cushions. Luckily for Jackson, he was only in office for two more weeks so showed no interest in cleaning up the mess. He left that chore to his successor, Martin Van Buren.

“[Martin Van Buren] had a hard task to get rid of the smell of cheese,” wrote the wife of a Massachusetts senator, “and in the room where it was cut, he had to air the carpet for many days.” Subsequently Van Buren banned all food from all future White House receptions.

The government went on to regulate cheese even in the 2oth century. In the 1920’s the Department of Agriculture placed regulations on the percentage of pepper allowed in Monterey Hack cheese and even ruled if the word “smoked” should come before or after the word “Gouda”. In 1952 even the size of the holes in Swiss Cheese were restricted to “no more than half an inch wide” and limited the number of holes in any given piece to eight.

So next time, preferably on June 4th, you mount a new cheese stamp in your cheese topical collection just remember the 1,400 pound cheese that graced the US capitol and the smell that probably still lingers there today.

Two stamps I will probably never own!

The United States issued its first postage stamps on July 1, 1847. The stamps were designed by the artist John Vanderlyn and printed by the firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson. The stamps were issued in two denominations: a five-cent stamp featuring a portrait of Benjamin Franklin, and a ten-cent stamp featuring a portrait of George Washington.

The stamps were printed in sheets of 200, with each stamp measuring about one inch by three-quarters of an inch. They were printed in black ink on bluish paper, with the words “U.S. Post Office” and the denomination printed in large letters.

The 5-cent stamp was intended for use on letters weighing less than one-half ounce that were sent over a distance of up to 300 miles. The 10-cent stamp was for letters weighing less than one-half ounce that were sent over a distance of more than 300 miles. These first stamps were used primarily for the transportation of letters and documents, which was a crucial means of communication and commerce in the mid-19th century.

The design of the stamps was simple and elegant, with the portraits of Franklin and Washington surrounded by decorative lettering and border. The stamps were an instant success, with people eager to use these new symbols of national identity and efficiency.

Over the years, the United States has issued many more stamps with a wide variety of designs and themes, from famous Americans and national landmarks to pop culture icons and historical events. But the first stamps remain an important milestone in the history of American postal service and a reminder of the power of a small piece of paper to connect people across vast distances.

I figured I would be amiss if I did not write a post about this, the worlds rarest stamp.

The world’s most expensive stamp is the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta. It was printed in 1856 in the British colony of Guiana, which is now the independent country of Guyana.

The stamp was created as a temporary solution when a shipment of official postage stamps failed to arrive from Great Britain. The local postmaster hastily commissioned a batch of one-cent stamps featuring a simple design of a sailing ship and the colony’s motto, “Damus Petimus Que Vicissim,” which means “we give and expect in return.”

Only one example of the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta is known to exist, making it incredibly rare and valuable. The stamp was rediscovered in 1873 by a young collector named L. Vernon Vaughan and it changed hands many times over the years, eventually being bought by wealthy collectors and investors.

In 2014, the stamp was sold at auction for a record-breaking price of $9.5 million, making it the most expensive stamp ever sold. The buyer was an anonymous bidder who was willing to pay an astronomical sum for this rare and historic stamp.

Today, the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta remains one of the most sought-after stamps in the world, with a value that far exceeds its humble origins as a makeshift stamp for a British colony. It is a testament to the enduring fascination and allure of postage stamps, and the passion that collectors have for these small but fascinating pieces of history.

I am not a big fan of modern stamps. I try not to focus on anything past 1960 although my collection is starting to accumulate stamps past it. I don’t really go for the stamps who promote things like movies or celebrities but a stamp is a stamp and sometimes there’s a story to tell.

Back in 1981 when E.T. was in production the screenwriter, Melissa Mathison, wrote that M&Ms, then one of the most popular candies was also to be one of E.T.’s favorites.

The management disagreed saying “We don’t want an alien eating our candy” an “It might frighten kids”. They turned them down.

Still looking for a product placement substitute they turned to Hershey and specifically to Reese’s Pieces. Hersey paid nothing for product placement and agreed to cross promote the movie in their advertising for $1 million dollars.

E.T. went on to win 4 Academy awards and Reese’s Pieces sales skyrocketed. At the time it was called “The biggest marketing coup in history”.

Embarrassed by their decision, Mars, Inc. would go on to try and outdo it by placing M&Ms on the U.S. Space Shuttle and Spaceship One.

The crown of Portugal appears in the first stamps of Angola in 1870-1877. Interestingly, they aren’t the originals. The crown jewels of Portugal have been sold off and stolen quite a few times.

In 1581 King António ( he was King of Portugal for 33 days in 1580) fled to France after King Philip I was made the King of Portugal and took the crown jewels with him. His plan was to reclaim the throne of Portugal and depose Philip I, To do so he wanted Frances support and sold or gave them some of the pieces. Things didn’t work out the way he would have liked and he ended up selling all of them.

During the Portuguese Restoration War, João II of Braganza sold many of the Portuguese Crown Jewels to finance the war with Spain and in 1755 the Great Lisbon earthquake destroyed Lisbon and the Paço da Ribeira, the Portuguese royal residence of the time. With the destruction of the palace, innumerable pieces of the Portuguese Crown Jewels of the time were destroyed, lost, or stolen.

The crown shown on the stamp is from the reign of John VI of Portugal (1818 – 1825) who had it remade. John VI was a bizarre man. He hated physical activity, suffered bouts of depression, suffered panic attacks when he heard thunder and barricading himself in his room with the windows shut. He also lived in his coat, refusing to take it off and even slept in it. Seamstresses would mend it while he slept in it.

In 2002 a large part of the Portuguese Crown Jewels were stolen from the Museon in The Hague, where they were on loan for an exhibition on European Crown Jewels. They have not been retrieved and the Dutch government paid a six million euros to the Portuguese government for reparation. Since then the Portuguese Crown Jewels are currently kept in a secured vault at the Ajuda National Palace, in Lisbon.

A unique feature of the crown is that it is composed only of pure gold and red velvet, without a single precious stone or gem.

In 1936, Herman Knaust, paid $9,000 for a depleted iron ore mine and 100 acres of land so that he could have more space to expand his families business, growing and marketing mushrooms. But by 1950, the mushroom market had declined, so Mr. Knaust decided upon a new business venture—one that would make good use of his mine, which he named “Iron Mountain.”

Mr. Knaust sponsored the relocation to the United States of many Jewish immigrants who had lost their identities because their personal records had been destroyed during the war. At this time, the world was also entangled in the Cold War. Paranoia was at a high point. Mr. Knaust realized that protecting vital information from war and other disasters was of paramount importance and decided to put his mine to good use.

Iron Mountain Atomic Storage, Inc. was founded in 1951 and the first “vaults” inside Iron Mountain and a sales office in the Empire State Building were established. Having a knack for publicity, he persuaded luminaries such as General Douglas MacArthur to visit the Iron Mountain site.

Soon businesses realized the importance of storing their documents and data in a secure location. Iron Mountain’s first customer was East River Savings Bank, which brought microfilm copies of deposit records and duplicate signature cards in armored cars to the new mountain facility for storage.

Iron Mountain soon expanded into a depleted limestone mine close to New York City and opened a site in New England as well. Through further expansions and acquisitions Iron Mountain grew to a $3.0 billion company and services more than 95% of the Fortune 1000 companies.

Bill Gates stores his Corbis photographic collection in a refrigerated cave 220 feet underground and Universal Music Group stores its United States masters with Iron Mountain. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management leases another cavern to store, and process government employee retirement papers and the wills of Princess Diana, Charles Dickens, and Charles Darwin are locked away in secure Iron Mountain vaults as well

Herman’s brother, Warren served in the Corps of Engineers in the United States Army during World War II. Following the war’s end, he became an important part of the family business. Warren was an avid fisherman, alpine skier, and stamp collector. As the company expanded and built secure facilities in locations closer to metropolitan areas the original Iron Mountain location fell more into disuse. Realizing the importance of preserving his personal stamp collection, Warren built a vault there to store it in.

During the 1960s, stamp collecting was at its peak. Many of the same wealthy business owners who used Iron Mountains services had accumulated large and valuable collections as well. Warren would use business meetings with these businessmen and collectors to acquire rare, expensive and one-of-a-kind items for his personal collection. No one knows for sure the value of his collection and few have seen it in person but those that have have described it as “significant and historically important, containing many rarities.

Warren Knaust died of natural causes on Sunday, Sept. 19, at his home in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age of 85. His personal collection, stored in a secure, climate controlled vault in the original Iron Mountain Livingston County, New York location has never been seen since. Only Warren had the access information to the vault and it was not mentioned in his will nor disclosed to anyone. It has been decided that shutting down services, such as fire, electrical and climate control infrastructure, in order to attempt access to the vault could potentially damage other items in linked storage vaults. Brute force methods such as drilling or the use of explosives have also been ruled out.

One can only imagine what may be found in the walls of that vault but it will keep collectors wondering for a long, long time to come.

*Note: This is, of course, fiction. While the history and details of Iron Mountain is true the idea that Warren Knaust was an avid stamp collector and his collection is somehow lost within Iron Mountain was created for entertainment purposes only. It was also to see who, if anyone, actually reads anything I write until the end.