Nicholas Frederick Seebeck (1857
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
- June 23, 1899) was a
stamp dealerA stamp dealer is a company or an individual who deals in postage stamps and philatelic products. It also includes individuals who sell postage stamps for day to day use or official stamps for use on court documents.-Stamps on Approval Basis:...
and
printerA printer is a company that provides commercial printing services, often also offering typesetting and book-binding services. The term can also refer to people who operate printing presses, or who run printing companies....
, best known for his stamp-printing contracts with several
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries in the 1890s.
Seebeck emigrated to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at the age of 9. He soon established himself as a stamp dealer and
cataloguerA library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations...
(as a sideline to owning a stationery and printing shop) in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, and published the
Descriptive Price Catalogue of All Known Postage Stamps of the United States and Foreign Countries in 1876.
Nicholas Frederick Seebeck (1857
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
- June 23, 1899) was a
stamp dealerA stamp dealer is a company or an individual who deals in postage stamps and philatelic products. It also includes individuals who sell postage stamps for day to day use or official stamps for use on court documents.-Stamps on Approval Basis:...
and
printerA printer is a company that provides commercial printing services, often also offering typesetting and book-binding services. The term can also refer to people who operate printing presses, or who run printing companies....
, best known for his stamp-printing contracts with several
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries in the 1890s.
Life in USA
Seebeck emigrated to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at the age of 9. He soon established himself as a stamp dealer and
cataloguerA library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations...
(as a sideline to owning a stationery and printing shop) in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, and published the
Descriptive Price Catalogue of All Known Postage Stamps of the United States and Foreign Countries in 1876. In 1879, he began printing stamps for the
Dominican RepublicThe Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are occupied by two countries...
and the
ColombiaColombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the northwest by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean...
n
State of BolivarBolivar State , is one of the 23 states into which Venezuela is divided. The state capital city is Ciudad Bolívar. Bolivar State covers a total surface area of 238,000 km² and in 2007 had an estimated population of 1,534,800....
. These stamps were printed under a standard sort of printing contract, where he received a fee for printing a specified number of stamps. However, with the Bolivar issues, he began the soon to be infamous practice of year-dating otherwise identical stamp designs. Seebeck was successful enough to be able to sell his business in 1884 and purchase a significant interest in the Hamilton Bank Note Engraving and Printing Co., whose main contract was for printing tickets for the New York City transportation system.
Hamilton Bank Note Engraving and Printing Co
In 1889, Seebeck developed a novel plan for Hamilton to print stamps for foreign countries. He offered to supply the stamps for free, provided that:
1. The stamps would be dated and invalidated at the end of each year, to be replaced by a new series.
2. Unsold (invalid) stamps would be returned to Seebeck for sale to collectors.
3. Seebeck retained the right to reprint any invalid stamps as needed for sale to collectors.
Seebeck also apparently insisted on printing stamps with values not relevant to the postal rates of the countries using them. There are many long series of stamps where only a few values corresponded to common postal uses. The remaining values were intended for collectors.
Seebeck went on a tour of Latin America and signed contracts in 1889-1890 with several countries:
EcuadorEcuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador , literally, "Republic of the equator") is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America that...
,
El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
,
GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
(only for fiscal stamps not postage ones),
HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
, and
NicaraguaNicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km
2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west of...
. The contracts were for ten years worth of stamp issues, and also included official,
telegraphTelegraph stamps are stamps specially printed for the payment of telegraph fees. The customer completed a telegraph form before handing it with payment to the clerk who applied a telegraph stamp and cancelled it to show that payment had been made.- Usage :...
,
revenue stampA revenue stamp, tax stamp or fiscal stamp is a stamp used to collect taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, and many other things.- Description :...
s and
postal stationeryA piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as an envelope, letter sheet, post card, lettercard, aérogramme or newspaper wrapper, with an imprinted stamp.- Format :...
.
Seebeck failed to realize that most stamp collectors want to collect the stamps that are actually usable and available for postage, and not special creations designed to separate them from their money. They objected strongly to Seebeck's unlimited reprinting rights, the needless yearly creation of new issues, and the issuance of postally-irrelevant stamp values. Stamps with face values up to $10 were issued for the 1892
ColumbusChristopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere...
anniversary. Although the U.S. and
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
received similar abuse for their 1892 and 1897 stamp series (which included values up to $5), Seebeck's efforts were seen as particularly blatant. Many collectors refused to collect these issues.
Several of the countries backed out of their contracts with Seebeck (Honduras in 1893, and Ecuador in 1896) due to the bad publicity and administrative nuisance of the frequently-changing issues.
Seebeck died at age 42, near the end of his stamp contracts.
Legacy
The Hamilton Bank Note Company printed other stamps such as the 1902 issue of Dominican Republic and was still in existence in the 1940s when August Seebeck, Nicholas' grandson was president. However, millions of stamp reprints (and the plates from which they were produced) reached the market. Most of the Hamilton issues, pejoratively known as "Seebecks", are common and cheap to this day, at least in unused condition. However, many of the original post-1895 issues are scarce, or rare, in unused condition while the reprints abound. In part, this is because it is difficult to tell the stamps shipped for postal sale from the numerous reprints. Postally-used stamps are generally much less common, though the collector of this area needs to beware of forged cancellations.
Sources
Minutes of the Hamilton Bank Note Company by Bill Welch, The Seebecker,1990
The Seebeck Issues of Nicaragua by Albert Quast & Dr. Robert Willer (ghostwritten by Joseph M. Sousa),
The Collectors ClubThe Collectors Club of New York, founded in 1896, is a group of individuals whose objective is to promote the hobby of philately and to provide a social, educational, and non-commercial setting for those interested in the subject...
Philatelist, NY, 1968
El Salvador - The Seebeck Stamps, Part 1 & 2, by Joseph D. Hahn and Joseph M. Sousa, The American Philatelic Congress Book, 1977 & 1978