Thomas Edison .....but not on the stamps

Hello, well yesterday I set a puzzle for you and from the replies here are some stamps.

However we do have a disagreement here :-) only friendly of course and probably only becaue I don't know what I am talking about :-)

I am told (great peice by the way Charlie) that Nicholas Tesla, who was honored by a US stamp in the early eighties (see stamp) would be the answer to who invented the radio four years before Marconi sent his messages. The US Supreme Court awarded Tesla a patent during WW II for his invention. Tesla had been working for Thomas Edison in the 1880s but was cheated by them/him and struck out on his own. In 1891 he wrote and published a paper describing his invention. Otherwise, Edison would have owned the patent as the product of an employee's work. Unfortunately Tesla died an impoverished lonely old man before the patent case was won.

Having said that - and I accept that is correct - Edison was awarded a patent in 1891 for the "means for transmitting signals electrically" Patent 465972 to be precise.

See how much we learn from stamps. What a wonderful hobby. I don't just collect the stamps I try to learn from the history they are commemorating. Hope you do and you enjoy it as much as I do.

Advance Notice here: Starting later in January I am going to be doing a series of articles on quality - yes again. I feel I must because I have been looking at a rather well known auction site recently and have been quite shocked at the descriptions being given to stamps. Ok, buyer beware, and yes you can see the quality from the scans but I think the more we ( and me I guess) help spread knowledge about quality the better off the collecting community will be. And same for sellers of good quality material. I've got nothing against people selling rubbish. Just that I feel for the buyer who knows not what he or she is buying other than by reading a poor description. Help me please by telling people about this blog and encourage your friends and club members to be more aware, or read the blog. Some of the material I am assembling will shock you I think. Write me if you have views. Always happy to hear, good or bad, about what I write or plan to write.

Anyway, enjoy your stamps. Best wishes.. Michael