Welcome to GBStamps.com
The Place on the Web for Great Britain Philately

This site is dedicated to the collecting and study of the stamps of Great Britain and related material. It consists of three parts:

GBStamps.com for all collectors of British stamps Go to the site guide or the headlines or the other new items
MachinMania.com with lots of information about the myriad of Machins
The Great Britain Collectors Club, the only North American group dedicated to British philately

If you would like to receive an email whenever this site is updated, click here.

Headlines

Check here frequently for the latest news about GB philately. Click on the link after the headline to read the story. Some recent stories are listed here. All recent stories are listed at the top of the News page. From there, you can also read news stories from prior years.

The British Postal Museum & Archive has a new exhibit featuring the work of David Gentleman, along with a web exhibit and a free downloadable document. The news is here.

Royal Mail’s 2009 rate increase is a huge one.

There are the usual new Machins and regionals to go along with the new rates.

And lots of new Machins in the four(!!!) prestige booklets issued in 2009.

The Philbrick and Prussian Finds are coming to the U.S. during Chicagopex in November.

What Else Is New?

The Great Britain Collectors Club has organized a worldwide gathering of GB collectors at Chicagopex (November 20-22) with a very special exhibit of rare Victorian material, a number of other exhibits and many outstanding seminars.

Now you can join the Great Britain Collectors Club right here on the web. It’s that easy!

See the full set of 34 colors developed by Jeffery Matthews for the Machins.

I blog occasionally at the Machin Mania Blog. Roy Simpson, the chief blogger, contributes frequently. Come over for a visit.

The postal rates pages have been updated with the new 2009 rates.

Site Guide

The main section of this site contains these areas:

Virtual Great Britain Album - Current sections include the pictorial regionals and an extensive postal history exhibit.
News - Read the latest … and everything that has been posted since 1998.
Links - Some of interest to GB collectors and some for all stamp collectors.
Musings and Miscellany - Topics to ponder and other items of interest.
What’s New - See what has changed in all sections of the site since you were last here.
Quizlets - See what viewers thought about a number of topics.
Notification - be notified by email when this site changes by joining the GBStamps.com mailing list.

The other sections of this site have their own main pages:

MachinMania.com - Be seduced by Machin Mania on the web, where you can see Machin high values and Designer Machins in the Virtual Machin Album, you can learn The Machin Story in the Virtual Machin Album, read the Machin FAQ, try the Machin Quizes, learn about clubs for Machin collectors, view links related to Machins and more.
Great Britain Collectors Club - The only North American club for GB collectors. Several articles from the club’s journal, The Chronicle, are reprinted on this site, including interviews with many key members of the British philatelic community. There are also some tables of postage rates during the Machin period (1967 to date).

Miscellany

Who am I?

I’m Larry Rosenblum. I’ve been collecting British stamps for over 20 years. I’m the official webmaster and secretary/treasurer of the Great Britain Collectors Club. For ten years, my colleague, David Alderfer, and I wrote the monthly Great Britain column for Linn’s Stamp News. I retired in 2002, but David still writes it, and it appears on the second Monday of each month. Our book, derived from our columns, is pictured at left. It is available from Amos Press. Just type ‘rosenblum’ in the search window.

I now write the quarterly column “British Beat” for Scott Stamp Monthly.

Take a look at my Machinmobile. Meet my new girlfriend. See me at the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. See the rare giant Machin I found at the Grand Canyon. Or, see the result of excessive Machin Mania. Many who visit this site assume I am British, but I was born in and have always lived in the United States. Currently I live in California. Please write to me at and say hello.

GBStamps.com won a silver medal in the National Philatelic Website Competition held at Midaphil 2000. At that time, Midaphil was an American Philatelic Society “World Series of Philately” show. Back to top.