This is a 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

When Eric Carlson retired, he dove headfirst into an old hobby.

Philately.

Philately is basically the love of stamps and it involves all aspects of stamp collecting from

beginners to experts.

Aside from being my new favorite word,

philately is a tragically underappreciated field of study.

A stamp can give you a perfect snapshot of the past

in a single square inch of paper.

Producer Vivian Lay.

Of course you've got the basic forever stamp with the flag waving on it.

Then there are maritime stamps, commemorative stamps, architectural stamps,

or my favorite,

Cinderella's, which resemble real stamps,

but can't be used for mail since they aren't issued

by a postal authority.

They're kind of like fan art.

Eric Carlson finds his stamps at the world's great supermarket for obscure collectibles,

eBay.

And one day he found this really odd looking stamp, a Cinderella actually. It's a very cumbersome looking red bird in the middle with a

yellow background. Most official stamps are neat and tidy with clean lines, but not this one.

This stamp was kind of rough looking.

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