Welcome to the GFF (Genuine Faux Farm) Postal History Blog!
This blog has four major goals:
- To connect with others who may have interest in similar topics.
- To provide other postal historians with (hopefully) interesting readings on postal history.
- To organize my thoughts and resources into my own reference source as I learn about various areas in postal history.
- To eventually put these personal references into a format where it might serve as a reference to other postal historians.
The simple fact that I am organizing knowledge for use by persons other
than myself motivates me to accomplish a better and more complete
understanding of the things I enjoy researching. It also could
encourage others to help me move forward in my projects. Thus far, the
experiment appears to be mildly successful. I have made a couple of
connections and I still enjoy putting posts together. I foresee this
blog experiment continuing for some time.
Ongoing Blog Themes
This blog will certainly continue to evolve - but there are a few major themes that the reader might like to explore.
1. Postal History Sundays
Postal History Sunday posts are written for a broader audience, including interested persons who are NOT currently postal historians or philatelists. These started as posts for our farm blog and we started to cross post them here as I found that philatelists and postal historians also enjoyed reading them. I try to keep the content accessible and use a 'light' tone. At the same time, I work hard to provide some interesting facts that most people would enjoy and some that might actually be interesting to folks of all levels of knowledge (unless you are the expert on a given topic - then I bow to you on that!).
2. Cover A Day(ish)
To keep myself writing AND to avoid losing information I dredge up as I
research a particular item, I have begun trying to do write-ups that feature a single item.
I have enjoyed doing this, but sometimes find these are more work than I originally intended. I will continue with these, but they will come in clusters as I find time to do them. These posts are intended as postal history first, followed by additional social history and background as I desire.
3. Treaty Mail Resources
Over time I will continue to refine a select group of pages that cover the mail between particular nations prior to 1875. I intend for these to be resource pages for myself and whomever else finds them to be useful. Each of these pages will include an indication at the top as to where I feel the status of the page (in progress, complete, etc) is at any given time. If I indicate that a page is "complete," that will indicate that I am comfortable with the information given. It does not mean I cannot add more detail or expand the content in the future. It also does not make a claim that I created a perfect resource. There is no such thing and I do accept suggestions/corrections.
4. Domestic Mail Resources
The Domestic Mail Resources cover internal mail rates and information, primarily focused before 1875. These follow the same guidelines as the Treaty Mail Resources found above.
5. 24 cent US 1861s
My area of strength is the postal history surrounding the 24 cent 1861 issue of the United States. I have been collecting postal history artifacts featuring this particular stamp since the 1990s and still enjoy studying and researching them.
6. Other Resources on this Site
If you look to the sidebar at the right, you will see links that include a chance to see my Genuinely Farming Exhibit, the 24 cent Postal History Exhibit, some of my European Display Pages, a Resources Page, and even a Sales Page.
Please note that these pages are secondary on my priority list. I will update and add to them when I have time Look to those pages for more information on their status.
Want to just read the blog from newest to oldest?
It's pretty simple - just take the link here OR take the Blog (All Posts) link in the navigation area to the right.
Or want to follow this blog?
Scroll down and watch the navigation area to the right of the main blog reading area. You can sign up to follow this blog using email or you can subscribe to a blogger feed service. In both cases, you will only be notified when a new blog is published. Typically, that will be once a week with the Postal History Sunday post. Periodically, I will feel like writing more and a week or two might feature posts every day or so.
Who Am I?
My name is Rob Faux and I pursue postal history as a hobby. Professionally, I am a vegetable and poultry farmer and the Communications Associate in Iowa for Pesticide Action Network. I am featured on their Ground Truth blog about once a month. I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Adult Education - which certainly explains all of the other things I do!
My available time will typically concentrate around the Winter months. My first job is operating the Genuine Faux Farm, an actual small, diversified farming operation in Iowa. We have authored a blog for the farm for several years titled Genuinely Faux since 2009.
My part-time job is as Communications Associate in Iowa for the Pesticide Action Network. I am featured on their Ground Truth blog about once a month.
And, sometimes I write about philately and postal history. That's a lot of words - good thing I enjoy it. I hope you will too.
In Progress Blogs
There are some posts that appear here that are not
necessarily "finished" works. Some will be in progress efforts
that illustrate my current state of data gathering and synthesis for the
given topic.
Many of the posts also include an "open
questions" segment that
may or may not be used. And, sometimes you will notice a "last
updated" note on the post. I will endeavor to make it clear when a post might not be as reliable as I would like it to be if you wish to reference it as a resource.
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Labels:
Are you looking for posts on certain topics? Take a look at the labels
shown to the right of the blog content. If you click on one of these labels, the blog will show only the items that have that label. For
example, if you only want to read about mail to and from Belgium, select
the Belgium label at the right and you will view only posts related to
Belgian Postal history on this blog.
Thank you for joining me here!
Please give me feedback if you are so inclined. If you have a resource you think I should know about, please let me know!
Be well,
Rob
