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In order to become more efficient, in 1915 the Board of Fish and Game Commissioners divided California into districts with each commissioner being responsible for one district. Also in 1915, the Department of Commercial Fisheries was established. This separated the administration and regulation of commercial fishing from sport fishing. As this concerned sport fishing, it allowed for an increased…

Britton & Rey was not the only San Francisco lithographer and printer to put out stunning work in the middle teens. In fact, most – if not all – of the San Fransisco companies were at the top of their game during this time. There were two reasons for this. First, the devastating earthquake and fire had…

During the years, 1911, 1912 and 1913, the Board of Fish and Game Commissioners oversaw the production of over 35 million trout at California fish hatcheries and directed the distribution of these trout to stock streams around the state. The commissioners “placed fish in streams previously barren, and kept up and even increased the stock in…

In 1909, the California Board of Fish Commissioners changed to the Fish and Game Commission, reflecting the growing importance of game conservation. At this time, the Commission consisted of three members appointed by the governor at no compensation. More important to license and waterfowl stamp collectors was the passage of The Hunting License Act of…

For many collectors, a rewarding part of the fish and game hobby is collecting pre stamp (pre-1934) hunting and fishing licenses. These are seen as historically and contextually important forerunners to the stamps themselves and in the case of the beautiful California pictorial licenses, they are known to have actually inspired the first federal waterfowl stamp. Early hunting…

After becoming married to Jeanette, Gilbert first worked for a railroad and then as a carpenter. Gilbert went to work for his father, helping to build and remodel houses. He was a carpenter for much of his life until he was forced to retire due to problems with his eyesight. Prior to the war, fishing was more…

Last month, before leaving for New York, I was looking through some albums for interesting items to write about. I came upon a group of licenses from Maryland that I had acquired from an advanced collector in the mid 1990’s. Each of the licenses was made out to Gilbert D. Cooper of Brunswick, MD and affixed to each…

The highly anticipated World Stamp Show NY 2016 has come and gone and it was an exhilarating experience! The show was held in the Jacob K. Javits Center and the scale of the event was mind boggling (see Figures 1, 2 and 3). I don’t know if the expected 250,000 showed up, but attendance was strong on…

One of the more intriguing ways of collecting federal waterfowl stamps is to acquire stamps signed by the artist who designed the original artwork. In this way, the miniature piece of art is signed like a larger painting or print. Some advanced collectors attempt to acquire the larger signed original sketches and paintings and a much greater number collect…

One of the most popular methods of collecting federal waterfowl stamp usages is to collect stamps affixed to Form 3333. By far and away the most readily available are from 1934-35, as this was the only year the card was actually required to be used. I would estimate there are more 1934-35 Form 3333 usages in collections today…