Volume 3, Number 4
Oct 1990

Deterioration Joke

An April Fools story in Stamp News Australasia, by Michael Sanig, is entitled "The Time Bomb in Your Stamp Album." It quotes nonexistent stamp journals in Liechtenstein and the U.S. to the effect that a "disease!' of plastic had started causing transparent mounts to crumble to dust, taking part of the stamp along with then and leaving large black stains on the album pages where the mounts had been. The mysterious effect was traced to the use of "diseased and dead" trees in the manufacture of stamp paper. And on and on, reminiscent of The Andromeda Strain, a science fiction story in which a disease from outer space nearly kills off everyone an earth. Since there is always somebody who takes April Fools stories seriously, we can expect anxious inquiries on this topic sooner or later.