Nicholas F. Seebeck

Nicholas Frederick Seebeck (1857 – June 23, 1899) was a stamp dealer and printer, best known for his stamp printing contracts with several Latin American countries in the 1890s.

Seebeck emigrated from what is now Germany to the United States at the age of 9. He soon established himself as a stamp dealer and cataloguer (as a sideline to owning a stationery and printing shop) in New York City, and published the Descriptive Price Catalogue of All Known Postage Stamps of the United States and Foreign Countries in 1876. In 1879, he began printing stamps for the Dominican Republic and the Colombian State of Bolivar. These stamps were printed under a standard sort of printing contract, where he received a fee for printing a specified number of stamps. However, with the Bolivar issues, he began the soon to be infamous practice of year dating otherwise identical stamp designs. Seebeck was successful enough to be able to sell his business in 1884 and purchase a significant interest in the Hamilton Bank Note Engraving and Printing Co., whose main contract was for printing tickets for the New York City transportation system.

Seebeck sold his New York stamp business in 1884 and used the money to buy into the Hamilton Bank Note Engraving and Printing Co.

German philatelic experts who studied the Seebeck issues early in the 20th century claim that Seebeck, instead of reprinting after the stamps were demonetized had excess quantities printed before the stamps were delivered. Since these stamps were printed during the time they were valid for postage they are still considered original postage stamps, whether they were ever delivered to the respective countries' postal authorities or not. Condemnation of Seebeck among the collecting community was nearly unanimous. Seebeck failed to realize that most stamp collectors want to collect the stamps that are actually usable and available for postage, and not special creations designed to separate them from their money. They objected strongly to Seebeck's unlimited reprinting rights, the needless yearly creation of new issues, and the issuance of postally irrelevant stamp values. Stamps with face values up to $10 were issued for the 1892 Columbus anniversary. Although the U. S. and Canada received similar abuse for their 1892 and 1897 stamp series (which included values up to $5), Seebeck's efforts were seen as particularly blatant. Many collectors refused to collect these issues. Several of the countries backed out of their contracts with Seebeck (Honduras in 1893, and Ecuador in 1896) due to the bad publicity and administrative nuisance of the frequently changing issues. Nicholas Seebeck died June 23, 1899, at the age of 42, in the final year of his contract with El Salvador.

The Hamilton Bank Note Company printed other stamps such as the 1902 issue of Dominican Republic and was still in existence in the 1940s when August Seebeck, Nicholas' grandson was president. However, millions of stamp reprints (and the plates from which they were produced) reached the market. Most of the Hamilton issues, pejoratively known as "Seebecks", are common and cheap to this day, at least in unused condition. However, many of the original post 1895 issues are scarce, or rare, in unused condition while the reprints abound. In part, this is because it is difficult to tell the stamps shipped for postal sale from the numerous reprints. Postally used stamps are generally much less common, though the collector of this area needs to beware of forged cancellations.