[Illustration: STAMPS] This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department. The second type of the 5c. Baton Rouge has been seen by Mr. Deats with the error McCcrmick. The widespread collecting of imprints of the current issue of U.S. stamps has led an enterprising publisher in New York to place on the market an album for the use of collectors. Each Plate No. has a page with spaces for all four positions of the imprint, and separate pages are prepared for the watermarked and unwatermarked varieties. The newspapers report the arrest, in Chicago, of a gang of counterfeiters who have been printing counterfeit U.S. 2c. stamps by lithographic process, in sheets containing twenty-five stamps. It is said that large quantities of the stamps have been used. No copies have been seen in New York as yet. Should any of the ROUND TABLE readers have any copies of these stamps, I should be glad to see one. They are described as bearing a smudged look. The influence of fashion in fixing the price of stamps has been curiously illustrated at the last large auction held in New York city. The gems of the sale were the 1878 reprints of the U.S. stamps from 1847 to 1870, and of the periodical stamps from 2c. to 60c. These reprint periodicals are the only copies known, and yet the price obtained for them was an average of only $6 each. The original 9c. stamp, of which hundreds of copies are in existence, sells for $15. The unique reprint of the same stamp brought $10 only. The purchaser secured a great bargain. An old story has been going the rounds of the press lately of how a small boy wrote to Field-Marshal Yamagata for some Japanese stamps, and received in reply a complete set of all the Japanese stamps unused. The story is probably true, but the sequel is not given. The success of this boy's request was published, and as a result the Marshal was overwhelmed by thousands of similar requests from collectors all over the world. Of course they got nothing. Belgium has caught the speculation fever. Designs have been invited for stamps to be used in commemoration of the International Exhibition to be held in 1897. Germany has filed an official protest against such stamps by proposing the following resolution, which will be considered at the International Postal Union Congress at Washington in May, 1897: "Resolved, That the International Postal Union will exclude all stamps which are not necessary for actual postal requirements, especially the so-called Jubilee and Celebration stamps." Sir Robert Hart, Commissioner of the Chinese Customs, has been asked by the Emperor of China to organize a national postal system. If the project is carried out, the many Chinese Locals will be made valueless in the eyes of every one.