Yours truly has been collecting Civil War revenue stamps for a few years now.  Coins and stamps have always fascinated me because of their tangibility.  The people using them at the time had no way to know that these items would someday be part of history.  They were just the accoutrements of everyday life and commerce, used in the types of transactions we all conduct each day without thinking about them.  Thus a coin, stamp, or bill from an earlier era is a connection to the past in a genuine and understandable way, giving us a real connection to the people who once used them.  And why do we study history if not for that?

(Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University)

(Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division)