Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 2. Whole No. 834, February 2011

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One of the hobbies of Lawrence Block’s series character Keller is stamp collecting, which explains why this story first appeared in a philatelic magazine. We thought there were unlikely to be many EQMM readers who’d seen it there, and that the story should be brought to a mystery audience. A couple of years ago, Mr. Block was the keynote speaker at a dinner of the American Philatelic Society, which commemorated the event by issuing a souvenir sheet of four stamps mentioned in Keller stories. (See them at www.lawrenceblock.com).

The young man, who would have looked owlish even without the round eyeglasses, unfolded a piece of paper and laid it on the counter in front of Keller. “The certificate of expertization for Obock J1,” he said. “Signed by Bloch and Mueller.”

He might have been a Red Sox fan invoking Ted Williams, and Keller could understand why. Herbert Bloch and Edwin Mueller were legendary philatelists, and their assertion that this particular stamp was indeed a genuine copy of Obock’s first postage-due stamp, designated J1 in the Scott catalog, was enough to allay all doubt.

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