stamps

A modern stamp design is under copyright, so the atlas never shows a scan. Instead it draws original engravings from the stamp's subject, generated once and kept forever.

The albums are old and fragile, so the collection is photographed one time and never handled again. Everything the public site knows is reprocessed from those photographs and a log of facts.

How a machine is allowed to propose facts about a stamp without being allowed to decide them, and why the public site fills in from candidates instead of stalling on my approval.

A public site for a lifetime of stamps that shows only what it can honestly stand behind, and says "not yet known" out loud instead of guessing.