Typed Letter Signed ('Aug. Dietz'), with Autograph postscript, from the American philatelist August Dietz to Henry M. W. Eastman of Roslyn, NY, regarding a work he is preparing on Confederate stamps.

2pp., 8vo. Good, on lightly-aged blue paper with brown border, with slight chipping to one corner. Eastman has purchased a 'Set of Fac-Simile Die-Proofs with the Autographed Card'. Presuming that Eastman is 'interested in Confederates', Dietz is enclosing 'the tentative Foreword' to 'a far more "pretentious" work - one upon which I have been engaged for many years': 'It "promises" to make over 400 pages octavo, and I am not yet through the Manuscript. It will be profusely illustrated, not alone with the cuts of the stamps you see on these Die-Proofs in color, but detailed drawings of "Shifts" stone and plate-varieties, groups of the rarest pieces in famous American collections, essays, rejected designs, photographs and autographs of Postmaster-General Reagan and others connected with the printing, reproduction of documents, etc., etc.' He asks Eastman five 'Mooted Questions', before moving on to the subject of 'Lettering', Dietz's 'especial fort and hobbyy' as a 'designer and engraver'. He ends the letter: 'Enough of my "crazy" hobby of Chirography.'