seebeck emigrated from germany to the united states at the age of 9. he soon established himself as a stamp dealer and cataloguer (as a sideline to owning a stationery and printing shop) in new york city, and published the "descriptive price catalogue of all known postage stamps of the united states and foreign countries" in 1876. in 1879, he began printing stamps for the dominican republic and the colombian state of bolivar. these stamps were printed under a standard sort of printing contract, where he received a fee for printing a specified number of stamps. however, with the bolivar issues, he began the soon to be infamous practice of year-dating otherwise identical stamp designs. seebeck was successful enough to be able to sell his business in 1884 and purchase a significant interest in the hamilton bank note engraving and printing co., whose main contract was for printing tickets for the new york city transportation system.