We are proud to publish the second of two winners in our recent essay competition. We liked them so much that we decided to award two first prize winners. Both authors were enthusiastic about their stamp collecting. We hope you enjoy this one from Bob Scott…
“You must be joking! You collect world stamps? Why not specialise? Isn’t it all a bit ridiculous – you can’t hope to collect every stamp from every country in the world? Surely you could limit yourself, either by date, or theme, or something?”
“Well, er, actually”, I reply, “although I have over 33,000 stamps in my collection, there is no way at all that I could pass up a good stamp! Simple as that.”
Of course, the actual process of collecting, cataloguing and entering the stamps is much more complex. But in essence, I find that with very few exceptions, I cannot look at a stamp and just ignore it. Even my wife has caught the bug and now we both avidly search for new items for what I suppose I should now call ‘our’ collection!
I think that one of the main attractions for me is that I have always loved travel and until the last 20 years or so have had little opportunity to indulge myself in jetting off to foreign places. So in a way, the stamps have compensated to a degree. You only have to look at the pictorials (especially the older ones) from places like the Gold Coast, Malta, Turks and Caicos Islands, to see what I mean. Pictures of places I have never visited, so graphically illustrated for all to see.
It’s not just places, either. Look at SG2217 for Czechoslovakia – the 30th Anniversary of liberation by the Soviet Army at the end of the Second World War. What a wonderful stamp showing a jubilant population in 1945. Look at the colourful stamps of China, SG762-5 to commemorate the abolition of foreign concessions in Shanghai. Superb designs. For sheer works of art you can’t do much better than the 1952 Underground Stations issue of the USSR. Then there are the ‘flower’ definitives of Germany, the ‘bird’ definitives of Eire…etc. The list is endless.
Places, events, works of art. What about history? Our collection contains a number of perfins, overprints and fiscal stamps. Perfins and overprints designed to prevent theft and unauthorised use of company stamps by employees. Fiscal stamps showing details of money received, like the large Queen Victoria stamp which shows The Queen’s head in profile in an oval surrounded by the words “Draft Payable on Demand, or Receipt” and cancelled in black-ink handwriting “Settd. Mary Leigh, 23 October 1861” Or what about the SG32 we have for Gaza? An Egyptian stamp with the 3-bar obliteration reflecting the abdication of King Farouk in 1952, overprinted Palestine in Arabic and English, and issued in 1953 for use in the Gaza Strip? Real history.
How could we pass up any of those on the grounds that our collection was specialised? Impossible! Nearly every day brings up something new, interesting, intriguing. And I haven’t even mentioned the fun we have designing pages on the pc to accommodate our collection in 34 loose-leaf 4-ring binders!
Brilliant
I am a world collector as well
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What’s up i am kavin, its my first occasion to commenting anywhere, when i read this piece of writing i thought i could also create comment due to this good article.