Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2023 i Stamp Collector

After the great success of the first charity vignettes without postal validity for the Youth charity organisation Pro Juventute in 1912 (see this month’s Market Watch column, page 26), Swiss Post decided to issue a special stamp with a franking value plus a surcharge in the following year. This first official postal charity stamp of Switzerland, Mi 117/Zumstein PJ 1, hit the post office counters on 1 December 1913. The vertical format in green letterpress of the Federal Mint and Stamp Printing Office in Berne is decorated with a drawing by the famous Swiss-French Art Nouveau artist Eugène Samuel Grasset (1845-1917). For Swiss Post he had already designed several stamp series. The ‘Pro Juventute 1913’ shows a bust portrait of Helvetia with flower wreath next to the Matterhorn and Swiss…

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In the last 50 years postage stamps have been issued in late November to celebrate the annual festival as a religious and cultural celebration. But 100 years ago or more, it was different – there were no special stamps. If friends and family were either too distant or unable to be together during the Christmas period, then maybe a telephone call, or a letter or postcard to wish goodwill and happiness. Not a postcard today, but a face-to-face call on a laptop or handheld smart phone. The postcard shown from the Valentine’s Series from nearly a century ago has a father ‘bringing home the tree’ with two children and the family dog, and the message ‘A Glad Christmas’. Naturally what we all hope for. The first postmark says ‘BROMSGROVE/6.15.PM/22DE/05’. Plenty…

PART TWELVE – THE PRIME SUSPECTS William Le Queux sat silently seeking inspiration. The terrace in which he was enjoying a late afternoon tea was entirely his own. The only other occupants, who were an elderly lady and her daughter, had long since vacated due to the chill in the air and the absence of the early evening light. However, Le Queux felt neither the wind or the lack of warmth from the setting sun. He scribbled intently upon a page in his personal journal, focused solely on the names written before him. He paused to take a gulp of what the waiter had termed ‘Sahlab’, but which he referred to as his afternoon cuppa. He placed his pencil down and said the names out loud, as if to aid…

GB CHRISTMAS STAMPS REVEALED Royal Mail have revealed the design of their Christmas 2023 stamps, with a set of stamps inspired by Christmas carols and carolling. The set of five special self adhesive stamps features brand new illustrations by artist Tom Duxbury, who specialises in the techniques of block printing to depict both vintage and modern scenes. Available in a miniature sheet of five, the stamps were printed by Cartor Security Printers and were issued on 2 November. The vibrant designs capture the themes of popular Christmas carols ‘Silent Night’, ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, ‘O Holy Night’, ‘Away in a Manger’, and ‘We Three Kings’. Artist and illustrator Tom Duxbury works in the medium of block print and has worked on many book covers including Philip Pullman’s Serpentine and…

Stamp Collector doesn’t pop its cork for every stamp it sees. But it’s going all out for the Royal Mail’s Dame Shirley Bassey, a special set plus a miniature sheet that celebrates 70 show-stopping years as a performer with stamps showcasing her bravura live performances. The eight stamps show the powerhouse Welsh diva’s glamour and glory as the leather-lunged legend belts out her hits in her trademark style: full-voiced, sustained notes, top of her range, giving it her all, red-carpet styling, no skimping on the style and spangles. The miniature sheet features candid shots during rehearsals and recordings. There really is no one else like her. It’s hard to believe that a performer, the epitome of everything we associate with the word ‘diva’, was told to pipe down when she…

AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS PRICES INCLUDE BUYER’S PREMIUM UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED SHOW-STOPPING ERROR The star of Robert A Siegel’s recent sale of ‘The Vaquero Collection of Errors, Freaks and Oddities’ was undoubtedly the used USA 1869 15c Brown and Blue with centre inverted, which fetched $45,000. The auction house explained the stamp’s scarcity: ‘Our census of Scott 119b, available at our website, records three unused and 102 used copies (there are an additional three used examples of Scott 119c). Two of the used copies are in institutions – the Tapling Collection at The British Library and the Miller Collection at The New York Public Library. Only 12 are confirmed as sound. An additional nine have not been seen in many years and are known only from old black and white photos so…

The ‘finest’ example of the famous ‘Inverted Jenny’ US stamp is set to go under the hammer this month at Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries. With an pre-sale estimate of $1,500,000 -$2,000,000 the stamp has been described as ‘the finest Inverted Jenny in existence and has no Mint Never Hinged equal.’ According to the auction house, who will be selling the stamp at the conclusion of their 8 November sale in New York, the stamp was purchased in 1918 and remained in its pristine ‘post office’ condition in a bank vault for the next 100 years and has been kept in the dark since it was purchased by the current owner in 2018. The lot description explains the history of the rare stamp in detail: ‘The original sheet of 100…

A rare set of vignettes without franking value was sold at post counters in Switzerland in December 1912, one year before the first official Pro Juventute issue of 1913 (see this month’s View from Europe, page 18). This unusual category of charity stamps made its official debut on 14 December 1912 in aid of the fight against tuberculosis in children. Depending on the region, three versions were available in different colours and languages. These vignettes were printed by Orell & Füssli in Zurich. They reproduced the motif on the front in three versions, without specifying the country, each with the year 1912 at the bottom right. It is important to know that the quantities sold of these labels in all three colours and languages at 10c each were rather different.…

Each summer my wife and I spend a day in Denmark, buying a 24-hour ticket for the Greater Copenhagen area (basically the northern part of the island of Zealand). What interests us is the network of local lines all starting at Hillerød, an ancient city located in the central part of the island. In the past, the Hillerød station was the hub for a number of privately owned and operated railway companies serving mostly local towns and rural communities. They all used stamps in connection with their carriage of parcels. One of the lines used to be known as the Hillerød-Frederiksvaerk Jernbane and was opened on 31 May 1897. In this way the industrial town of Frederiksvaerk in the West of Zealand could ship its products by rail to other…

The name ‘context philately’ is a new philatelic term coined just recently (January 2023) for a trend or activity which has been developing within the subject in the last few years. Philately is a subject that is just what you want it to be. It can be relatively simple in collecting stamps or more complex in the study of stamps and aspects of postal (not to mention revenue/taxation) history. It can be seen as a hobby or, an academic study and interest, and all stages between. Context philately aims to extend the understanding of the aspect of philately that you have decided upon, to collect or study, by setting it in a wider context. This wider context may be broad or as focused as you please. Examples might be to…

La Poste, the French post office, recently issued a stamp to mark the 150th anniversary of Jules Rimet, the founder of the football World Cup. Football trivia buffs will know the original world cup trophy was names after Rimet, and was given to Brazil after they won the tournament for a third time. Rimet became the first president of the French Football Federation in 1919, and served as president of FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) from 1929 to 1954. Belgium recently reminded us of the importance of insulin, marking the centenary of the Nobel Prize in Medicine being awarded to the scientists who made the discovery. The stamp features a portrait of Frederick Grant Banting, who was awarded the Nobel Prize along with John James Rickard Macleod. Hungary’s Xmas…

Since J.K Rowling’s first Harry Potter book appeared in 1997, the stories set in the wizarding school of Hogwarts built to the Battle of Hogwarts: an epic standoff between the forces of lightness and dark. The final conflict in the Second Wizarding War was initially depicted in the seventh and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In the movie adaptation Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part One, Harry and his faithful comrades Ron and Hermione set out on a mission, fraught with danger, to discover, and eliminate, the Horcruxes – the secret to Voldemort’s immortality. Part Two, which saw the conflict escalate into full-scale warfare, featured the climactic Battle of Hogwarts. The Battle is now the subject of a new ten set of Royal…

SOLD FOR £2,420 France, 2F Merson purple & yellow 1900 MNH well centered (signed with cert). SOLD FOR £667 British Morocco Agencies, 1899 set in matched pairs, right stamp in each par with ‘Broad top to M’ (SG9b/16b) MNH/MLH. SOLD FOR £445 Egypt, Die prrof of 3 millièmes in black dated 11 May (18)91. SOLD FOR £401 Belgium, Luggage stamp, 40F grey Railway stamp overprin. ‘BAGAGES/REISGOED’ 1935 MNH. SOLD FOR £1,557 FSAT, full imperf. sheet airmail 85F Concorde 1969 MNH. SOLD FOR £410 San Marino, Airmail 1000L 1954 in sheetlet of 6 stamps MNH (with cert). SOLD FOR £333 Ireland, block of four stamps 10d turquoise-blue Saorstát 1922 fine cancel. Dublin, var. ‘S over é’lower left stamp. SOLD FOR £121 Great Britain, £1 dull blue-green KEVII 1902 used SOLD FOR…

Most people today probably don’t realise that many colonial creations were not run by European governments, but rather by commercial companies which were set up exclusively to exploit the natural resources of the overseas territories which they claimed (and often with government backing). Many of the companies even ran their own postal services and issued their own postage stamps. In most cases the inscriptions on the stamps don’t reveal the fact that they were indeed issued by a company. Notable exceptions are the issues of the Mozambique Company and the Nyassa Company. The British North Borneo Company was established in 1881 with the purpose of exploiting the riches (at first mainly timber) of this large territory on the island of Borneo. Today it is the state of Sabah, part of…

It’s a word that stands for a political or geographic union, a sense of community, or common purpose. In fact, ‘united’ is a thematic that can be big or small and, in common with real-life unions, is as diverse as it’s (sometimes) controversial. Worldwide, there are many geographic and political groups that use the word ‘united’ to describe themselves. The United Kingdom, the United States, the United Nations, and the United Arab Emirates are perhaps the most well-known but Mexico’s official name is also the United Mexican States. Many philatelists focus their collections on specific nations, like the USA, but defunct unions and states make for an interesting area of study. The United States of the Ionian Islands, for example, were a protectorate of the United Kingdom between 1815 and…