Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2025 i Stamp Collector

Collecting new French issues has become quite an expensive hobby in the past decades due to the increase in the volume of issues. The number of motifs, which are increasingly produced in the form of miniature sheets or stamp booklets, continues to grow. The versions, some of which were offered exclusively via the Collector service, to be ordered via the webpages and sometimes sold (out) at short notice, repeatedly caused procurement problems. An early example was offered by France’s postal service in late 2003, when prices rose rapidly after the first souvenir sheet, ‘Rouge-Gorge’ (Robin), from the new ‘Souvenir Philatelique’ products sold out (Figure 1). The ordinary perforated 50c stamp with the Robin (Erithacus rubecula) for Christmas and New Year in multicoloured offset print of 6 November 2003 was produced…

It was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who coined the term Rainbow Nation way back in 1994 following the first free elections in South Africa. The same term was also used by Nelson Mandela when he referred to his country, which unites diverse cultures and ethnicities. In fact, today’s South Africa has no less than 12 official national languages. The motto of the republic is ‘unity in diversity’, which is obviously very important in a nation like South Africa where some 80% of the population are black South Africans and the remaining 20% of European or Asian ancestry. South Africa is home to more than 82 million people, and it is one of Africa’s most important countries. The first Dutch settlers arrived in 1652, and they settled at Table Bay. They were…

For some numismatists, collecting is the habit of a lifetime. Something that they’ve done for so long, they wouldn’t feel complete without it. For others, the hobby has gone beyond pleasure and practice – it has become a pursuit, and one that’s done diligently, with financial gain in mind. Regardless of the type of collector you are, there’s one thing that every coin enthusiast can agree on: quality is king. And, the joy of coin collecting is that prioritising quality doesn’t necessarily mean breaking the bank. Where quality is concerned, there are generally five factors to take into account: the sharpness of the strike, the condition of the coin, its lustre, colour and attractiveness. Coins are graded using these baselines – and sellers employ terms such as ‘mint’, ‘proof’, ‘uncirculated’,…

Every year, I identify and record several coin hoards from all periods as part of my role as Norfolk County Council’s numismatist. A small hoard of 13 silver denarii from near Dowham Market is one of the more interesting that has turned up this year; the issues within it span well over a century from the late-2nd century BC to the reign of Emperor Tiberius (AD 14–37). What I really like about this hoard is how its constituent coins tell a story on an epic scale – they chart the fall of the Roman Republic, the civil wars that brought about its collapse and the emergence of Rome’s new rulers, first Julius Caesar, then the Triumvirs and, finally, the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The hoard is probably what we might call an…

Nearly 40 years ago, my late mother bought a job lot of India General Service Medals 1908–35 at a local auction house, knowing that I had an interest in Indian campaigns. One of these had been awarded to Henry Redvers Kent (known as ‘Harry’) of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment, for his service during the Third Afghan War between 1919 and 1921 (Figure 1). It was only many years later that the resources available to medal researchers developed sufficiently to add some detail to Harry’s life. For anyone interested in the family background of individuals represented in their medal collections, census records are an important source. These revealed that Harry came from King’s Lynn in Norfolk. His mother had children from at least three different partners between the late…

EuroPhilEx Birmingham 2025 The international stamp exhibition, EuroPhilEx Birmingham 2025, will be held at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham from Wednesday, 7 May until Sunday, 11 May 2025. There will be over 60 dealers present, including a stand for Royal Mail. In addition, there will be 2,000 frames of exhibits from more than 30 countries. Featuring material from some of the world’s finest collections, the Court of Honour will be a particular highlight. The star attraction will be the world’s most valuable stamp, the British Guiana 1856 1c black on magenta, which is being shown by Stanley Gibbons. There will be a free souvenir sheet for visitors every day, while special cachets and cancellations will also be in use. Thursday, 8 May will be Society Showcase Day, with societies…

Royal Mail is celebrating Christmas 2024 with a set of five stamps that feature original illustrations of five cathedrals from around the UK. Featured on the stamps are cathedrals in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Armagh, Bangor and Westminster. Royal Mail worked with Canon Janet Gough, OBE, one of the UK’s foremost experts on cathedrals and church buildings on the stamp issue. They were illustrated by British artist, Judy Joel, whose popular paintings have been sold worldwide over the last 50 years. A cathedral is the seat of a bishop (cathedra in Latin) and the principal church of the diocese or church administrative area. They bear witness to history and play a key role in the nation’s spiritual, cultural and social life. They are a hugely significant part of the UK’s cultural heritage,…

Following Stampex, we had a chat with Bill Barrell to find out his thoughts on the show. HOW WAS STAMPEX FOR YOU? I was unsure how the move from the mezzanine to the upper levels was going to affect business, but I should not have been concerned. Stampex has always been a very important and financially beneficial show for us, and the move within the BDC did not affect total sales at all, which surprised me. I had expected a drop of perhaps 20%. We did miss out on some sales because collectors had spent time downstairs before finding us, but most said that we will be their first stop next time, so overall, we were very pleased with the show. Our stand was perhaps a bit chaotic at times…

The first Christmas greetings and mailings franked with stamps date back to Christmas 1840. Three years later, in 1843, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was published, forever linking the Victorian author with the festive season. ORIGINAL LETTERS Original autographs and letters by Charles Dickens offer interesting opportunities to deepen a collection historically. Cavendish Philatelic Auctions presented a particularly exciting item in 2021. This was a 1d black from plate 5 (SJ) on a small envelope from London’s Fleet Street addressed to the writer Charles Dickens at his residence in Devonshire Terrace on 20 January 1841 (Figure 1). The stamp has the black experimental Maltese cross cancellation clearly applied. At this time, the journalist Charles Dickens, born in 1812 in poor circumstances, had already written his first Christmas story, ‘A…

The combination of stamps and coins in the new format of this magazine reminds the collector of either subject of the close connections between the two. Money, usually in the form of banknotes or other financial instruments, frequently passed through the post, even if the bulk of ‘Money Letters’ have lost their valuable contents. One of the few exceptions are bills of exchange; the favoured method of sending large amounts of value in the days before electronic transfers. The dangers in so doing, arising from robbery, shipwrecks, piracy and conflict, were such that it was common practice to post multiple copies of the same bill by separate sailings in the expectation that at least one would reach its destination. This must have been the case with the second bill of…

This is, in a way, a follow-up to the articles from a few months ago that discussed the usage on cover of various King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II £sd definitive stamps. There were, of course, also a lot of commemorative issues in this period, and these are just as worthy of a usage collection as the definitives. This article (and a second instalment) will look at the general patterns of use and at some individual stamps and uses that are particularly tricky to find. An occasional question is ‘were these stamps really used when definitives of the same value were available?’ – the answer to which is an emphatic ‘yes’. Postmasters were in fact instructed to sell them in preference to the regular definitive stamps while they were…

BUY AND SELL ON DECAMPE, MORE THAN 80 MILLION COLLECTABLES ARE WAITING FOR YOU!…

Several times a non-collector has shown me one of Great Britain’s definitives from the reign of King Edward VIII, with the comment that it must be rare as his was such a short reign. However, had the king not abdicated on 11 December 1936, collectors might have found themselves in for an expensive period. There could have been a memorial issue for King George V, who had died on 20 January 1936, perhaps even carrying a surcharge for the King George V Memorial Fund. While the exact reasons the idea was aborted are not known, it seems none of the essays that were prepared were considered suitable. However, other plans still swung into action, namely for a temporary Accession issue, then a Coronation set, which were to be followed by…

AUCTION RESULTS PRICES EXCLUDE BUYER’S PREMIUM UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED Rare Canada 12d black The Cherrystone auction of rare stamps and postal history of the world on 12–14 November included an example of the 1851 12d black from the British colony of Canada (lot 363). This used example, with margins all around, was described as being in an excellent colour and a very fine condition. The stamp originated from a single order for 51,000 stamps placed in May 1851 with the printers Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson. The stamps were issued on 14 June, with 1,510 stamps being distributed, but only 1,450 examples were sold over a span of nearly six years. Those unsold, were sent back and destroyed together with the unissued remainder. Demand was limited because the only uses…

Mail was first carried by train on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on 11 November 1830. That was only eight weeks after the railway opened. Since the 1780s, horse-drawn mail coaches had conveyed both newspapers and the Royal Mail between post towns across the country. By 1846, the growth in the railway network had led to the withdrawal of all 28 mail coach routes radiating from London. In 1837, George Karstadt, a Post Office surveyor, suggested that letters could be sorted in moving railway carriages and so speed up delivery. His idea was tested on 20 January 1838 using a converted horsebox included in a train on the Grand Junction Railway travelling between Birmingham and Liverpool. Thus was born what became known as Travelling Post Offices (TPOs), though in the…

In 1934, the operators of the Zeppelin airships had an original idea for marketing their air journey to South America at the end of the year – it was declared a ‘Christmas trip’. Mail items carried on this tour were given special confirmation cancellations in green with a Christmas illustration. Such covers are, therefore, not only sought-after by collectors of Zeppelin mail, but are also of interest to enthusiasts from a thematic point of view. The Christmas voyage of Zeppelin airship LZ 127, known as Graf Zeppelin, was its 12th successful tour of that year to South America. During the pre-Christmas tour of Graf Zeppelin in December 1934, it was possible to celebrate the one million kilometres it had travelled since entering service on 18 September 1928. This record was…

The earliest cover illustrated is an entire letter, where a sheet of paper had the correspondence written on one side, and then, the sheet was folded with a small centre panel having the address and the postage stamp, usually at a penny cost. Occasionally, as in this case, a second sheet was included inside. This letter, dated 3 October 1856, was sent from Robert Elliot in Dunkeld, Scotland, to Edward Mackenzie at Fawley Court, three years after his purchase of the estate, which is near Henley-on-Thames. With a 1d. red ‘stars’ stamp, a manuscript ‘1’ denoting the postage rate and a green ‘DUNKELD/OC 3/1856’ handstamp, a red wax seal ensured closure and confidentiality. It is very much a long three-page business letter, not family social correspondence. Edward Mackenzie (1811–80) was…

Crimestoppers appeal The charity Crimestoppers has launched an appeal over the unsolved theft of one of the most important collections of early Scottish coins. More than 1,000 coins from the 12th and 13th centuries were stolen from the home of Lord and Lady Stewartby in Broughton, near Peebles, in June 2007. They cover the earliest period of Scottish coinage, from the reign of David I (r.1124–53) to Alexander III (r.1249–86). The collection was started by Lord Stewartby when he was a child. Lord Stewartby, the renowned numismatist, has since died. His collection of Scottish coins was entrusted to The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow in 2017. It is hoped that the missing coins will be reunited with the rest of the collection if the appeal is successful. Crimestoppers is…

The woman on the bull. The stick figure. The mysterious €S’ within the star. If we’re to believe the press, then by tomorrow or the day after, we could all become millionaires at the supermarket checkout just by finding a rare €2 coin. Yet, most coin dealers in Germany are far from ‘amused’ by the euro craze – they’re practically inundated with phone calls about supposed rarities and minting errors. I aimed to shed some light on this subject with a specialist book – but now I, too, have the pleasure of receiving such queries: ‘I read a few weeks ago on the [sic] Google that there’s a €2 coin from 2002 from Greece in circulation worth €80,000’ a taxi driver recently wrote to me. ‘Curious, I checked my wallet…

Ice Age giants A new three-coin collection from The Royal Mint explores the stories of three gentle giants from the Ice Age – the steppe mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and giant deer. These three creatures were some of the largest mammals to have roamed the Earth during the Pleistocene Epoch. The Pleistocene Epoch, also referred to as the Ice Age, began around 2.6 million years ago. This period saw vast glaciers, known as ice sheets, expand across the Earth’s surface and take up large swathes of land. The ice sheets extended ed beyond the North and South Poles, where they still exist today, and reached as far as the Midlands in England and across what is now Canada and the northern United States of America. These ice sheets could be up…