Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i Stamp Collector

Royal Mail have revealed the subjects to be celebrated on British stamps during 2020, with Star Trek, James Bond and Coronation Street amongst the highlights. The stamp schedule for the coming year was revealed in early January, though only the title of each stamp set has been detailed. The full schedule is as follows: 21 January....... Video Games (see February 2020 issue) 11 February...... Visions of the Universe (see page 20) 17 March.......... James Bond 7 April............... The Romantic Poets 8 May............... End of the Second World War 28 May............. Coronation Street 18 June............ Roman Britain 9 July............... Queen 30 July............. The Palace of Westminster 18 August......... Sherlock 3 September.... Rupert Bear 1 October......... Brilliant Bugs 3 November..... Christmas 13 November... Star Trek The schedule features a large number of…

Royal Mail to mark London 2020 exhibition with range of stamp products Royal Mail will celebrate London 2020 with a selection of special items featuring 1st class stamps that were originally issued in 2015 and 2016 to mark the 175th anniversary of the world-renowned classic design. Ahead of the exhibition opening, a retail stamp booklet will be issued on 10 March. Containing two each of the Penny Black, Twopenny Blue and Penny Red designs, the inside of the booklet includes the official London 2020 logo. The stamps in this booklet are self-adhesive. There will be three items issued during the exhibition, including a sheet comprising twenty of the 1st class ‘Hello’ stamp, the adjoining labels in the sheet featuring images of Mail Rail, the Post Office Underground Railway that can…

The Royal Astronomical Society, based in London’s Piccadilly, exists to promote the study of astronomy, solar system science and geophysics, a goal echoed by its motto Quicquid nitet notandum (whatever shines should be observed). Founded on 10 March 1820, with a small membership of largely ‘gentleman astronomers’, the society is now one of the world’s foremost authorities on astronomy and awards a number of prestigious medals and prizes each year, including the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Today, the society has more than 4,000 members, many of whom are professional researchers, but its influence extends across Britain and further afield, via its awards programme, extensive research library, publishing programme and educational outreach work. From its premises in Burlington House, the society represents the interests of astronomy and geophysics,…

With an area of over 2 million km2 Greenland is the world’s largest non-continental island. However with a total population of less than 60,000, spread across some sixty or so settlements, it is also one of the least densely populated territories in the world. The volumes of internal, domestic mail have therefore always been low and, although Greenland issued its first full service postage stamps in 1938, their usage was predominately for franking mail leaving the territory. Furthermore any internal usage of Greenland’s stamp issues was not helped by the fact that until 1958 all domestic letters within Greenland were carried free of charge. However, although the mail was unfranked, when it was handed in to a post office that had been issued with a date canceller, such covers were…

Spitzbergen is the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago lying in the Arctic Ocean between 74? and 81? north of Norway. The group was first discovered by the Vikings then rediscovered by Dutchman Captain Barents in 1596 and Englishman Henry Hudson in 1607. It was used by fur hunters, whalers and later coal miners but no country was granted sovereignty until 1925 when Norway received it to compensate for losses in the First World War. Due to its Arctic position, the sun does not set on Spitzbergen between about 20 June and 20 August and does not rise from 26 October to 15 February. Spitzbergen was usually accessible to shipping from June, when the sea ice melted, to August or September and tourist ships from Norway, Germany, Great Britain, France…

Atrip to a stamp auction is always a treat; the hushed atmosphere interspersed by the auctioneer’s persuasive patter, the bidding battles between collectors in person and online and, of course, the chance to view and purchase a wide range of rare and beautiful philatelic material. The popular stamp sales at Tennants Auctioneers offer all of the above, but a visit to the company’s Auction Centre, nestled amongst the picturesque dry stone walls and rugged landscape of Wensleydale in North Yorkshire is something else entirely. It’s a grand day out. What was once a modest auction room selling antiques and fine art has grown into the UK’s largest family-owned auction house, with specialist departments offering a range and depth of expertise. A multi-million pound development, known as The Garden Rooms and…

If you go back far enough in human history, clothes were purely practical items, used to keep off the elements or to demonstrate social status. Personal style and local cultures tended to be expressed in how people dressed their hair, wore their jewellery, or in their body markings. It’s only fairly recently that clothes became cheap enough to be the vehicles for passing fads but, in this short time, ‘fashion’ has become more than big business. For some, it’s become a lifestyle. Whether you’re a goth or punk, whether you dress to impress, or prefer cosy and causal clothing, fashion is a big thematic that rewards big thinking. And, just like the best fashion, how you chose to wear it is entirely up to you. Fashion designers make a good…

In March 1929 a Scottish newspaper, The Northern Whig, commented: In the past the United States has drawn upon some unusual sources for stamp designs, occasionally taking pictures from books and photographs without sanction or acknowledgment to publishers or copyright holders. A memorable case was the $1 1898 Trans-Mississippi postage stamp. Its design was copied from a steel engraving of the late J. MacWhirter’s painting, The Vanguard, which depicts Highland cattle in a Scottish snowbound landscape. On the United States stamp the identical scene is titled ‘Western Cattle in Storm’. The Northern Whig’s editor seemed unaware that at least two additional layers of copyright abuse lay behind this stamp’s early story. Several years before its issue as a stamp vignette, an engraving of MacWhirter’s Scottish Highlands scene had caught the…

It’s Transport for London who have the reputation as sponsors of the arts, with their long-running series of posters. But when it comes to using the best of Britain’s designers, artists and illustrators, and getting the best out of them, Royal Mail deserve some plaudits too. Designers In terms of design, QE2 commemoratives can be split into two groups: those created before the digital revolution and those created after it. Prior to digitisation, the finished artwork for a stamp would be assembled on a piece of board, with all its various elements pasted in position. Pictures would be supplied separately, on boards or as transparencies, with a black and white print or pencil outline drawn on the artwork to show the plate-makers how they fitted in. The finished artwork would…

Norway has a territorial area of approximately 150,000 square miles; roughly the same size as the whole of the British Isles. Its coastline, on the other hand, stretches to 63,000 miles, or more than six times the length of ours, mainly thanks to more than a thousand fjords on its western seaward side where it meets the Norwegian Sea. Its eastern border, which butts up against Sweden, Finland and Russia, has rugged mountain roads, forests, rivers and lakes, with few towns and a scattering of agricultural settlements. To the south a narrow channel (The Skagerrak) divides it from Denmark. In 1855, when Norway issued its first adhesive postage stamps, the total number of people living within Norway’s borders had barely reached 1,000,000. Official concerns had been raised that the population…

With picture-postcard scenery, rugged cliffs in the northwest and sandy beaches in the south east, Bornholm is a popular tourist destination in summer and has featured on Danish stamps. With a total area of just 277 square miles and a population of 40,000, its postal services are governed by Denmark but the island’s history and location offer the postal historian much of interest. The earliest postmarks, mute concentric ring cancellations, were sent out on 1 April 1851 to the towns of Aakirkeby, Allinge, Hasle, Nexo, Ronne and Svaneke and are rarely seen; Gudhjem received one in 1852. These were followed by the concentric numeral cancellations and then by a whole series of dated handstamps until the mechanisation of mail, predominantly in Ronne, but in other towns to a lesser extent,…

The set of four (illustrated below) were issued in 1937 to celebrate the silver jubilee of Osman Ali Khan, Nizam (ruler) of the huge central Indian state of Hyderabad; it is bigger than the UK. The stamps feature public buildings, all paid for by HEH (His Exalted Highness), as there was no other source of funding for public works. The state’s exchequer was the Nizam’s. He was wealthy in his own right, too. Hyderabad had long been very prosperous, thanks to the precious stones found in the area, most notably at Kollur, from which they were transported to Hyderabad city, worked and traded as part of a global market. Some were kept by the Nizams. Osman Ali Khan’s most famous possession was the Jacob diamond. This is an 184-carat monster…

Mass reproduced for global dissemination and consumption, postage stamps play an important role in promoting awareness and raising revenues for a wide range of public health issues on the national and international stage. This article will illustrate stamp issues from Africa, Asia and the Middle East promoting Aids awareness. It is also important to remember that numerous far-sighted post-colonial nation states commissioned Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) artists and designers to produce the rich visual imagery on many of the stamps now under discussion. Consequently, such philatelic material also provides important insights into BAME contributions towards art and design, bridging the gap between art and science within a public health context and raising Aids Awareness. World Aids Day was first marked on 1 December 1988 and postal authorities issued…

SOCIETY NEWS Bromley & Beckenham Philatelic Society’s recent meeting saw two members display material. David Rennie showed ninety sheets of King George VI period Malaya definitives, including the scarce 1938 Trengganu $5, and also a good range of Japanese Occupation issues presented in their individual states. Ron Burn (pictured below with Nick Hervey) then displayed a spectacular range of the early Tristan Da Cunha cachets with suitable commentary on the circumstances of their issue; mostly on covers and cards. The Society’s annual dinner also took place recently, with diners enjoying a prize draw. The club meets in the Beckenham Public Halls, Bromley Rd, Beckenham. For details call 020 8778 7001 or visit kentphilately.weebly.com/ca-bbps.html Solihull Philatelic Society’s fiftieth anniversary year kicked off with President Paul Woodness displaying a number of diverse…

Every London international stamp exhibition has historically attracted many of the best exhibits from across the world, and this is certainly true of London 2020, writes Richard West. Regrettably, the organisers have had to turn down many top class exhibits but hope that the goal of offering the visitor examples of the finest exhibits across a wide range of subjects has been achieved. As with previous international stamp exhibitions held at the Business Design Centre in Upper Street, Islington, this exhibition is divided, for the purposes of the competitive exhibits, into two halves. On Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, 2 to 5 May, exhibits will be shown covering Postal History, Revenues, Postal Stationery, Open Class, Postcards (experimental class), and part of the Youth section. Over Tuesday night every frame will…

AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS Warwick and Warwick’s recent sale featured British classics, including a collection consisting of 189 Penny Blacks and 52 Penny Reds from black plates, which sold for ?11,700. Meanwhile, a St Helena 1961 Tristan Relief overprint set (pictured), issued to benefit islanders following the 1961 volcanic eruption, went under the hammer. Only 434 sets were sold. A collection of ‘Civil War Postal History and Confederate States’ provided a range of highlights at the recent Robert A Siegel sale in the USA. An ornate multi-coloured patriotic cover featuring a Map of Washington DC with George Washington on horseback monument was described as being: ‘a beautiful and rare Magnus Patriotic cover’. The cover featured a 2c Black (tied by a target cancel) and a 1c Blue (tied by ‘South [town?], May…

POSTCARDS Industrial greetings I’m often asked why postcards were produced of such seemingly unlikely subject matter as ironworks and collieries, writes Richard Stenlake. The answer lies in the fact that these concerns employed hundreds of men, all of whom potentially might send a postcard to show their folks what their place of work looked like. There is a wide price range in this subject area with some cards selling for as low as ?6 because the view is common while the exceptionally rare can fetch ?60 or more. When you cross the Atlantic the gulf in prices is more extreme. American works could be massive and this makes the more common printed cards very inexpensive. Textile mills and heavy industry, both here and in America, got bigger and bigger as…

Year of the Rat The Isle of Man Post Office has chosen a simple yet striking colour scheme for its four Year of the Rat stamps, designed by Manx born artist Megan Hindley, AKA Stedhead. The rat is depicted on each stamp in detailed black-and-white sketches against a blue background, with vivid crimson flowers and a red bull, plus a gold border incorporating Year of the Rat wording in Chinese. Year of the Rat indicates a strong, prosperous and lucky year for all Chinese zodiac signs, with the hope that people will show determination regarding their goals, aspirations and even their hobbies. This is said to be a great year for founding and evolving. STAMP DETAILS Issue date: 15 January 2020 Images: Meg Hindley, AKA Stedhead Design: Isle of Man…

Some collectors might consider whaling to be an unethical topic for a postal history collection, but it's a part of our history just as much as the two world wars, writes Rolf Scharning as he provides an insight into this interesting and versatile theme Finnmark, Norway Svend Foyn (1809-1894) was a Norwegian whaler, shipping magnate and philanthropist. He introduced the modern harpoon cannon in 1868 and started modern whaling as we know it. Foyn’s work was highly appreciated; he was honoured with the highest award possible for a civilian: Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav. Figure 1 shows an entire addressed to Mr. S. Foyn, S/K af St. Olafs Orden (Grand Cross of St. Olav), Walsoe, Finnmark. His whaling station was situated at Walsoe near the town of…

Why not try this fascinating branch of philately? In this interesting field of postal history new discoveries are a regular occurrence, with many items being obtained by polar postal history collectors at much lower prices than their true value due to the knowledge of the collector. This world awaits any new collector who wishes to take up the field of polar postal history. So, what is polar postal history? Being a branch of organised philately, it includes aspects common to other philatelic areas. There are stamps and vignettes, cancelled mail including envelopes, folded mail and postcards. It can be important to know about postal rates and postal routes, cancellations and cachets. But what really sets it apart is its ‘polar’ ingredient. Geographically it includes mail from the North and South…

Stoke Newington in the London Borough of Islington is home to the most remarkable Victorian cemetery that I have ever visited. Called Abney Park, the cemetery reminded me of what a recently re-discovered ruined jungle city in Central America must have looked like. There is vegetation everywhere and most of the gravestones are in a decrepit state. It is generally hard to read the sometimes rather bombastic inscriptions on the burial stones. Words like ‘eternal memory’ or ‘forever remembered’ appear to have lost their meaning amidst the forgotten plots… perhaps not that surprising as the vast majority of graves date back to Victorian times. One of very few exceptions is the grave of William and Catherine Booth, the founders of the Salvation Army. Despite its rather Gothic appearance, Abney Park…