British Guiana 1 cent magenta |
I can appreciate how Laurence can spend so much of his
time focused on his collection of postage stamps. When I was a teenager I
thought every day about my collection.
Some of the time I was considering the options for adding
to my collection. Most often I would get packets of stamps from dealers through
the mail on approval. After examining them I would return the stamps not
purchased. Rarely would I have the chance to get to a stamp dealer and actually
examine stamps in a shop.
I spent time examining the stamps. Some were mundane.
More were miniature works of art. Living in rural Saskatchewan there were no
major galleries or art museums for me to attend. Buying stamps was my only
opportunity to buy art.
Stamps fueled my interest in countries outside Canada. I
wanted to learn about the places, animals, objects and people featured on
stamps.
Handling the stamps properly took quite abit of time. To
avoid damaging them or reducing their value required me to be precise and
careful.
In 1967 I went to Expo ’67 in Montreal. I spent as much
time in the shop of each country’s pavilion looking for the stamps that country
had issued for the Exposition as I did exploring the exhibits. Reading the book
prompted me to go back and look at my old album in which I had mounted my Expo
stamps. They are still as fresh and vivid as when I placed them on the pages.
As an adult I collected stamps and I have maintained my
membership in the American Philatelic Society but I have not been an active collector for several years.
While there was a time in my life when I could have spent
as much time with my stamps as Laurence there was a fundamental difference to
our respective collecting.
I never had any valuable stamps. Laurence had the resources
to assemble an impressive collection.
Any object which is rare can provide a financial motive
for murder.
Earlier this year in Split to Splinters by Max Everhart it was the
baseball thrown by major leaguer, Jim Honeycutt in his 300th win, whose immense value as the symbol of a
great sports moment brought about murder.
In The Sweetness at
the Bottom of the Pie it is a variation of the first postage stamp, the
penny black of mid-Victorian England. Only two copies of this variation were
said to exist in the world.
Just as baseball fans will pay exorbitant amounts for a
baseball so stamp collectors will spend comparable sums for a tiny piece of
paper.
Currently the most expensive stamp in the world is the
sole known copy of the British Guiana 1 cent magenta stamp which sold last year
for $9,480,000 in an auction last year to American designer and shoe
manufacturer, Stuart Weitzman. It is the only major stamp not in Britain’s
Royal Philatelic Collection.
While post offices are struggling around the world and email dominates communication the lure of postage stamps remains strong.
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Thanks, Bill, for sharing your background in stamp collecting. I always find it fascinating the way stamps reflect the culture and history of their countries of origin. And it's easy to see why people collect stamps as they do, even aside from the monetary value of some of them. They are beautiful and interesting.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. I learned so much about the world through stamp collecting.
DeleteBill, I enjoyed reading your experience with stamps. I like stamps too but I no longer collect them, other interests taking precedence. Every time I read about rare or early stamps online, I go through my dad's collection to see if it's there! Many Indian stamps, such as a Gandhi quartet, are rare and fetch a good price. Today, my knowledge of stamps is as much as my knowledge of stocks — nil.
ReplyDeletePrashant: Thanks for the comment. As with most hobbies you either need to keep up or you lose track of what is happening in the pastime.
DeleteThat was very interesting - I always reckoned I learned plenty of geography from collecting stamps when I was much younger. Our daughter had a stamp collection for a while - but young people these days don't, do they?
ReplyDeleteMoira: Thanks for the comment. I have no actual evidence but I agree few young people are collecting stamps. They are not part of their world.
ReplyDelete