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Stamping
Ground An Occasional
Newsletter from Robert Murray Stamp
Shop, Edinburgh December 2006 |
The Death of
Stamp Collecting ?
Once again, there
has been speculation that stamp collecting, and for that matter stamps
themselves, are about to slip into oblivion due to the introduction of
“on-line
stamps”, the labels you can buy from the Post Office’s website and
print on
your own computer. My considered and professional opinion on that
suggestion is
“Mince !”. Stamp collectors are much more interesting people, and much
more
intelligent, than to stop their journey just because there’s a little
bend in
the path.
The following
things have all, over the years, been heralded as the death-knell of
British
philately;
Late 1890s; The
appearance of commemorative stamps, especially expensive sets such as
the US
Columbians and the Canadian Jubilees.
1910s; The
telephone starts to become popular, and will surely put an end to
letter-writing, and hence stamps.
1924; The UK’s
first commemorative, the Wembley issue (it was one thing for foreigners
to have
special stamps, but things had come to a pretty pass when the Brits did
the
same L)
1930s; The
telephone gets even more popular, and surely……
1950s; Television
1960s; The post
office starts to pump out commemoratives, and is roundly criticised by
the
philatelic establishment. Collectors, however, continue to buy them and
deposit
them in their albums.
1971;
Decimalisation, seen by many as the appropriate point to stop buying
new
issues.
1980s; Computers
and computer games – “Nobody’s interested in stamps any more . . “.
1990s; The
internet (has had the opposite effect, actually adding to use of mail,
and
opening up stamp collecting and trading).
2000; Postal
authorities worldwide go wild about the millennium, and large numbers
of
collectors say that’s definitely enough this time.
2006; The
introduction of online stamps to the public.
Stamp collecting
has in fact died many times over, but perversely seems to be as popular
as
ever.
¤
A Newsletter ?
I enjoyed our
last Stamping Ground so much I’ve decided to do it again ! (And it
seemed to go
down quite well.)
¤
Who's
Unhinged ?
Looking at an old auction
catalogue recently I was reminded of the "good old days" when mint
was mint, used was used. The catalogue was for a prestigious sale of
rather
nice Commonwealth material, and dated from 1978. The mint stamps were
generally
described as "fine mint". No mention anywhere of the term
"unmounted mint". The only time hinge marks were mentioned was if
they were so heavy that they became an unsightly adhesion that was
therefore
seen as a fault in the same way as perhaps a tone spot or a bend. My
own early
auction catalogues (starting 1977) didn't differentiate between mounted
and
unmounted.
Why was that ?
The answer is simple. Nobody really cared. As
long as a mint stamp was in good general condition, with clean and full
gum,
the stamp was "fine", whether or not it had previously been hinged.
Most customers (over-the-counter or at auction) wouldn't ask whether
things
were mounted. It was only as the seventies neared their end that
"u.m." became important.
Will it last ?
After all, it's been a concern for less than
thirty years - out of well over a hundred that the stamp market has
been in
existence. Will the day come that fashion will turn again, and
collectors will
once more not care about an odd hinge mark on their otherwise perfect
mint
stamp ?
Seeing that old auction
catalogue was just the day after I'd looked at a few stamps that a
client had
bought abroad. They had been regummed. He'd paid more to buy
"unmounted" stamps with none of their original gum than he would have
had to pay for the same stamps with genuine gum and a hinge mark.
Strange
world.
FOOTNOTE; While
cataloguing our October auction, I was thinking of taking a couple of
pages of
mint Iceland out of an album, to be sold as a separate lot. It was a
Lindner
album, of the type with the plastic sleeves in front of the page, and I
guess
maybe about twenty years old. On checking the quality I found some of
the
stamps were lightly stuck to the plastic, giving them shiny patches on
the gum.
It’s my opinion that these stamps would have been alright on a
traditional
page. Some other pages in the same album showed yellowing of the
plastic
sleeves, and were quite unsightly. And yet, at the time they were sold,
the
manufacturers would have claimed them to be of a quality suitable for
storing
stamps.
¤
Auctions
Make some space,
make some money, tidy your life !
Most collectors
have an accumulation of things they don’t really want. Auction lots
that have
been picked over – old albums donated by friends – unwanted souvenirs –
purchases that seemed a good idea at the time – and so on. While we
can’t
commercially sell extremely cheap material (such as old magazines or
picked-over UK kiloware), many people are pleasantly surprised when
they make
the effort to have a clear-out, and sell a boxful of what they see as
their
rubbish in one of our auctions. Maybe there’s the surprise that
somebody else
would actually want to buy their discards. As an auctioneer it is
actually
quite satisfying to see a customer convert their clear-out box into
some cash,
which in turn is converted back into buying something nice that they
actually
want for their collection. And the satisfaction is more than just that
which
comes from earning commission twice !
And of course
dealers are another thing again. Most of them (us ?) would benefit from
a good
pruning of their stock. If they (we) only had the time.
Naturally, as
well as being happy to sell odds and boxes, we are more than keen to be
allowed
to handle the sale of more important collections. If you follow our
sales,
you’ll know that we perform very well when given a valuable collection
to sell.
¤
Stamp
Workshops
In
the
last Stamping
Ground we announced a couple of stamp workshops; one
about watermarks, the other on fakes and forgeries. Both were
oversubscribed,
and the general feedback from those who managed to get spaces was that
they
were certainly worthwhile.
I'm
happy to announce now that these workshops will be repeated early in
2007. The
people who were on our waiting lists will get first refusal for spaces.
Not
only will we repeat these two, it is also my intention to substantially
add to
the list of subjects being covered. A full list of workshops will be
circulated
with our January 2007 auction catalogue.
It is
also a possibility that some brief notes based on these workshops might
be
included with future newsletters.
¤
The Shrunken
Stamp
In our 4 December
auction there is a fascinating
little stamp. “Little”
is the important word.
I was first shown
it a few weeks ago; what seemed
like a bantam
version of an otherwise ordinary U.K.
King George VI 2½d
definitive stamp. At first sight it was interesting, but I was sure
that there
was some sensible explanation. However, when I went back to look at it
again, I
was increasingly baffled. Every time my mind hatched a theory, some
other
aspect of the stamp would disprove it. The owner decided to offer it in
this
auction, and once I had it back in the shop I gave it a more scientific
examination. Here are my findings.
Paper; The paper seems
of normal thickness though perhaps a
little softer, and ever so slightly yellowish.
Watermark; The watermark is
normal but smaller – from the lower
edge of the crown to the lower edge of the next crown is 13mm, compared
to 14mm
in a normal stamp.
Perforation; These measure on
a gauge as 16½x15¾, whereas the
normal stamp is 14.7x14.1. The holes, and the teeth, are that tiny bit
smaller than
usual. Otherwise the perforations have the usual attributes of a stamp
torn
from a sheet. Fifteen teeth along the top, just like normal.
Colour; Very slightly
more yellowish, possibly caused by the
very slight hue of the paper.
Print; As far as we can
see, all details of the design are
identical, down to the screening dots, but all taken down by that same
percentage.
Dimensions; Overall size is
19mmx21mm, compared to the standard
21mmx24.5mm. There is no distortion of the shape of the stamp.
Postmark; Part of a
Christmas slogan cancel, quite normal as
far as we can see, but probably again that little bit smaller.
Having looked at
all these factors, every possibility as to the source of this
stamp
seemed unlikely. It was not likely to be a total forgery, as it would
be so
difficult to replicate everything so accurately. It certainly wasn’t a
forged
printing on genuine paper, as the paper isn’t the normal size. It
couldn’t be a
strange one-off fluke, as the owner actually found four of five similar
items
at the same time, all exactly the same size.
But how could
somebody shrink it ? If it was easy to
shrink by some accident of handling or storage, surely we would have
seen
others before this ? (Or we would have
seen others with some form of shrinkage.) One would expect that any
chemical or
physical process that caused this much shrinkage would also cause much
more
damage. How often does anything shrink accurately and evenly in all
directions
?
Your comments are
welcome !
From 27 November
2006 this article will be repeated on our website, along with much
better
illustrations - see www.stamp-shop.com/gallery.
¤
The Continuing
Decline
of Postal Services
We are aware that
several people got their last auction catalogue later than expected. It
seems
that more than just a handful took (first class) three or four days to
reach
their addresses. We know of two that were delivered - correctly
addressed and
stamped – a full two weeks after posting.
There are three
possible solutions we can see; {1} Improve the postal services (out of
our
hands), {2} send out catalogues earlier (we're slowly working towards
getting
our catalogue out at least a day or two earlier), {3} get emails (a
number of
our customers are on our emailing list as well as our "snail mail"
list - this means they have a backup should the postal system fail).
¤
New Gibbons Catalogues –
available now.
This is a repeat of the list
published in
our last newsletter, with only small updates. It appears again for
purely
commercial reasons – it created some sales, and hopefully this might
create
some more ! See also the list of new
items elsewhere.
Commonwealth & British
Empire
1840-1952, 2007 edition. £44.95
Central Asia Sectional (part 16)
4th
edition. £27.50
France Sectional (part 6) 6th
edition. £34.95
The new series of “Country Catalogues” cover all issues early to modern
in the
level that used to be found in the “Part One” catalogue, A4 format,
fastbound,
and in colour.
Australia. (3rd edn. January 2006)
£19.95
Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri
Lanka (1st
edn. January 2005)
£14.95
Brunei, Malaysia & Singapore
(1st
edn. August 2004) £19.95
Canada and Territories (2nd
edn. March 2005)
£14.95
Central Africa (1st edn., Dec. 2005)
Rhodesia/Nyasaland/Malawi/Zambia/Zimbabwe
£14.95
Cyprus, Gibraltar, and Malta (1st
edn. January 2005)
£14.95
Falkland Islands (with F.I.D., B.A.T., South Georgia, South Sandwich
Isles) (2nd. edn., June 2004)
£9.95
Hong Kong. (inc. Jap Occ.&
Brit P.O.s
in China/Japan) (1st edn. April
2004) £9.95
India (inc. Convention and
Feudatory States)
(2nd edn. June 2004) not now
held as
normal stock, but can be ordered
£19.95
Ireland (3rd June
2006) £9.95 (Currently unavailable,
but should be
back in soon.)
New Zealand & Dependencies
(Ross, Tokelau, etc.) (2nd edn.
July 2006) £14.95
Northern Caribbean (Bahamas
& Bermuda)
(1st edn. March 2006) £16.95
St. Helena & Dependencies (2nd
edn. October 2005) £12.95
Southern Africa (1st edn., July 2005) out
of print
¤
Beatles Issue
On 9 January, the British Post
Office will start its 2007
programme with a set of stamps and miniature sheet commemorating The
Beatles.
We reckon this is going to be
one of the most popular issues
ever, and we’ll be going to town with it. Hopefully you already know
that we
sell current Philatelic Bureau stock at face value, so there should be
no
problem with the standard mint items. What we expect to be doing extra
will be
a wider range of special handstamps on the first day covers. We have
still to
confirm many of the details, but if you are interested – keep in touch.
We’re
usually difficult to beat on the prices of our new FDCs !
¤
Shop Diary for end of 2006 into
start of
2007
2006
Monday 4 December; Stamps and
Collectables Auction. Viewing
from 3pm (for large lots) and from 5pm (for small lots). Auction at 7pm.
Opening hours over Christmas and
New Year.
Open as normal to Saturday 16
December
Open Monday 18 December 10am-5pm
Open Tuesday 19 December 10am-6pm
Open Wednesday 20 December
10am-9pm
Open Thursday 21 December
10am-6pm
Open Friday 22 December 10am-6pm
Open Saturday 23 December
10am-7pm
Closed Sunday 24 to
Wednesday 27 December
Open Thursday 28 December
10am-6pm
Open Friday 29 December 10am-6pm
Open Saturday 30 December
10am-6pm
Closed Sunday 31 to Wednesday 3
January
Open normal hours from Thursday
4 January
2007
Saturday 6 January; or shop’s
Coin Department to be re-launched
Tuesday 9 January; Robert Murray
displaying “The Slesvig
Question” at Scottish Philatelic Society – a quarter of the evening’s
displays
along with Jack Barbour, David Cumming, and Bob Catto. 7.30pm, St.
John’s
Church Hall, corner of Lothian Road and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
Tuesday 27 February; “Robert
Murray Entertains” at Glasgow
Philatelic Society, 7.30pm, Woodside Halls, Glasgow.
AUCTION DATES for
the first part of 2007 are still to be fixed.
¤
Some New Catalogues – available
now – all
in addition to our previous list
Stanley Gibbons Stamps of
the World Simplified
catalogue. Comes in five volumes, colour throughout. Single volumes
£39.95. Our
price for the set £145. (SG’s normal price
£149.95).
The set comes in a box which can double as a slipcase of sorts.
Stoneham Great Britain. As
heavily plugged in our last Stamping
Ground, and proving popular. £15.95
Stoneham Great Britain pocket
catalogue. Very good at £5.95
Gibbons Collect British
Stamps catalogue 2007.
£9.95 (At the time of writing, the
arrival of these is imminent.)
SG East Africa country
catalogue, recently published. £16.95
SG Indian Ocean country
catalogue. Includes B.I.O.T., British
POs in Madagascar, Maldive Islands, Mauritius, and Seychelles. Due in
at any
moment ! £16.95
Facit Scandinavia Special – all
the Scandinavian countries in
good detail, in Swedish and English, priced in kronor. £37.95
Zumstein
Switzerland and Liechtenstein simplified. £14.50
Yvert France volume 1. Includes
CD-rom.
£16.95
Yvert France Le Petit.
£8.50
Dallay
France. Useful catalogue for the specialist. £16.
Sakura Japan. £9.
Also some non-stamp catalogues;
Krause Standard Catalogue of
World Coins 1901-2000. £37.99
Coin Market Values 2007. £8.99
Medal Yearbook. £19.95
Murray’s Cigarette Card Values
2007. £7.50
Picture Postcard Values 2007.
£10.95
Remember; if a catalogue is not
on our list, we might still
have it in stock. And remember that if we don’t have a catalogue in
stock, we
can probably quite easily get it for you.
¤
Coin Department
We have always
(apart from
our first few months in business) done some dealing in coins,
banknotes, and
medals. As we have been so busy in other areas, we have recently found
it
difficult to spend much time on getting new stock processed.
However, we are in
the
process now of sorting and pricing loads of new coin stock. Literally
thousands
of coins are going to be ready, from the UK and around the world.
Prices will
range from cheap material in bags through to individual better coins at
some
tens of pounds.
There will also be
some fresh
stocks of world banknotes on sale.
On Saturday 6
January we plan
to re-launch our coin department – we’ve still to decide whether this
will be
at 10am, or 11am, or after lunch – please keep in touch.
¤
Who’s Who at the
Stamp Shop
In the last
newsletter we gave an updated list of staff. Here now we’ll start to
let you
get to know just a little bit about ourselves. This month we’ll start
with
myself, my wife, and Bob Catto. In our own words . . . . . .
Robert Murray; “A collector
since the age of seven, I’m currently
collecting Denmark and its Colonies, wartime Scandinavia, St. Pierre et
Miquelon, the themes of Flags, Vikings, Knots (and others), and I’m
gradually
trying to give shape to a collection of “Political Aspects of Scottish
Stamps”.
I started doing some part time dealing while still at school, and spent
a
couple of years working for a firm of large auctioneers before striking
out on
my own and opening my shop here in 1977.”
“Other interests
and activities outside stamps include traditional music, triathlon, and
local
history.”
Adrienne Murray; “I gave up my job
in the Civil Service in 1998 to
start work at the shop. I do most of the non-philatelic work, of which
there is
a surprising amount ! My outside
interests include middle- and long-distance running, reading, and local
history.”
“As part of my
local history interest I have a collection of certain types of
topographical
postcards – but I don’t do stamps !”
Bob Catto; “Started
collecting at nine years old, mainly used
British as we had family all over the UK. Expanded to worldwide through
swapping at school. Unfortunately the collection was stolen during my
teens and
I did not return to collecting until my early twenties, still on
British. My current
collection is British and American (USA), with some Commonwealth.
Outside of
stamps my other interests are aerospace and reading, including books
about
Edinburgh or by local authors.”
“Recently I
linked my interests in aerospace and stamps to form a collection of
stamps,
covers, and postcards relating to projects I worked on during my 45
years in
the industry, and planes I have flown on. I am also working on a
collection on
the American Revolution.”
Look Out for the others
next time !
¤
How to Contact Us
At our shop, 5 Inverleith
Gardens, on Ferry Road at Goldenacre,
Edinburgh. (Open Tue 10-6, Wed 2-9, Thu 10-6, Fri 10-6, Sat 10-7)
By post; Robert Murray, 5
Inverleith Gardens, Edinburgh, EH3
5PU
By telephone; 0131 552 1220, or
0131 478 7021, or using the UK
local rate number 0845 0500 886
By email; [email protected], or if
any problems use
[email protected]
Using Skype; username “stampshop”
(email first to fix time)
¤