EUROPE by Albert Boerma

APHV president stands firm

APHV president Carl-Heinz Schulz has finally reached a decision about the German Post's controversial offering of illustrated albums.
Firstly, he concluded that the majority of the younger members was willing to accept his strategy in negotiations with the German Post; and secondly he took a calculated risk knowing that the producers of albums would oppose the scheme ...

Read the entire column in the December 2005 Philatelic Exporter

IN MY VIEW by Otto Hornung

Friendly Philatex

PHILATEX, held from October 27 to 29, is maintaining its pulling power for collectors and dealers alike, with over 100 stands taken up. I visited on the afternoon of the first day, after the initial crowds had subsided, so I had plenty of time to walk around and talk to people. It was very comfortable with chairs to sit upon, and the offerings of material were superb. I was told that in the morning the hall was crammed ...

Read the entire column in the December 2005 Philatelic Exporter

POSTCARD WORLD by Liz McKernan

PPA 2006 highlights impact of eBay and Internet

LATEST edition of the Picture Postcard Annual - subtitled The Postcard Collector's Companion - is now on sale at various collectors' shops throughout the country. Several dealers also stock copies to sell at fairs and it is of course available from the editors at Reflections of a Bygone Age, 15 Debdale Lane, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5HT. telephone 0115 937 4079, fax 6197, e-mail reflections@argonet.co.uk, website www.postcardcollecting.co.uk
This 96-page issue leads with a 'Review of the Year' entitled 'Exciting times for postcard collecting', which certainly encourages the reader to read further! One of the big talking points of the year has been the effect of eBay trading on the attendance at fairs, and Brian Lund expands his comments in another article on the Internet revolution. For readers who are online there is a very useful list of postcard related websites which appears to get longer each year ...

Read the entire column in the December 2005 Philatelic Exporter

NEW BOOKS by David Rennie

All reviewed in the December 2005 Philatelic Exporter

GREAT BRITAIN by James Skinner

You can please some of the people some of the time ...

... In July of last year, the Church of England demanded that Royal Mail reverted to religious themes instead of secular subject matter for future Christmas issues, following a debate at its general synod in York. It was there that church members declared that Royal Mail was ignoring the significance of what is undeniably a Christian festival in a country, which although openly embracing people of all faiths and creeds, is still overwhelmingly Christian ...
All the effort of the synod’s debate hadn’t been wasted, however. When the programme for 2005 was published, the Christmas issue was indeed based around a religious theme: the Madonna and Child as differently interpreted by different cultures from around the world ... but not all of the people all of the time ...
Problems arose in trying to find an image for the 68p value, which would give the Madonna and Child an Asian treatment. Eventually she found a picture in a book published by the Church Missionary Society, showing a Hindu woman cradling the Christ child in her arms, with an adoring Hindu man looking on ...
Unfortunately, it seems that Royal Mail underestimated the reaction of an aghast British Hindu community ... the Hindu Forum of Great Britain released a strongly worded statement criticising the design as being disrespectful and asking Royal Mail to withdraw the stamp ...

Read the entire column in the December 2005 Philatelic Exporter

THE VIEW FROM DOWN UNDER by Glen Stephens

Sensational Smoking Audrey and Incredible Inverted Jenny

Used last year - value £115,000!
The stamp market is going absolutely nuts at the top end... I predicted then we had entered a stamp boom starting June 1 2005, and gave several other examples of why. Two recent auctions have further borne this out
Another, third, copy of this 110+50 pfennig German stamp was discovered in kiloware and has since been sold for over double that June price!... As television cameras recorded the occasion, a used example of Germany's unissued Audrey Hepburn stamp was hammered down on October 7 for 135,000 euros...

The stamp was purchased by Gaby Bennewirtz, acting on behalf of her husband Gerd Bennewirtz, an investment manager and stamp collector... she later told the German press: "He would actually have been willing to pay a bit more." Shown above is a photograph of Gaby Bennewirtz holding the now famous £115,000 stamp...
Only a week or so later an even more remarkable price. a block of four rare USA 'Inverted Jenny' 24c Airmail stamps sold October 19 in New York for $2.97 million, easily the highest price ever paid for any United States stamp item...

Read the entire column in the December 2005 Philatelic Exporter

USA by Les Winick

A 'forever' stamp

RUTH Goldway, a member of the US Postal Rate Commission had a very unusual article in the New York Times of November 6. The group normally keeps its discussions to postal rates, but Ms Goldway strayed from the subject and gave the reader an unusual opportunity to think of the future in postage stamps.
She wrote about the definite possibility of the USPS developing a 'forever' stamp. A postage stamp that could always be used for the first ounce of first-class mail, no matter what the rate ...

Read the entire column in the December 2005 Philatelic Exporter

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