Spring Stampex 2013 - Aftermath

Well, Stampex is over  for another six months. I've had a bit of time to sort out my purchases - two "collections" of Poland covering up to about 1970 and my usual material from the Hytech machines.

There were the usual amount of dealers there with the expected stock. However, there seemed to be so little for the junior collector - at least on the two days that I visited. I suppose that this is to be expected since most of the people visiting were over 40. 

How do we encourage the younger collector to come to these events? Stampex does have a "junior" stall at the weekends but is that enough. There were many stands which had significant material for the more "mature" collector. Penny blacks galore were available from £95. Covers of all descriptions from around the world were there by the box load. But what about packets and equipment for the junior collector?

I have been to philatelic societies around the country and found that I was frequently the youngest person present.So what can we do? We cannot send collectors into schools because they would require a CRB check which costs at least £36 a time but can remain valid for up to 3 years. But who would organise the CRB? Schools won't because you are not permanent staff and supply agencies wouldn't be interested. I think that the Philatelic Trust organises visits and school clubs.

What sort of school should be targeted - primary or secondary? Primary would give the best feedback and give a positive boost to collecting but as soon as the pupils hit secondary school the stamp collection would find its way to the back of the cupboard at best. 

Using stamps and postal history material in association with class work would be beneficial. The BPMA has some material which is downloadable for key stage 2 on the Victorians, WW1 and even on aspects of design covering the Festival of Britain.

Year 5 and 6 do work on ancient Egypt, why can't something be put together using the wide variety of stamps illustrating pharaohs, gods and artifacts.

 

All those Shakespeare stamps could be used to illustrate stage and costume design associated with the plays that secondary pupils have to study. Art is so richly covered but why do so few teachers illustrate the works of the great masters through stamps. Look at the quality of artwork associated in producing some of the stamps - there have been some great engravers.

It would just take a bit of time and research to associate the appropriate stamps and material with the course of study.

Back to Stampex... I did spot a talk on Jane Austen and the new stamps on the Friday close to the Royal Mail Stand but surely it could be an advantage to all to have such talks throughout each day with the Saturday talks targeted at junior and new collectors.

And the "Aftermath" for me... Well I filled in some large gaps in my Polish collection (around 700 covering 1919 to 1965). I also found a single 1919 bogus stamp and a charity "stamp" for a Warsaw based charity for the blind. All this gives me some areas to research and learn about.

I was tempted to buy a bundle of 100 covers for £15 because of the top cover showing the 1970 Declaration of Arbroath stamp. There were a number of other covers of interest for cancels.

I have also scanned the Hytech material and have produced the third issue of the ATM Informer. so  just look at the earlier entries for the links.

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Collecting on a Shoestring 5

In 1969, I was given a North American album and a large packet of US stamps at the end of a visit to relatives in Canada. This got me started collecting US as this packet filled a large chunk of the US pages in the album from the 1950s and 1960s and challenged me to try to fill the rest.

I managed to fill a lot more of those gaps from visits to a local flea market. There were a couple of dealers that regularly had stalls and the stamps were usually a couple of pence each. Soon I had reasonable coverage of issues from the 1930s up to the mid 1970s. In the 1990s, I heard of a group - the Cover Collectors Circuit Club - through which members exchanged covers and even experiences and stamps. This filled even more spaces. What with moving around the country for work, my membership lapsed.

Throughout each of the moves, there were opportunities to visit dealers and fairs. I bought covers, loose stamps and sometimes the remnants of someone else's collection. I also bought kiloware which, simply put, is  a large quantity of stamps ripped off of envelopes and usually donated to charities to raise money by selling on to dealers.

On one occasion , I purchased the remains of a collection of US material covering up to around 1940ish. Most of the stamps were relatively common but included varieties such as coils and the odd booklet stamp. It appears that the original owner had annotated the collection giving a few details and a catalogue number for the stamps. So rather than break up the pages, I just incorporated them into the folder containing my collection. Two of these pages are illustrated here showing how the original owner kept his collection

From another dealer, I purchased sheets which were taken form a special one country album for the US. An example is illustrated below.

The pages have illustrations of each stamp and when the stamp is obtained it is stuck over the top of the image using either a hinge or hawid mounts. The USPS strip illustrated is mint (unused) and is mounted using the hawid system.

With many of the definitive series, one observes changes in shade and coloration over a period of time. Some of these changes were down to environmental factors while others due to changes in ink. Also, some countries produce precancelled versions and many countries arranged for or allowed stamps to have a perforated design as a security device protecting theft from companies buying in bulk for postage.

The above sheet show how I show some of these variations without going into specialised catalogues which sort of explain some of these variations and assign a catalogue number to each. For example, since 1967, Britain has issued Machin definitives which simply consists of the queen's head and the value. Since decimalisation in February 1971, more than 1000 stamps and varieties of these stamps have been produced. A specialist Machin collectors group exists for those specialising in those stamps.

A first class Machin that has been cancelled at Watford on an IMP (Integrated Mail Processor)

Some US issues are massive compared to other countries. There have been issues where sets of 50 stamps have been known. These sets have included state flags, flowers, birds, animals and even sites. The next three sheets illustrate one such flag issue.

All of these flag stamps are genuinely used on real mail and hence have real cancels which are not the best possible. They do represent the normal treatment of stamps on mail.

It is your choice how you present your collection and what you include such as postcards, tickets, coins, photographs, leaflets, etc. If you plan to enter sections of your collection in competition, then you have to follow the rules of that competition as to what is acceptable. 

  

Collecting on a Shoestring 3: Upgraded Printers on Integrated Mail Processors 2008.

 During 2008, new Post Jet Ink Jet Printers were installed on Royal Mail Integrated Mail Processors (IMPs). The Postal Mechanisation Study Circle (PMSC) and the Postmark Society covered the introduction throughout the Royal Mail Network.

I was able to monitor the use of these printers in Manchester over 2008-9 and put together a reasonable collection of envelopes showing the various slogans used over this period along with finding the odd irregularity which subsequently were reported in the PMSC Newsletter. This study runs to 63 pages but I do not intend to illustrate every item.

I do not write up my collection(s) as such but annotate the page NOT the item, in pencil, with any appropriate note, comment or observation. These notes are primarily for my benefit but it also documents (for others) the history behind the item. It also allows major changes to be made to the page rather than making up a new page for each change.

This blog entry illustrates a possible collection based on relatively common material that was obtained via the post and by putting envelopes in to the post at regular intervals. Some items were obtained by asking at (or writing to) the Mail Centre if items could be processed on a particular machine.

Royal Mail operates around 137 Integrated Mail Processors (IMPs) and Extended IMPs (IMPEX) machines. These machines cancel, code and sort the mail.

Manchester originally had six of these machines. These were upgraded with the PostJet printer around May 2008 but the earliest reported dates for sightings of the cancels produced by these are tabulated here.

IMP	Earliest
1	29/7/08
2	14/7/08
3	15/5/08
4	5/6/08
5	23/7/08
6	4/8/08

Four more machines were installed in 2009 bringing the total up to 10 at this Mail Centre. Three of these were transferred from Oxford and the fourth from South East Anglia Mail Centre (SEAMC)

IMP	Earliest	Notes
7	31/3/09	Formerly Oxford IMP3 (machine id 134)
8	28/5/09 as IMP 7 19/6/09 as IMP 8	Formerly SEAMC IMP7 which was ex Swindon IMP2 (machine id 139)
9		Formerly Oxford IMP1 (machine id 132)
0	18/8/09	Formerly Oxford IMP2 (machine id 133)

Let’s start by looking at just one of the IMPs at Manchester. Envelopes were dropped in the post over the period from 29 July 2008 to 4 February 2009 as well as “regular” items. This allows one to build up a picture of what cancellations were in use and when. A sequence of IMP1 cancels is given below. Data from this and other IMPs at this and other offices were used to generate the table. Some of this data may also be obtained via the two societies listed above. Try Googling them for membership details or if you have a specific inquiry.

Reduced Form Cancel

From observations and liaising with others (eg PMSC, etc) one can build up a picture of usage of slogans. This table lists cancels used from May 2008 to January 2009. This cam be extended using data from various sources but is here only to illustrate how one can use “normal” mail as part of a study in to the postal history of an area. Similarly, one could build up a collection of cancels from your local town or village over a period of time. Stamp and Postcard fairs can be excellent sources for this material.

Slogan	From	To
Reduced form cancel	Continuous
Please Print*	15/5/08	13/8/08
Nominate your hero	30/7/08	13/8/08
Moving home	24/8/08	1/9/08
RAF stamps	9/9/08	19/9/08
Recruiting Now	19/9/08	26/9/08
Pride of Britain	30/9/08	31/10/08
Children in Need	3/11/08	18/11/08
Christmas Pantomime	24/11/08	30/11/08
Checking Posting Dates	3/12/08	23/12/08
Recycle	22/12/08	29/12/08
Children’s Champion (2 Versions)	2/1/09	10/1/09
Safe Box	15/1/09	18/1/09
Please Print	19/1/09

* Please Print is the default slogan cancel.

Similarly with the other machines at this or any other Mail Centre.

These cancels consist of four parts – the return marker (boxed double arrow), the data block (giving date, Mail Centre, time and a number string), the slogan and the wavy lines to cancel the stamp. The number string is very useful as it contains three pieces of data – the machine identity, time (half hour period) and the item number. All of the number strings above start with a “1” hence this is IMP 1. The next two digits give the half hour period that the item was processed in and run between 00 and 47 where 00 corresponds to the half hour from midnight. The last five items are the item number.

It should also be noted that this data is also coded in the tag code which is the set of bars added just under the cancel (see the safe box cancel above) but that is another long and complicated story as to extracting this data from the barcode. Some aspects as to decoding these barcodes are still commercially confidential and not generally available to the collector. All that I will say is that for those with a mathematical interest may wish to consult texts on Reed-Soloman correction systems. However, in the majority of cases, it is easier just to use data in the cancel if one is present.

I may return to examine other items from this section from my collection to illustrate other areas where collecting day to day items can be used to study the postal history of an area without costing a fortune.

Collecting on a Shoe String 

I have been collecting stamps for more than 50 years. I started when I was five. I have rarely had the cash to splurge on my collecting interests. So I think that I might be qualified enough to say something about building a collection on a restricted budget.

During the Olympics, I became involved in correspondence with a dealer on his blog site over the confusion surrounding the Gold Medal Winners’ stamps and the expense involved for completeness. There were six printers (with another three on standby) and four different margins per winner. With 29 gold medallists this mounts to 696 sheetlets each at £3.60. If one bought an example of each, it would cost £2505.60 (plus what ever appeared from the back up printers).

One aspect of the conversation was over buying material that one can afford over what was expected. The confusion mentioned above centred round whether the Post Office would sell single stamps instead of the sheetlet with six stamps. Some offices did sell single while others didn’t. The format suggested that the complete sheetlet of six stamps would be the norm mint or on first day covers. It would also suggest that dealers would only be interested in purchasing the complete sheetlets rather than individual stamps.

This dilemma over buying “commercial” or what fits with your collection is as old as stamp collecting. Dealers often use the “commercial” excuse for fixing buying and selling prices – “you have to the set because it is not commercial for us break up the set because we cannot sell the rest if you take that one stamp”.

National and international exhibitions often show the expensive and the exotic – the material that the normal person would rarely find let alone afford to purchase. This had lead to the suggestion that those that can afford it are “buying” the top honours in the philatelic world.

Therefore, unless you have just won big in the Euro-lottery, money is a limiting factor in building up a collection.

I started collecting by ripping around the stamps on the envelopes that arrived from family overseas. These were stored in a box. My bought me my first album. It was about C5 is size and consisted of about 32 pages. She also gave me a couple of packets of stamps. Any pocket money was spent at Woolworths on the 6d and 1/- packets of stamps that were available in the early 1960s.

In high school, I joined the stamp club which introduced me to first day covers and, a since then, first day covers is how I end to collect GB stamps. For a while I could also purchase a second mint set plus a few other GB “collectable” formats.

Gradually, my collection got to the stage where I had most of the “affordable” material from the three countries that I concentrated on – GB, Canada and the US. While at University, I joined the city philatelic society. This added to my knowledge but it also showed that there was no way that I could compete with some of the other members on material but it opened my eyes to possibilities.

One member regularly displayed material that could best be described at material from the waste paper basket. It met most of the criteria for philatelic study but failed on its relatively common status but it appealed to me.

So what was this material? In the 1970’s new Mechanised Letter Offices were coming on stream throughout the country. Coding desks were being installed which would allow the operator to put a dot code on to the envelope which would then speed up the sorting of the mail downstream. The dot code was a simple binary code corresponding to either the postcode or an extract of the post town. In addition an inked code number or letter was usually added which identified the desk and, hence, the operator.

To me this was a totally new area to collect. It had the advantage that the majority of material could be obtained almost for free by asking people to keep the whole envelope for you or you could simply go round the office at the end of the day and pick out the envelopes from the bin. It offered the opportunity to become involved with new postal technology almost from the beginning.

Since then, I have joined the Postal Mechanisation Study Circle and ended up editing their monthly newsletter.

What to Collect

 The choice as to what to collect is up to you. I collect GB stamps because of where I live, Canada because of family, USA because of a gift of a bundle of US stamps and Postal Mechanisation because it was cheap, readily available and novel (when I started). I also have fair collections of India and Poland because of contacts made, Algeria through family and friends and Denmark because of a kiloware purchase or two.

There are two main choices – single country or theme. 

Single country collections are probably easiest to research and build. The choice of country may be determined by family, a visit to that country or even a gift of material. It may be a place that you would like to visit and, through its stamps, one gets a potted history, geography and cultural lesson.

A listing of stamps issued can readily be obtained from a stamp catalogue which may be purchased or obtained, on loan, from a library. Catalogues may give dates of issue, perforation varieties, overprints, miniature sheets in basic detail or as extensive listings depending on the catalogue.

In the UK, the most used catalogues are produced by Stanley Gibbons. They produce a range covering from simplified to very detailed studies on single countries. In the US, the Scott catalogue rules.

With thematic collecting, one builds up a collection on some subject that interests you. It could be a history of aviation, flowers, cats, ships, prisoner of war mail or a multitude of other subjects. There are catalogues available for some themes. Many have been put together by collectors and made available to all. Alternatively, one could just start with a “world” catalogue and work one’s way through it making your own listing.

So now that you have decided what to collect, what do you do next? Again that depends again on the material you want to include. There are conventional stamp albums, stock books and cover albums.

Conventional stamp albums come in many forms. There are basic ones with country names printed at the top of the page. Stamps are stuck in using stamp hinges on the appropriate page. Blank page albums are probably the most flexible. Again stamps are put in using hinges. Special “hinges” known as Hawid strips are used for mint stamps. Postcards, envelopes, photographs and ephemera may be mounted using photo corners – not the double sided ones.

Stock books are commonly used for mint stamps and stamp booklets and cover albums are used for first day covers, postcards, etc.

You have now chosen to collect a single country. You have a listing of what stamps have been issued by that country. If like me, it is a second or third hand catalogue supplemented by photocopies from more modern editions. This allows you to sort out what you may already have chronologically. These can then be mounted on the page of your album – say one page per issue.

With a thematic collection, each page may be allocated to a particular subject – stamps depicting manx or Persian cats; roses or pansies; Concorde or Spitfire; and so on. The more one gets into the subject, the more one can “specialise” the subject – Spitfire mark 9 or mark 22 and so on. Or you may just decide to present by set issued.

The format you use is up to you.

In future blogs, I hope to return to this subject and illustrate some of the material that I have in my collection. How I write things up is essentially my benefit. For single country collections, I just pencil in the title of the issue and maybe the date. Other parts of my collection tend to be a header and maybe a pencilled comment. Maybe, this exercise will be an excuse to get me to get stuck in to my collection and write it up. Don’t just follow my lead, take what you think is reasonable but put your own “stamp” on what you produce.