Penny Blacks and Twopenny Blues: How Britain Got Stuck on Stamps Timeshift


Penny Blacks and Twopenny Blues: How Britain Got Stuck on Stamps

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When I was a boy there was much talk of hobbies.

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You were supposed to have a hobby,

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just as you would need a career in later life.

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And the default hobby, the one that almost every child,

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including me, dabbled in, was stamp collecting.

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Well, this is great. A philatelic grotto.

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You don't see many places like this any more.

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A hobby was something to do on a rainy day,

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and stamp collecting was perfect for that because it brought colour and

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life into the drabness of an English living room on a damp Sunday.

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The stamp album itself was like a little portable picture gallery,

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or maybe a travel brochure.

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You could imagine yourself living in the places

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where the stamps came from,

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or at least pretend that you knew someone who lived there

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and liked you enough to send you a letter

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bearing a stamp from his exotic home.

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There was a patriotic element to it in that Britain had invented stamps,

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but there was also an un-patriotic element -

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it had to be admitted that so many of the foreign stamps

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were much more exciting than our own.

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Why couldn't we have a pale yellow triangular stamp

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with a vulture on it, like Mauritania?

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Stamps ensnared us all in a social and commercial web,

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but there's always been more to them than that.

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They've been symbols of our national identity.

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It's an image of royalty, of monarchy,

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and, indeed, of the country.

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And each stamp is an aesthetic event, a work of minuscule art.

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Are they going to be symbolic or pictorial?

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These are all complicated things to fit together into a tiny space.

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Stamps provided not just a popular pastime,

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but a rite of passage for millions of children.

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You know, the world when you're eight or nine is a chaotic place,

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but if you can somehow bring it down to scale in an album...

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And stamps have always had a knack of transcending their face value.

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What fascinated me was such a little thing having such a huge value.

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7,900,000.

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These little sticky price tags not only revolutionised communication,

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they became objects of desire in their own right.

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This bureaucratic expedient, the stamp,

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became imbued with the most profound romance.

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Hidden away in a private London vault

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lie the remnants of a revolution.

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Imagine the postal world of early Victorian Britain -

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no stamps, no envelopes,

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letters were bundles of sheets.

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The charge for sending was based on the number of sheets,

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and it was always expensive,

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because postage was a form of tax.

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The system was slow, corrupt, a mess.

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But in 1835 one man sought to reform the postal service.

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His name was Rowland Hill.

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The population's increased by almost one third in the last 30 years,

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and yet there are no more letters sent through the post

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than when I was a boy.

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I tell you, sir, as a commercial undertaking,

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the Post Office is a failure...

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This is Hill's journal.

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It's packed with engagements and activity,

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it's exhausting even to look at it.

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Hill ticked all the boxes for a Victorian do-gooder -

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workaholic, strong Christian,

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dabbled in both railways and education reform.

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He was into connectivity.

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It's natural that such a man should turn a sceptical eye

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on a postal system that was completely inadequate for the times.

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Firstly, it was expensive. It cost a shilling,

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that's about £5 in today's money,

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to send a letter from Scotland to London.

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The second problem, it was inefficient.

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It was inefficient mainly because the recipient of the letter

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had to pay, and not the sender.

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It might be a case of the postman knocking on your door and saying,

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"Can I interest you in having this letter that someone's sent you?"

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A shilling for the letter, indeed!

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You can tell the post office to take it back to London

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and I hope it costs THEM a shilling!

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In 1837 Rowland Hill laid out his proposals in a pamphlet entitled

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Post Office Reform: Its Importance And Practicability.

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And his solution was a simple one - prepayment at a fixed cost.

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A cost that would be low and uniform,

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a cost that ought, as he put it,

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to neutralise all pecuniary objection.

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The sum he had in mind,

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one penny.

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Now, my plan is to sell to the public some kind of a mark

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which they could put on the letters themselves

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to show that they've been paid for -

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a printed cover,

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a small sticky label,

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in fact, a kind of a stamp.

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But what image to use on this adhesive label or stamp?

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Hill wanted to be as refined and aesthetically pleasing as possible,

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because that would be hard to forge.

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On one of his correspondences he said,

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"It ought to be the image of a beautiful young woman."

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Where to find such a person?

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Diplomatically, Hill looked no further

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than the young Queen Victoria.

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The portrait used was from this commemorative medal.

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It was copied onto this die, from which the printing plates

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were created that made...

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..these.

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The Penny Black, as the first-ever stamp was christened,

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proved an immediate success.

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68 million were printed.

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They were unperforated, so post office clerks

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had to shear off the sheets with long scissors, like so many tailors.

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These are the only remaining complete sheets of Penny Blacks

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in the world. And their value is beyond measure.

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This set the template for stamps around the world.

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The size became more or less standard.

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It's beautiful. Why?

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Because of its elegance, its simplicity,

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and there's a becoming sombre quality because of the blackness.

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It's basically the Queen, at night.

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Hill's postal reform swept the country.

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Within a year of its issue the Penny Black had caused

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the number of letters being sent to double.

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This mass communication compressed Britain and then the world,

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in terms of space and time,

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and it boosted literacy too.

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But for some, stamps were not to be so casually dispatched.

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On the morning of May 1st, 1840,

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the day of the Penny Black's first issue,

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a zoologist called Dr John Edward Gray stepped out of

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his office here at the British Museum and walked around the corner

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to the main post office at Saint Martin's Le Grand.

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He bought a block of four Penny Blacks.

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But he didn't put them on an envelope, he put them in his pocket.

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Dr Gray was the first stamp collector.

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And he didn't have to wait long to expand his collection.

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Just a week after the Penny Black came the Two Penny Blue,

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to cover heavier postage,

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and a year later the Penny Black gave way to the Penny Red,

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on which a black cancellation mark would show up more easily.

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From the early 1850s stamps took off around the world,

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and these laggard countries all wrote their names on their stamps -

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something the originator, Britain,

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didn't think, and still hasn't thought, necessary.

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As stamps proliferated, their collectors emerged from the shadows,

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or were sometimes discovered in the shadows.

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In February 1863 the opening pages of a new London monthly,

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Stamp Collector's Magazine, gave a vivid account of illicit meetings

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that had begun to take place in the alleyways

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leading off Birchin Lane in the City of London.

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The article was called Postal Chit Chat.

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It recorded rowdy gatherings every evening

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of up to 50 people of all ranks of society,

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from office boys to one of Her Majesty's ministers.

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These people carried under their arms what the author calls

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small books studded with dark patches.

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Stamp albums.

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These people were hell-bent on swapping, buying, or selling stamps.

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-Have you a yellow Saxon?

-I want some Russian!

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Will you exchange a Russian for a Black English?

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I wouldn't give a Russian for 20 English.

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I'll give a Red Prussian for a blue/bronze wicker.

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Prices fluctuated dramatically.

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A stamp with a street value of a penny one night

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might struggle to fetch a ha'penny the next.

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The police were soon involved,

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threatening prosecutions for unlicensed trading.

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And a popular rhyme was soon to be heard

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echoing through these backstreets.

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When sudden a gruff voice is heard,

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That all the thronging bevy stirred,

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I turned, and fix'd my eyes upon,

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A bobby, crying, "Stamps, move on!"

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Apparently similar things were going on in Paris

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in the Tuileries Gardens.

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The scene there was a bit more civilised -

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evidently people sat under the trees with the albums on their laps.

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But still there was a certain intensity.

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And a new word was coined to describe the mind-set -

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timbromanie - stamp mania.

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But one French collector, Georges Herpin,

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took exception to this term, timbromanie,

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and decided to coin a more elegant one.

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Whether he succeeded is open to debate.

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The rather lumbering Greek hybrid he proposed

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means "a love of the exemption from tax" -

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philately.

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And philatelists soon found they no longer needed to gather

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in London's backstreets. Stamps were now a high street affair.

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Perhaps the biggest concentration of stamp dealers in the world

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is grouped along both sides of a 50-yard stretch

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of the Strand in London.

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Dealers here hold stocks worth hundreds of thousands of pounds,

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and cater for collectors of every age and stage.

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I grew up in the North, but I often came to London as a boy.

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When I walked along the Strand and saw that the famous theatres and

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hotels shared the streets with so many shops selling

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cancelled postage, it changed my whole idea about London.

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It made me think it must be a less hard-headed,

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and more whimsical place than I'd thought.

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Almost all of those stamp shops have now gone,

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but one remains, the most famous, Stanley Gibbons.

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Edward Stanley Gibbons was born in 1840,

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the same year as the Penny Black.

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As a boy he was obsessed with stamps,

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and he was shrewd enough to know it was a common affliction.

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He started out by running a stamp desk from the corner of

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his father's chemists in Plymouth,

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before moving to London to develop his business

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and eventually opening a premises here on the Strand.

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Stanley Gibbons owed his success to two kinds of books.

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Firstly, there were his catalogues, which listed all

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the available stamps which people could buy from Gibbons,

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and then they were his albums,

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which had reserved spaces for particular stamps,

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which, again, people could buy from Gibbons.

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And so the stamp collector was lured in.

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At Gibbons I met the philatelist Hugh Jefferies,

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who's been working in the shop since 1975.

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This is a copy book from Stanley Gibbons in 1864.

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He was a very hard-working man,

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and he is said to have sent 160 letters to his clients and customers

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every day. He would dictate them to his secretary,

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and once she'd written them all out,

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she would then copy them into this book.

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So this is a few days' correspondence from Stanley Gibbons,

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offering stamps to customers all over the world.

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Here is the Stanley Gibbons catalogue for May 1869.

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British, colonial and foreign postage stamps -

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that would seem to cover everything.

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Was this his very first catalogue?

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No, it wasn't. He produced his first catalogue, which he did monthly,

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in November 1865.

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It was very much of this style and pattern,

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and a lot of the prices are the same.

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Stanley Gibbons produced a price list, and, of course,

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people loved it because they could then assess the value

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of their own collections by looking at how much

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Stanley Gibbons was going to charge them for their same thing.

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Interestingly, he had a price for unused, and a price for used,

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and a price for a dozen.

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-Is it every stamp in the world here?

-Yes, it was.

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1869. It was possible to list every stamp in the world

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in a kind of pamphlet?

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Well, we do still list all the stamps in the world.

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And how many stamps are in there?

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-I don't know. Millions.

-Many millions.

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-And how many stamps are in here?

-A few thousand, I would guess.

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Stanley Gibbons sold his business in 1890.

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As the in-house magazine, Stanley Gibbons' Stamp Monthly, admitted,

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he then dedicated himself to having a rollicking good time!

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He went around the world three times.

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He liked to visit the places that had been depicted

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on the stamps in his albums.

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He was particularly keen on the tropics.

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He also got married.

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Five times.

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He died just over the road in the Savoy Hotel,

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in the arms, it is said,

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of his last mistress.

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During his lifetime Stanley Gibbons had catered

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for a booming collectors' market.

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His customers ranged from schoolboys,

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keen to fill a Gibbons album,

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to bigger players, with agendas of their own.

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One of the biggest spenders at Stanley Gibbons

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was a mysterious little man in a Breton cap, who resembled a tramp.

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Both his exact name and his nationality are open to question,

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but let's say he was a European multi-millionaire,

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generally referred to as Count Philipp von Ferrary.

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Ferrary was the illegitimate son of a Genoese duchess.

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She raised him in her Parisian palace,

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and the two remained very close.

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Probably realising that her introverted son needed a refuge

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from the world, the Duchess commended stamp collecting to him.

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But the hobby became a mania

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and Ferrary restlessly roved the world in search of rarities,

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for which he paid on the spot with gold coins.

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Ferrary stored recent purchases in

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the multi-pockets of a specially adapted long, black coat,

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so he was like a kind of walking stamp album.

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And he was a completist.

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Ferrary aspired to own a copy of every stamp ever made,

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and he had the money to do it.

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Stamps have been described as emblems of social order,

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but there is an iconoclastic element to stamp collecting.

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Ferrary and others were attracted to the postal pratfalls,

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the misprinted or miscoloured stamps -

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the errors - some of which have gone down in history.

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In 1847 the British colony of Mauritius

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issued One Penny Red and Two Penny Blue stamps.

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The engraver was short-sighted,

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and he wrote "post office" instead of "post paid".

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Only a dozen or so of the particularly famous Blue Mauritius

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are thought to have survived.

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Few enough for each to be worth a fortune,

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but not so rare to preclude one turning up unexpectedly,

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especially in fiction.

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What do you want with us?

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I think you know, so if you just hand them over I'll turn you loose,

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and you've nothing further to worry about.

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If you mean the stamps, we haven't got them.

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Seven of them passed through Count Ferrary's hands,

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but they have achieved a mythic life beyond philately.

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Look here, my boy. Someone's offered us a Mauritius Penny.

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What are you doing?

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No. You're mad.

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Good shot!

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PHONE RINGS

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Perhaps the most famous error is the 1855 Swedish Treskilling,

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or three shilling yellow, which should have been green.

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Only one is known to exist, and it was discovered

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by a Swedish boy in his grandmother's attic in 1886.

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Ferrary acquired it eight years later.

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There was the equally singular One Cent Magenta,

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printed in British Guyana as part of an emergency issue in 1856,

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and again, unearthed by a schoolboy, and later purchased by Ferrary.

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It features a ghostly drawing of a ship,

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contributed spontaneously by the printer

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and not authorised by the postmaster.

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I will start the bidding at 4,500,000.

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At 6,500,000.

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In 2014 the One Cent Magenta sold at auction for a record figure.

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On the telephone then at 7,900,000.

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7,900,000.

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APPLAUSE

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Thank all you very much.

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With the premium, the stamp has just sold

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for approximately 9.5 million.

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The buyer has requested to be anonymous.

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Count Ferrary paid what were

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outrageous sums at the time for these rarities.

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And even though he was a shambling maverick in person,

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his money helped elevate the social status of stamp collecting.

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At the start of the 20th century

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there were 34 philatelic societies in Britain, all very pukka.

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But the oldest and most distinguished

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was the Royal Philatelic Society.

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Its most famous member, and its royal patron, was George V,

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whose official biographer remarked, unofficially,

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that for much of his early life George did little more than

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"shoot game and stick stamps in albums."

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The King's collection filled 328 red leather albums.

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In 1904 he paid £1,400 for one of the fabled Blue Mauritius stamps.

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A few days later one of his secretaries asked, had he heard?

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Some damned fool had paid £1,400 for a single stamp.

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"Yes," the King replied,

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"I was that damned fool!"

0:22:230:22:25

The King devoted three afternoons a week to his hobby, which was,

0:22:290:22:33

perhaps, his way of keeping a beady eye on his Empire.

0:22:330:22:36

But in 1924 the King was invited to approve a new kind of stamp,

0:22:370:22:43

a special stamp that would be sold for a limited time only -

0:22:430:22:47

a commemorative stamp.

0:22:470:22:49

The King was wary of the whole notion of commemorative stamps.

0:22:540:22:58

He thought they were vulgar,

0:22:580:23:00

the kind of thing that foreigners went in for.

0:23:000:23:02

Indeed, the first commemorative stamp had been produced in Peru,

0:23:020:23:06

in 1871, celebrating 20 years since the building

0:23:060:23:10

of the first Peruvian railway.

0:23:100:23:13

The new and unprecedented British commemorative stamp

0:23:180:23:21

had been mooted by the General Post Office to mark the opening of

0:23:210:23:25

the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in April 1924.

0:23:250:23:30

Given the soaring national debt,

0:23:320:23:34

and signs of agitation amongst the peoples of the Empire,

0:23:340:23:37

it was vital that the exhibition was a success,

0:23:370:23:41

so the King was persuaded to accept the idea of a philatelic promotion,

0:23:410:23:46

but he insisted it had to be done properly.

0:23:460:23:50

Artists were invited to submit designs,

0:23:500:23:52

and the GPO picked a modernist one

0:23:520:23:54

by the influential sculptor and typographer Eric Gill.

0:23:540:23:58

But, again, the King took fright.

0:23:590:24:01

The King was no aesthete -

0:24:010:24:04

he'd once burst out laughing at an exhibition of French Impressionism -

0:24:040:24:08

and he was probably wary of Gill.

0:24:080:24:11

Some time before, Gill had produced a design for

0:24:110:24:14

the Great Seal Of The Realm. It showed the king astride a horse,

0:24:140:24:18

but the design was rejected when somebody pointed out

0:24:180:24:21

that the horse appeared to be urinating.

0:24:210:24:24

Gill was given the royal brush-off for a second time,

0:24:250:24:29

and the King chose a more traditional image by Harold Nelson,

0:24:290:24:33

featuring a roaring lion.

0:24:330:24:35

A British lion, of course.

0:24:350:24:37

It was a bit like buying the T-shirt.

0:24:580:25:01

By acquiring the stamp you proved you'd been to the Exhibition,

0:25:010:25:04

because the stamp was only available on the Exhibition site,

0:25:040:25:08

either from vending machines or from Wembley Post Office

0:25:080:25:11

where, on June 30th, in a formal ceremony,

0:25:110:25:15

the Prince of Wales bought the five millionth one.

0:25:150:25:20

Over six months more than 17 million people visited the Exhibition,

0:25:200:25:24

where, like the King, they could tour a Mughal Palace,

0:25:240:25:28

an African fort, and a Buddhist temple,

0:25:280:25:31

or take a ride on a miniature train.

0:25:310:25:34

All highly exotic and diverse, yet basically British.

0:25:340:25:38

And if you hadn't caught sight of the real Prince of Wales,

0:25:380:25:41

you could pop along to the Canadian Pavilion

0:25:410:25:44

and see his effigy carved in butter.

0:25:440:25:46

Looking around here now there's hardly anything left

0:25:500:25:53

of the whole jamboree. The last remnants of the old Empire Stadium,

0:25:530:25:57

the Twin Towers, went in 2003.

0:25:570:26:01

And that was the Palace Of Industry.

0:26:010:26:04

But I've heard that one item was salvaged from the debris,

0:26:090:26:13

by way of a memorial.

0:26:130:26:14

And it's this, a lion's head corbel.

0:26:170:26:21

It's all that remains of the British Empire Exhibition,

0:26:210:26:24

except for the stamp, of course,

0:26:240:26:26

and one in pristine condition will set you back about a tenner today.

0:26:260:26:31

The Empire Exhibition has long faded into history,

0:26:340:26:38

but its commemorative stamp left an enduring legacy.

0:26:380:26:41

It had sold very well, with 13 million snapped up.

0:26:410:26:46

And the success of the Exhibition suggested that stamps

0:26:460:26:49

could function very well as miniature billboards.

0:26:490:26:53

So why not issue another?

0:26:530:26:55

In 1935 the General Post Office called on the services

0:27:050:27:10

of Barnett Freedman, an eminent artist and lithographer of the day,

0:27:100:27:14

to produce a stamp for George V's Silver Jubilee.

0:27:140:27:18

Now, are there any particular conditions

0:27:190:27:21

in the designing of the stamp?

0:27:210:27:22

Yes, you must keep to the head of the King

0:27:220:27:25

which appears on present stamps.

0:27:250:27:27

-Otherwise I have a free hand?

-Absolutely.

0:27:270:27:30

A documentary, scored by Benjamin Britten,

0:27:320:27:35

followed Freedman as he worked up his design,

0:27:350:27:38

using a method called photogravure,

0:27:380:27:41

which gave an almost three-dimensional texture.

0:27:410:27:44

This one goes to the printers.

0:27:460:27:49

This machine is producing over half a million Jubilee stamps an hour.

0:27:500:27:56

Freedman's Jubilee stamp was stylish and modern, but subtly so,

0:27:560:28:00

which is, perhaps, why it got past the King.

0:28:000:28:03

In the post-war years there seemed to be a great deal to commemorate,

0:28:100:28:14

but the young stamp collector might not have been looking forward

0:28:140:28:17

to the Olympic Games, the Festival of Britain,

0:28:170:28:20

or even the coronation of a new Queen

0:28:200:28:22

so much as the accompanying stamps.

0:28:220:28:24

Commemorative issues now provided regular treats -

0:28:240:28:28

bigger and more colourful stamps to enliven monotonous albums.

0:28:280:28:32

By the early 1960s commemoratives had become a fixture.

0:28:320:28:36

More than 20 had been issued since the Wembley Exhibition,

0:28:360:28:40

but the chosen subjects had become increasingly uninspiring.

0:28:400:28:44

With all due respect to the European Postal And Telecommunications

0:28:460:28:50

Conference at Torquay, I doubt it set pulses racing,

0:28:500:28:54

even among the attendees.

0:28:540:28:55

And as for another commemorated event,

0:28:570:28:59

the ninth World Scout Jubilee Jamboree,

0:28:590:29:02

held over 12 days at Sutton Park, Birmingham,

0:29:020:29:06

that was...

0:29:060:29:07

well, a wash-out.

0:29:070:29:09

Even the stamp designers themselves were sceptical

0:29:120:29:15

about some of the commissions.

0:29:150:29:17

I first got into it by...

0:29:180:29:21

through an invitation

0:29:210:29:23

for a rather depressing subject,

0:29:230:29:26

it was called National Productivity Year,

0:29:260:29:29

which I felt was a bit Stalinist.

0:29:290:29:31

I think that was one of the things that were wrong with stamps

0:29:310:29:34

at the time, that they had to be about a passing event,

0:29:340:29:38

they couldn't be simply about something

0:29:380:29:40

because it was interesting.

0:29:400:29:42

You designed a very stylish stamp for it, even so.

0:29:420:29:45

I'd done a few stamps already and found out that it's extremely

0:29:450:29:49

difficult, on the tiny amount of space you've got on a stamp,

0:29:490:29:53

to fit in several elements that fight each other,

0:29:530:29:57

and so the Queen's head, particularly in those days

0:29:570:30:02

when it was a three-quarter view photograph,

0:30:020:30:05

it was extremely difficult to make it sit well alongside another image.

0:30:050:30:11

In January 1965 David Gentleman wrote to the new Postmaster General,

0:30:110:30:17

Tony Benn, proposing, if not treason,

0:30:170:30:20

then philatelic regicide.

0:30:200:30:22

"I'm convinced that the main single drawback to the realisation

0:30:240:30:27

"of unified modern designs is the monarch's head.

0:30:270:30:31

"Not merely the unsatisfactory angle of the present photograph,

0:30:310:30:35

"but the traditional inclusion of the head at all."

0:30:350:30:38

I thought I'd said too much,

0:30:380:30:40

and then I had a phone call from him saying,

0:30:400:30:43

"Come and meet me at Post Office headquarters."

0:30:430:30:45

Wednesday, March 10th, 1965.

0:30:470:30:51

This is the day I'm seeing the Queen about the new stamps.

0:30:510:30:55

David Gentleman came to breakfast again this morning at my request.

0:30:560:31:01

He brought along the most beautiful designs

0:31:010:31:04

for Battle of Britain stamps made out of silhouettes

0:31:040:31:07

of RAF and Luftwaffe planes in combat.

0:31:070:31:09

They were very simple,

0:31:110:31:13

flat silhouettes of Spitfires, Hurricanes,

0:31:130:31:16

some German planes flying about in the sky.

0:31:160:31:19

They really looked lovely.

0:31:200:31:22

Armed with Gentleman's designs and a carefully-prepared speech,

0:31:240:31:28

Tony Benn took off for the Palace.

0:31:280:31:30

The Queen beckoned me to sit down, and I started.

0:31:300:31:34

On commemoratives, I said, we had broadened the criteria

0:31:340:31:37

to many subjects that had previously been excluded.

0:31:370:31:41

This raised the whole question of the use of the head on the stamps.

0:31:410:31:45

The Queen frowned, and smiled.

0:31:450:31:48

She indicated that she had never had an opportunity to look at

0:31:480:31:51

any of these new stamps and would be interested if she could.

0:31:510:31:55

And he said, "I've got some here in my bag."

0:31:560:32:00

It's like Blue Peter, here are some I made earlier!

0:32:000:32:02

And so I spread out on the floor 12 huge design models

0:32:020:32:07

of the stamps, provided by David Gentleman,

0:32:070:32:10

bearing the words "Great Britain", and no royal head on them.

0:32:100:32:13

Benn thought that the Queen liked them.

0:32:130:32:16

That wasn't quite correct, was it?

0:32:160:32:18

He told me that she'd been interested,

0:32:180:32:21

but that by the time he got back to his own office

0:32:210:32:25

the message had come, via the Prime Minister, that the head was to stay.

0:32:250:32:29

-So the battle was lost.

-The battle was lost.

0:32:290:32:32

The Queen's had had to stay on stamps,

0:32:320:32:34

and here it is on The Battle Of Britains, as small as it could go.

0:32:340:32:38

But, with a further commission the following year,

0:32:380:32:40

David Gentleman challenged another of the conventions

0:32:400:32:43

governing commemorative stamps, namely the one decreeing

0:32:430:32:47

that no living person apart from a member of the Royal family

0:32:470:32:51

could be featured on one.

0:32:510:32:52

The issue of fourpenny stamps

0:32:550:32:56

to mark England's victory in the World Cup

0:32:560:32:58

brought early morning queues at post offices all over the country.

0:32:580:33:02

The first day's supply of about 1.5 million were going like hot cakes

0:33:020:33:05

very soon after opening time.

0:33:050:33:07

The reason is that nearly everybody believes the stamps will be

0:33:070:33:10

worth a lot when the collectors really get busy.

0:33:100:33:13

Here are some commemoratives you did for the 1966 World Cup.

0:33:130:33:17

I don't see Bobby Moore or Geoff Hurst.

0:33:170:33:20

I don't recognise these people, and that's because

0:33:200:33:23

you weren't allowed to depict a living person on a stamp, I think?

0:33:230:33:27

In those days, it might have been Stanley Matthews,

0:33:270:33:30

I'm sure that they wouldn't have tolerated the idea

0:33:300:33:33

of a known footballer.

0:33:330:33:35

I got a photographer to photograph two football friends

0:33:350:33:41

to, in my mind, epitomise the nature of the game.

0:33:410:33:45

-And that stamp is based on those photographs.

-It is.

0:33:450:33:48

So this really is the first example of a living person

0:33:480:33:53

specifically depicted on a stamp?

0:33:530:33:56

-That broke the rule, didn't it?

-It did.

0:33:560:33:59

But they're not personalities.

0:34:000:34:03

They are there as anonymous footballers.

0:34:030:34:06

Which is rather commendable, because a stamp is basically

0:34:060:34:10

a democratic medium.

0:34:100:34:12

I wonder if they know that they're on a stamp?

0:34:120:34:15

I think they found out at the time.

0:34:150:34:18

Well, I hope they've got a few stuck in their albums!

0:34:180:34:21

That would be great, wouldn't it,

0:34:210:34:22

-to point to a stamp and say, "That's me"?

-That's me.

0:34:220:34:24

The Queen's head remained an issue.

0:34:260:34:29

In three-quarter profile it seemed to obtrude from the stamps.

0:34:290:34:33

A consensus emerged amongst designers that a new image

0:34:330:34:37

of the Queen was needed to be used on all stamps,

0:34:370:34:40

primarily on the standard ones, known as definitives,

0:34:400:34:43

but also on commemoratives.

0:34:430:34:46

So Tony Benn announced a competition to design a new,

0:34:460:34:50

more muted royal profile.

0:34:500:34:53

Let's have a look at it.

0:34:530:34:54

And at the British Postal Museum in London I've been granted

0:34:540:34:58

a private audience with Her Majesty.

0:34:580:35:00

Well, this is the work of Arnold Machin,

0:35:000:35:03

and Machin was a sculptor, so the work that he did

0:35:030:35:06

was in the form of a plaster cast, or bas relief.

0:35:060:35:10

Apparently Machin spent a whole year doing nothing but working on this.

0:35:100:35:15

Why a whole year? What was he doing all that time?

0:35:150:35:18

Well, it may look a simple image, but it is, in fact, quite complex.

0:35:180:35:22

When he began with his sketches, most of them were rather elaborate,

0:35:220:35:26

so he spent the year simplifying things,

0:35:260:35:29

and then the Stamp Advisory Committee suggested that he change

0:35:290:35:34

the tiara to a diadem, as you see here.

0:35:340:35:37

And this diadem looks familiar to me.

0:35:370:35:40

That, in fact, is the diadem that is worn by Queen Victoria

0:35:400:35:43

as seen on the Penny Black.

0:35:430:35:45

There was an attempt to go back to the Penny Black,

0:35:450:35:48

especially with the Queen herself.

0:35:480:35:50

The Queen was quite hands on about how exactly the image should end up?

0:35:500:35:55

She was obviously interested in her own image, as it appeared on stamps,

0:35:550:35:59

and with the photographs that were taken,

0:35:590:36:01

she annotated all 60 or 70 of them.

0:36:010:36:04

Some of them she marked as being "good", some just "yes".

0:36:040:36:08

So quite restrained annotations. She didn't write "terrible"?

0:36:080:36:12

She didn't write "terrible", but she did write "no" in capital letters.

0:36:120:36:15

And then chose a particular colour, a dark olive sepia brown,

0:36:150:36:20

deliberately to imitate the Penny Black

0:36:200:36:23

on the first class letter rate.

0:36:230:36:25

And here is that colour, of the first Machin.

0:36:250:36:29

1967 to the present day. Why has it endured so well?

0:36:290:36:33

Well, the image is timeless, it's a classic.

0:36:330:36:37

The Queen doesn't consider that a portrait of herself,

0:36:370:36:40

it's an image of royalty, of monarchy,

0:36:400:36:43

and, indeed, of the country.

0:36:430:36:45

The fact that we're still using Machin's definitive

0:36:470:36:50

shows just how successful this rebranding was.

0:36:500:36:52

It, and many classy issues designed by the likes of David Gentleman,

0:36:520:36:58

propelled stamp collecting to a peak of popularity.

0:36:580:37:01

I had merely dabbled in stamps back then.

0:37:040:37:07

A more committed collector of the late '60s and early '70s

0:37:070:37:10

was the author Simon Garfield.

0:37:100:37:13

He suggested we meet at his old, well, stamping ground,

0:37:130:37:17

Stanley Gibbons.

0:37:170:37:19

I used to come here a lot when I was,

0:37:190:37:21

you know, short trousers in the '60s.

0:37:210:37:24

And it was a kind of...

0:37:240:37:26

joyful voyage on a Saturday afternoon.

0:37:260:37:29

I began at Trafalgar Square Post Office,

0:37:290:37:31

for the new issues, which you just got over the counter at face value,

0:37:310:37:35

and then working your way along the Strand.

0:37:350:37:39

But, you know, Gibbons, I suppose, was sort of

0:37:390:37:42

the ultimate, and the Mecca. It was bustling at that point.

0:37:420:37:46

Really, sort of, a kind of heaving place.

0:37:460:37:49

Lots of kids like me. I remember they used to call me Sir,

0:37:490:37:53

which, you know, I used to call my teacher Sir,

0:37:530:37:56

but to be called Sir when you walked into a shop, age of eight...

0:37:560:37:59

Well, they obviously sort of looked me up and down,

0:37:590:38:01

in my short trousers, and said, "Well, actually, what he's after is

0:38:010:38:05

"one of these," which is one of these, sort of, selection packs.

0:38:050:38:07

You would fill a lot of album space with this.

0:38:070:38:10

You would never find anything of any great worth.

0:38:100:38:13

What's the number one psychological explanation for stamp collecting?

0:38:130:38:16

I think, for me, when I was a kid,

0:38:160:38:18

it was trying to put some order on the world.

0:38:180:38:21

You know, the world when you're eight or nine is a chaotic place,

0:38:210:38:24

but if you can somehow bring it down to scale in an album...

0:38:240:38:28

And also the idea of, sort of, completing something,

0:38:280:38:31

collecting. The idea of a quest is kind of very good.

0:38:310:38:34

But also things that other people don't have, you know.

0:38:340:38:37

The idea of having the same collection as everybody else

0:38:370:38:40

in the world is just not a very interesting thing.

0:38:400:38:43

You want to specialise, and the things I specialised in were errors,

0:38:430:38:47

Great British errors.

0:38:470:38:49

The one I think I remember I saw first

0:38:490:38:51

was the Post Office Tower stamp.

0:38:510:38:53

Well, two new stamps have been issued, which we've put,

0:38:530:38:56

of course, here into our stamp album.

0:38:560:38:58

And they're to commemorate the opening of the Post Office Tower

0:38:580:39:02

in London. The threepenny is a most unusual shape

0:39:020:39:06

because it's vertical,

0:39:060:39:08

and shows the tower springing up above some old Georgian houses.

0:39:080:39:11

They had made, you know, 50 million of the stamps,

0:39:110:39:16

but 30 of them, I remember, had missing olive green,

0:39:160:39:20

and the olive-green was the Post Office Tower itself.

0:39:200:39:23

Clearly, as it was going through the printing machine,

0:39:230:39:25

the olive-green had run out.

0:39:250:39:27

Here is further evidence of the stamp collecting craze

0:39:280:39:31

of your boyhood, the early '70s.

0:39:310:39:32

Collect, "a great new stamp collecting game,

0:39:320:39:36

"all the excitement of the stamp collecting world."

0:39:360:39:39

I wouldn't hesitate to say a great new stamp collecting game...

0:39:390:39:42

Perhaps the only stamp collecting game, is probably

0:39:420:39:45

-the other way of looking at it.

-You played this?

0:39:450:39:47

I did, and I like to think that this was me -

0:39:470:39:50

very happy with wonderful stamps. This part of it is clearly a lie.

0:39:500:39:53

There were three girls playing

0:39:530:39:55

and that never happened in the history of the world.

0:39:550:39:58

Do you think the fact that somebody bothered

0:39:580:40:00

to make a board game about stamp collecting in 1972

0:40:000:40:03

means that that was the very peak of the hobby?

0:40:030:40:06

I got the feeling, though, that sort of mid '70s

0:40:060:40:10

it was sort of trailing away, but that was perhaps just me.

0:40:100:40:13

That was when I discovered, you know, punk.

0:40:130:40:17

In 1977 the most memorable image of the Queen wasn't on a stamp.

0:40:190:40:25

It was what you might call a punk definitive.

0:40:250:40:28

# God save the Queen

0:40:300:40:32

# The fascist regime

0:40:320:40:35

# We love our Queen... #

0:40:350:40:37

As emblems of order,

0:40:370:40:39

stamps may have been losing their appeal to the anarchic young,

0:40:390:40:43

but they were being marketed heavily towards older collectors.

0:40:430:40:47

Portfolios of rare and valuable stamps were now offered

0:40:480:40:51

as a hedge against the rising inflation of the late '70s.

0:40:510:40:55

A sort of stamp bubble ensued.

0:40:550:40:57

This is the last call.

0:40:590:41:01

Sold to Mr Irwin Weinberg at 280,000.

0:41:010:41:05

We consider it an exceptional buy.

0:41:050:41:07

-Why?

-Well, it is of course the rarest stamp in the world.

0:41:070:41:10

It's the first time in 40 years it has come up.

0:41:100:41:12

Stamps have, in fact, over the years, performed consistently well.

0:41:120:41:15

People are looking for a secure home for their money

0:41:150:41:17

and they have many markets to choose from. Stamps, gold, diamonds...

0:41:170:41:21

350, dreihundertfunfzig.

0:41:210:41:23

375?

0:41:230:41:26

Any more for 375?

0:41:260:41:28

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

0:41:280:41:30

But in just one minute, it was over.

0:41:300:41:32

Going at 70,000.

0:41:320:41:34

Well, it's the smallest and lightest form of portable security

0:41:350:41:38

there is in the world.

0:41:380:41:40

1,400.

0:41:400:41:41

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

0:41:410:41:45

1,400. 1,500 I'm bid....

0:41:450:41:48

Life Magazine stated that it's undoubtedly the most valuable

0:41:480:41:52

object in the world by weight and size.

0:41:520:41:57

I can open this stamp, Lot 374,

0:41:570:42:00

for 325,000.

0:42:000:42:04

It's absolutely wonderful. Didn't think I would ever see it.

0:42:040:42:07

I have a bid on the right at 850,000.

0:42:070:42:11

Last call.

0:42:110:42:13

Sold.

0:42:130:42:14

That particular bubble burst, as they all do.

0:42:140:42:18

But the economic uncertainty and low interest rates

0:42:210:42:25

of recent years have benefited the high-end stamp market.

0:42:250:42:28

Phenomenal prices have been achieved.

0:42:280:42:31

I've come to Geneva

0:42:420:42:44

to visit one of the leading philatelic auction houses.

0:42:440:42:47

I'll be meeting a man who has masterminded many record-breaking sales.

0:42:470:42:51

Five, six, seven...

0:42:550:42:57

David Feldman is, you might say, a born dealer.

0:42:570:43:01

At the age of eight he set up an exchange scheme

0:43:010:43:04

with classmates in his hometown of Dublin, and at 11

0:43:040:43:07

he started a mail order business called The Shamrock Stamp Club.

0:43:070:43:12

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

0:43:130:43:16

12,000. At 12,000.

0:43:160:43:18

Any more at 12,000?

0:43:180:43:20

Lot number six at 4,800.

0:43:220:43:25

HE REPEATS IN GERMAN

0:43:250:43:28

At 4,800, going, going and...

0:43:280:43:32

BANGS GAVEL

0:43:320:43:34

Almost all of my friends were collecting stamps.

0:43:370:43:40

I saw that there was a need perhaps for someone to exchange stamps

0:43:400:43:43

between them, or bring new stamps.

0:43:430:43:45

With the club we had little books which you called

0:43:450:43:47

stamps-on-approval books, which I had handmade myself.

0:43:470:43:51

We would send you a book and you could buy those stamps

0:43:510:43:54

and you would have a discount, so you could...

0:43:540:43:56

you yourself could even offer them to friends and make,

0:43:560:44:00

if you want, a commission.

0:44:000:44:02

So it was like pushing other people, your customers even, maybe to take,

0:44:020:44:06

they would take at a discount or sell to friends.

0:44:060:44:08

So you're like a kind of drug dealer,

0:44:080:44:10

making them addicted to stamps.

0:44:100:44:12

Well, I wouldn't want to make that comparison, but in a sense,

0:44:120:44:15

being able to have more money to buy better ones,

0:44:150:44:18

let's say more rare ones,

0:44:180:44:20

more expensive ones, and then show them to my friends.

0:44:200:44:23

That grew and then I became enveloped in that business.

0:44:230:44:26

I became immersed.

0:44:260:44:27

Lot 32 at 10,000 now.

0:44:270:44:30

10, 11 and 12 for me.

0:44:300:44:32

And 13, 14...

0:44:320:44:34

15. 16.

0:44:350:44:38

It's been explained to me that these gentlemen are postal historians.

0:44:380:44:43

They are interested in the use of the stamp,

0:44:430:44:46

the accumulating postal value of one or more stamps -

0:44:460:44:49

that's the franking - or perhaps in the route that a letter took.

0:44:490:44:52

A letter might have been diverted because of a war

0:44:520:44:55

and that will be denoted by the postmark.

0:44:550:44:58

Or they're interested in the way that the stamp is cancelled.

0:44:580:45:01

An eccentric cancellation might go for a lot of money.

0:45:010:45:04

So it's more than just the stamp, per se.

0:45:040:45:08

Against the net now, at 24.

0:45:080:45:10

In the room at 24.

0:45:100:45:12

HE REPEATS IN GERMAN

0:45:120:45:14

And...

0:45:140:45:17

Gone.

0:45:170:45:18

Where does the balance now lie for you between the appeal of the stamps

0:45:180:45:22

and the appeal of the money?

0:45:220:45:24

Well, I think if you're in the business, you have to be...

0:45:240:45:26

Basically, presumably you have to be a businessman.

0:45:260:45:29

What fascinated me was the item, the value, the adventure,

0:45:290:45:32

the excitement and the continually changing by buying and selling.

0:45:320:45:35

Since Count Ferrary acquired the Treskilling Yellow

0:45:370:45:41

for £400 in 1894, the legendary stamp changed hands

0:45:410:45:44

ten times before David Feldman put it up for auction

0:45:440:45:48

just over a century later.

0:45:480:45:50

The most valuable stamp in the world has been sold at auction

0:45:510:45:54

in Switzerland for £1,364,000.

0:45:540:45:58

The Swedish dealer who bought the Treskilling Yellow

0:45:580:46:01

for an unnamed private client said it was a bargain.

0:46:010:46:04

The stamp, issued in Sweden 140 years ago,

0:46:040:46:07

is a unique misprint which should've been green

0:46:070:46:10

but was coloured yellow by mistake.

0:46:100:46:12

Now, I've always said if you want to really make a good investment

0:46:120:46:15

in stamps, if you're thinking of it in that way,

0:46:150:46:18

the only sensible way is you should invest in what others collect

0:46:180:46:22

because then there is the real collecting market and interest.

0:46:220:46:25

So the only real way to know that is that you either

0:46:250:46:28

have the knowledge yourself of the collector,

0:46:280:46:31

or you go and get the advice of a professional

0:46:310:46:35

who has a collecting clientele and can tell you that this is

0:46:350:46:38

very interesting for collectors, and presumably will continue

0:46:380:46:41

to grow with collectors, and that should be a good investment,

0:46:410:46:44

but not a bubble investment that suddenly rises and falls.

0:46:440:46:47

So now you need a more subtle understanding of what the collectors want.

0:46:470:46:51

I think you always did if you want to understand the collecting world

0:46:510:46:54

and you wanted to be successful let's say long-term.

0:46:540:46:57

Short-term, you might be able to get in and get out to make a quick

0:46:570:47:00

profit, as you say, but that was not related to the collecting world.

0:47:000:47:03

David Feldman's auction house near Lake Geneva

0:47:110:47:14

is just a short boat trip from where Count Philipp von Ferrary

0:47:140:47:19

died of a heart attack in 1917.

0:47:190:47:21

He'd just been buying some more stamps.

0:47:230:47:26

What drove his obsession?

0:47:260:47:27

I'd like to think it was something to do with the beauty of stamps,

0:47:290:47:32

a quality that consistently struck me while watching the Feldman auctions.

0:47:320:47:37

But Ferrary also took stamp collecting into the big money league

0:47:370:47:42

and David Feldman advises anyone who wants to invest in stamps

0:47:420:47:45

to study the collectors.

0:47:450:47:48

In order to observe them in their natural habitat,

0:47:570:48:00

I'm going to have to exchange Geneva for Croydon.

0:48:000:48:03

Specifically the East Croydon United Reformed Church

0:48:030:48:08

and a meeting of the local Philatelic Society.

0:48:080:48:10

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to tonight's meeting.

0:48:140:48:17

This evening we'll be entertained by our own members,

0:48:170:48:19

so we can look forward to a wide variety

0:48:190:48:22

and plenty of material to enjoy.

0:48:220:48:24

Now, I've selected just 15 sheets

0:48:240:48:28

and I've tried to select some rather sexy sheets, if you like.

0:48:280:48:33

I mean, philatelically sexy, of course.

0:48:330:48:36

I didn't have any firm notion of how a modern stamp club operated

0:48:360:48:39

and I admit that I was slightly thrown.

0:48:390:48:42

I'd expected to see more actual stamp albums on display.

0:48:420:48:46

And if you can't see the overprint through the back of the stamp,

0:48:460:48:49

it's a forgery.

0:48:490:48:51

-I'll have a custard cream.

-Yes, likewise.

0:49:010:49:03

Apparently, if we'd come to this stamp club 30 years ago,

0:49:040:49:07

there would've been plenty of people with stamp albums

0:49:070:49:10

and the business of the club would have been one person

0:49:100:49:12

showing another person their stamps in their album.

0:49:120:49:15

But now the stamps have broken free of the albums because it's easier

0:49:150:49:19

to display them and easier to talk about them if they're mounted,

0:49:190:49:23

like this, on what are called frames.

0:49:230:49:25

And the idea is that the members of the club give a show and tell,

0:49:250:49:30

like a kind of school assembly, explaining about their collection,

0:49:300:49:34

why it's of interest

0:49:340:49:36

and perhaps hinting at how much it's worth as well.

0:49:360:49:39

There's one thing you might not know, Andrew.

0:49:420:49:44

It's a funny little quote.

0:49:440:49:46

"A postage stamp is a dirty piece of paper

0:49:460:49:49

"that somebody else has spat on."

0:49:490:49:52

-And it's so true.

-Yes.

0:49:520:49:55

Or it was, but now a lot of them are self adhesive,

0:49:550:49:57

so that blows that one out of the water!

0:49:570:50:00

I think you've put me off starting a collection.

0:50:010:50:04

Now, Pauline, you collect stamps showing cats...

0:50:050:50:08

-I do.

-..from all around the world.

0:50:080:50:09

You are a rare breed yourself,

0:50:090:50:11

because you are a female philatelist.

0:50:110:50:13

-Here, we have got about 20-odd men and three women.

-Yes, yes.

0:50:130:50:16

What do you think, is the appeal of a stamp, to a man in particular?

0:50:160:50:20

It's the hunter-gatherer, got to collect.

0:50:200:50:23

So if there is one of something and there's another one out there,

0:50:230:50:27

you want it.

0:50:270:50:29

But you have a glaring example of just that here.

0:50:290:50:32

-I do, yes.

-From this issue of cat stamps,

0:50:320:50:35

issued by the island of Stroma, off Scotland.

0:50:350:50:38

-Yes, yes.

-A rare example of a local issue of a stamp.

0:50:380:50:41

-Yes.

-One's missing. Why is it missing?

0:50:410:50:43

The chances of me finding it are virtually nil.

0:50:430:50:47

-But that stamp does exist?

-It must do.

-It's out there.

0:50:470:50:50

It must do. It will be out there.

0:50:500:50:53

Well, are you not tormented by the thought of filling in

0:50:530:50:55

-that black hole there?

-Erm... No.

0:50:550:50:57

I am, and it's not my collection!

0:50:570:51:00

A lot of stamp collectors are very secretive.

0:51:030:51:06

-Male ones?

-Yes, yes.

0:51:060:51:09

When I worked at Stanley Gibbons, I quite often had a client,

0:51:090:51:14

who would be male, say,

0:51:140:51:16

"Please don't tell the wife what I've spent,"

0:51:160:51:20

or, "If I'm not in, please don't leave a message."

0:51:200:51:24

If this club is typical

0:51:280:51:29

then the standard philatelist is a person of a certain age,

0:51:290:51:34

but inducements to the young,

0:51:340:51:36

or at least new collector, continue to be offered.

0:51:360:51:39

They take the form of first-day covers,

0:51:390:51:42

specially-designed envelopes bearing new stamps

0:51:420:51:45

postmarked on their first day of issue.

0:51:450:51:48

In my boyhood, these were considered the most exciting things

0:51:480:51:51

to come out of a post office,

0:51:510:51:53

with the possible exception of a postal order.

0:51:530:51:56

But do people still buy first-day covers?

0:51:590:52:02

I've come to the main post office at Trafalgar Square

0:52:020:52:04

on the morning of a new issue.

0:52:040:52:06

The issue is called Masters Of Music,

0:52:080:52:10

which, in practice, means Pink Floyd. A range of stamps

0:52:100:52:13

commemorating the 50th anniversary of the formation of the group,

0:52:130:52:17

I think. I have no interest whatsoever in Pink Floyd,

0:52:170:52:20

but I should imagine that's true

0:52:200:52:22

of anyone who comes here to buy the stamps.

0:52:220:52:24

If anyone does come, because, so far,

0:52:240:52:27

I'm the only one in the queue.

0:52:270:52:28

-Excuse me?

-Hi.

-Are you here for the Pink Floyd stamps?

0:52:350:52:38

-Yeah.

-Are you a stamp collector?

0:52:380:52:41

-No, I'm a Pink Floyd fan from Japan.

-Oh.

0:52:410:52:44

Excuse me? Are you here for the Pink Floyd stamps?

0:52:440:52:47

Are you here for the Pink Floyd stamps, sir?

0:52:490:52:52

Can I ask if you are here to buy some Pink Floyd special issue stamps?

0:52:520:52:55

No? Pink Floyd special issue?

0:52:550:52:57

Pink Floyd stamps?

0:52:570:52:59

No, they're just regular punters.

0:53:030:53:05

# Money

0:53:050:53:07

# It's a gas

0:53:070:53:09

# Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash... #

0:53:120:53:17

So the old first-day cover trick seems to have lost some of its allure.

0:53:180:53:23

And even the sending of ordinary letters

0:53:240:53:26

with ordinary stamps is in decline because of e-mail.

0:53:260:53:30

Britain's average daily mailbag peaked in 2005,

0:53:300:53:34

at 80 million letters.

0:53:340:53:36

It has been contracting sharply ever since.

0:53:360:53:39

So, what is the future of stamp collecting?

0:53:390:53:42

For the past 20 years,

0:53:440:53:46

this woman has been trying to ensure it has one.

0:53:460:53:49

Erene Grieve visits schools to promote philately,

0:53:490:53:53

and she has helped to establish numerous stamp clubs,

0:53:530:53:56

some of which have waiting lists.

0:53:560:53:58

When I was your age, you saw an advert and it said,

0:53:590:54:02

"Send for a sack of stamps for ten shillings."

0:54:020:54:05

We opened up the sack,

0:54:050:54:06

emptied them out on the table and, believe it or not,

0:54:060:54:09

there were hundreds of stamps in there, from all over the world.

0:54:090:54:12

Places I'd never heard of. There was the world on our table.

0:54:120:54:16

Zanzibar, Mozambique, Madagascar,

0:54:180:54:21

Turks and Caicos Islands, Trinidad and Tobago.

0:54:210:54:24

Places I'd never heard of and things on there I'd never seen,

0:54:240:54:27

cos, of course, we didn't have what you've got today

0:54:270:54:30

that shows you a window on the world.

0:54:300:54:32

Put your hand up if you've got a television.

0:54:320:54:34

Oh, we didn't have television when I was your age.

0:54:340:54:39

Put your hand up if you've ever been abroad to another country.

0:54:390:54:42

'I think adults have stopped introducing children to stamps,'

0:54:420:54:45

getting them interested.

0:54:450:54:47

I think, when a child starts looking at a stamp,

0:54:470:54:49

looking at what's on a stamp,

0:54:490:54:51

and understanding that that foreign word

0:54:510:54:53

or those squiggly signs actually refer to a country

0:54:530:54:56

and a currency, and the pictures on it refer to something

0:54:560:55:00

that's happening round the world, there is a magic to it,

0:55:000:55:03

and it's rather hard to put one's finger on it.

0:55:030:55:05

That is a very famous stamp.

0:55:050:55:08

You see, somebody, one or two people, knew it.

0:55:080:55:10

-Why do you think it's famous?

-Cos it was the first stamp.

0:55:100:55:13

Absolutely right. It was the very first stamp.

0:55:130:55:16

Things seemed to change a lot in the '70s.

0:55:160:55:19

Mums started going out to work more.

0:55:210:55:24

I think perhaps parents don't have as much time now

0:55:240:55:27

to follow that sort of hobby with their child.

0:55:270:55:31

Is there any evidence that it is being taken up

0:55:310:55:34

by the latest generation?

0:55:340:55:35

It tends to be where you've got somebody in the family,

0:55:350:55:38

usually a grandparent, who is encouraging their grandchild.

0:55:380:55:42

Or where a school has set up a stamp club,

0:55:420:55:45

that really seems to make a big difference.

0:55:450:55:48

I just love the reaction from the children.

0:55:480:55:51

A little girl in one of the schools announced that it had been

0:55:510:55:54

the best day of her life. I mean, how can you better that?

0:55:540:55:57

Yeah, let's hope she goes on and acquires a Blue Mauritius in 30 years' time.

0:55:570:56:01

Will it ever go back to being like it was in the '50s,

0:56:010:56:03

-with almost every child doing it?

-The best prospect, for me,

0:56:030:56:06

would be that more stamp collectors would come forward

0:56:060:56:10

to help run stamp clubs in schools,

0:56:100:56:12

cos I think that is where we have the right atmosphere

0:56:120:56:16

for stamp collecting, really. I think that's the best place.

0:56:160:56:21

This one is... You've got '06 on it.

0:56:210:56:24

It's from France.

0:56:240:56:26

And that would be 1906.

0:56:260:56:30

So, that is 110 years old.

0:56:300:56:33

I've been in top public schools, I've been into inner-city schools,

0:56:330:56:37

I've been to sink schools, village schools, tiny schools,

0:56:370:56:39

enormous schools, but the reaction is always the same.

0:56:390:56:44

Now, explain that.

0:56:440:56:45

-Well, it's down to the mystique of the postage stamp.

-Yes.

0:56:450:56:50

I've learned something of that mystique, I think,

0:56:510:56:54

having communed with the Penny Black in the dark,

0:56:540:56:57

seen the way that early stamp collectors disturbed the peace

0:56:570:57:00

in the back streets of London,

0:57:000:57:02

and learned of Count Ferrary's obsession,

0:57:020:57:05

a word that might also be applied to the philately of King George V.

0:57:050:57:09

The battles fought over commemorative stamps

0:57:100:57:13

and the profile of the Queen tell us something about

0:57:130:57:15

the importance of stamps to our national identity.

0:57:150:57:18

I've seen stamps go under the hammer for a lot of money,

0:57:180:57:22

and heard the proud speeches of amateur collectors,

0:57:220:57:25

of which there are plenty left.

0:57:250:57:27

Even if it's no longer the rainy day fallback of almost every child,

0:57:280:57:32

stamp collecting remains a popular hobby,

0:57:320:57:35

but its focus will become increasingly retrospective.

0:57:350:57:38

As postage gives way to electronic communication,

0:57:380:57:42

so the romance of philately

0:57:420:57:44

will be compounded by the romance of nostalgia.

0:57:440:57:48

And when we do get a letter,

0:57:480:57:50

there's very often an impostor in the top right-hand corner.

0:57:500:57:54

Rather than this pallid frank,

0:57:550:57:58

who wouldn't prefer to get a letter with a stamp on it?

0:57:580:58:01

I know I would.

0:58:010:58:04

# I've got one from Spain and two from Japan

0:58:140:58:17

# I've got a couple from Israel and Azerbaijan

0:58:170:58:21

# I've got a plenty from Poland but none from Sudan

0:58:210:58:24

# Or from Fiji or Uzbekistan

0:58:240:58:29

# Did you know I can't believe I'm telling everyone that I know

0:58:290:58:34

# That every stamp in my collection is a place we could go. #

0:58:360:58:40

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