July Philatelic Exporter

'The Philatelic Exporter' is the only independent magazine in the world for the international postage stamp trade, having been published every month since it first appeared in May 1945.

July 2008

All these News stories, and others, can be read in full in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter

Escala agrees to settle lawsuits
Escala Group, the global collectables company in stamps, coins, precious metals trading, and art and antiques, announced on May 30 2008 that it had entered into agreements to settle the securities class action lawsuit and shareholder derivative action commenced against it and certain of its current and former officers and directors in May 2006 ...

Flight of fashions
To be issued on September 18 2008, RAF Uniforms is the second in Royal Mail's Military Uniforms series, which examines the history of the uniforms of the UK’s armed services ...

Lancaster Air Gunner

Joint UK/China Olympic mini-sheet
Royal Mail and China Post will issue a joint commemorative miniature sheet marking the moment when the Olympic Flag is handed over from Beijing to London.
The sheet, titled 'Olympic Games – Handover of the Olympic Flag from Beijing to London' will be issued on August 22, two days before the closing ceremony ...

Olympic Minisheet

British 2009 issues
Fifteen special issues have been announced by Royal Mail for issue in 2009. Early estimates of the total numbers of basic new stamps, miniature sheets (MS), and Prestige stamp books (PSB) are 85, 7, and 4 respectively ...

IGPC revamps website
Inter-Governmental Philatelic Corporation of New York is redesigning its website www.IGPCi.com to make it clearer and more user-friendly for customers ...

Philatelic Collections website relaunched
The British Library Philatelic Collections web pages have been relaunched at www.bl.uk/collections/philatelic, with a wide range of improvements to the layout and content of the images and text ...

Indonesian international
Stands at 'Jakarta 2008', the 22nd Asian international stamp exhibition in Indonesia on October 23 to 28 2008 are available at US$1100 ... For further info telephone +62 21 351 8711, fax 8710, or email jakarta2008@posindonesia.co.id

Dunedin Stamp Centre 2008 NZ lists
Latest wholesale (1953 onwards) and retail lists of New Zealand stamps are now available from Dunedin Stamp Centre, P O Box 776, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand, tel +64 3 477 6128, fax 479 2718, email dnstamp@es.co.nz, www.dunedinstamps.co.nz

Mr Men and Little Miss
One of the year's most delightful set of stamps comes from Guernsey in the form of the Mr Men and Little Miss characters created by Roger Hargreaves who lived on the island with his family from 1981 until his death at the young age of 53 in 1988 ...

MrMen MrMen

Also ...

Status quo
Burma fund soars
Game - Set - Match!
Iraq stamps warning
Stamp Lover centenary
Rugby pack soars to £30
China Earthquake Appeal
Concorde Cover Club takes off
Crystals on Austrian Euro stamp
Bath Postal Museum on television
Error on 'Day of Knowledge' stamp
Penguins on first WWF cut-to-shape
Melbourne national 2009 rescheduled

Austrian Euro Stamp Penguin Stamp China Earthquake

Regulars:

About People

News about stamp people from around the world.
What’s happening in your life - tell the editor!

Around the Rooms

Auction action in the salerooms of Grosvenor, and Warwick and Warwick.

Auction Diary

Public stamp auctions around the world in July, August, and September 2008 are listed in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

Auction houses
If you would like your public stamp auctions included in the magazine please let the editor have your 2008 schedules.
For more publicity for your auctions why not advertise them in the 'Philatelic Exporter'? Contact our advertising department

Back Stamps

What was in The Philatelic Exporter this month in 1959, 1968, 1976, 1983, and 1990.

Crime Column

'Roos skip envelope.

New Issues

Hundreds of new stamp issues from around the world are listed in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

Postal administrations and/or agents
If you do not already do so, send to the editor details of your new stamp issues for inclusion in the 'New Issues' listing. For increased publicity, why not advertise your new issues?

Trade Diary

What's on in the UK and overseas - events in the UK in July and August 2008, and international events up to 2010 are listed in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

Event organisers
If you would like your stamp exhibitions or fairs included in these listings please let the editor have your 2008 schedules.
For more publicity for your events why not advertise them in the 'Philatelic Exporter'?

Your Letters

Royal Mail's amazing output and Botswana's steady policy ... Post Office property? ... Fancy philatelic Fantasy Football?

Have you got a view to express about any aspect of the postage stamp trade?
Fancy a moan, a gripe, or a groan?
Or a complaint or compliment, a bouquet or brickbat?
Want to get something off your chest?

Then contact the editor.

From our contributors:

Tony Buckingham - Cover to Cover

The real winning team
To some of you, the fact that Manchester United and Chelsea reached the European Champions Cup final in Moscow just meant yet more football on the television. To me though, it was a great chance to add more collectors to our database.
The problem was Moscow. I wanted to get covers postmarked there but it’s not easy to get anywhere fast and the costs have a habit of escalating. I kept asking myself, does it have to be Moscow? But we’d managed Greece, Turkey, and France for past cup finals - and I hate to be beaten by obstacles. As it turned out, we not only got the Moscow postmark but our covers arrived back more quickly from Moscow than others did from Manchester! ...

Also: Beary good project ... GOSH, what a Carry On! ... Dracula rises again ... How did we do in the competition? ... French farce ... Ideas, thoughts, and dreams ... Wanted: mailing lists, affiliates, and joint ventures

Read the column in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

Michael Burzan - Europe

Liechtenstein offers old art issues
The practice of selling old and long off-sale issues followed by some postal administrations has been taken up by Philatelie Liechtenstein. In this case Liechtenstein has good reason, apart from generating cash: in March 2008, Liechtenstein and Austria concluded the recent series of four joint issues showing works of art from the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna. When that was opened in 2005, the first issue reproduced the painting by Rubens, Venus in Front of the Mirror.

Liechtenstein

Also: Michel editor retires ... Austria's unissued Dalai Lama stamp, and others ... 40 years of BDB ... Europa stamps promoting 'Letter Writing' ... Kafka letters discovered.

Read the column in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

Liz McKernan - Postcard World

Taking you back a century'
Since the year 2000 it has been increasingly easy to add postcards to collections and stocks which are 100 years old. The 100-year date used to be the official one to describe anything as 'antique' - I'm not sure if this still stands so in a way the old postcard has finally come of age. In 1908 two important events took place in Britain ...

Also: Mystery man ... Martin Parr in person ... Complimentary coffee ... Confusing calendars ... Eye exercise ... Fair diary.

Read the column in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

David Rennie - New Books

All reviewed in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

James Skinner - Great Britain

Catalogue crunch (part 1)
The national press and media have been full of tales of financial gloom and doom over the last six months ... all of this ... was bound to take a toll on the confidence of those with any spare cash in their pockets ... initially ... it seemed that the stamp business had been lucky enough to escape the worst of the economic downturn ... however, in recent weeks many of the dealers I have spoken to have seen a definite slowdown in sales ... into this rather uncertain future, Stanley Gibbons has launched the 2008 edition of its GB Concise catalogue ... this stalwart is considered by many a significant indicator as to market conditions ...

Read the column in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.

Glen Stephens - Australasia

Gold Medal price!
Who said modern stamps do not increase in price?! A Melbourne auction house on May 24 sold a block of letter-rate Australian stamps for A$95,000 - plus 16.5% in fees making $110,675 – nearly double the current ACSC value. I am not sure if any British Commonwealth piece, from any country from the post war era has topped the $110,000 mark - I certainly cannot think of one ...

Australia Stamp Australia Bridge

Also: Bridge fever.

Read the column in the July 2008 Philatelic Exporter.