CHATS ON
POSTAGE STAMPS

BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS

With Frontispieces and many Illustrations
Large Crown 8vo, cloth.

CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA.
By Arthur Hayden.

CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE.
By Arthur Hayden.

CHATS ON OLD PRINTS.
(How to collect and value Old Engravings.)
By Arthur Hayden.

CHATS ON COSTUME.
By G. Woolliscroft Rhead.

CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK.
By E. L. Lowes.

CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA.
By J. F. Blacker.

CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES.
By J. J. Foster, F.S.A.

CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE.
By Arthur Hayden.

CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS.
By A. M. Broadley.

CHATS ON PEWTER.
By H. J. L. J. Massé, M.A.

CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS.
By Fred. J. Melville.

CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS.
By MacIver Percival.

CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE.
By Arthur Hayden.

CHATS ON OLD COINS.
By Fred. W. Burgess.

CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS.
By Fred. W. Burgess.

CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS.
By Fred. W. Burgess.

CHATS ON OLD SILVER.
By Arthur Hayden.

CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS.
By Arthur Davison Ficke.

CHATS ON MILITARY CURIOS.
By Stanley C. Johnson.

CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES.
By Arthur Hayden.

CHATS ON ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN.
By Arthur Hayden.

Chats on
Postage Stamps

BY

FRED J. MELVILLE

PRESIDENT OF THE JUNIOR PHILATELIC SOCIETY

WITH SEVENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

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(All rights reserved.)

PREFACE

Come and chat in my stamp-den, that I may encircle you with fine-spun webs of curious and rare interest, and bind you for ever to Philately, by which name we designate the love of stamps. The "den" presents no features which would at first sight differentiate it from a snug well-filled library, but a close inspection will reveal that many of the books are not the products of Paternoster Row or of Grub Street. Yet in these stamp-albums we shall read, if you will have the kindness to be patient, many things which are writ upon the postage-stamps of all nations, as in a world of books.

It is not given to all collectors to know their postage-stamps. There is the collector who merely accumulates specimens without studying them. He has eyes, but he does not see more than that this stamp is red and that one is blue. He has ears, but they only hear that this stamp cost £1,000, and that this other can be purchased wholesale at sixpence the dozen. What shall it profit him if he collect many stamps, but never discover their significance as factors in the rapid spread of civilisation in the{8} nineteenth and twentieth centuries? The true student of stamps will extract from them all that they have to teach; he will read from them the development of arts and manufactures, social, commercial and political progress, and the rise and fall of nations.

To the young student our pleasant pastime of stamp-collecting has to offer an encouragement to habits of method and order, for without these collecting can be productive of but little pleasure or satisfaction. It will train him to be ever observant of the minutiæ that matter, and it will broaden his outlook as he surveys his stamps "from China to Peru."

The present volume is not intended as a complete guide to the postage-stamps of the world; it is rather a companion volume to the standard catalogues and numerous primers already available to the collector. It has been my endeavour to indicate what counts in modern collecting, and to emphasise those features of the higher Philately of to-day which have not yet been fully comprehended by the average collector. Some of my readers may consider that I have unduly appraised the value in a stamp collection of pairs and blocks, proofs and essays, of documental matter, and also that too much has been demanded in the matter of condition. But all these things are of greater importance than is realised by even the majority of members of the philatelic societies. Condition in particular is a factor which, if disregarded, will not only result in the formation of an unsatisfactory collection, but will lessen, if not{9} ruin, the collection as an investment. It has been thought that as time passed on the exacting requirements of condition would have to be relaxed through the gradual absorption of fine copies of old stamps in great collections. The effect has, however, been simply to raise the prices of old stamps in perfect condition. It may be taken as a general precept that a stamp in fine condition at a high price is a far better investment than a stamp in poor condition at any price.

In preparing the illustrations for this volume I am indebted to several collectors and dealers, chiefly to Mr. W. H. Peckitt, who has lent me some of the fine items from the "Avery" collection, to Messrs. Stanley Gibbons, Ltd., whose name is as a household word to stamp-collectors all over the world, and to Messrs. Charles Nissen, D. Field, and Herbert F. Johnson.

I should also be omitting a very important duty if I failed to acknowledge the general readiness of collectors, and especially of my colleagues the members of the Junior Philatelic Society both at home and abroad, in keeping me constantly au courant with new information connected with the pursuit of Philately. Without such assistance in the past, this work, and the score of others which have come from my pen, could never have been undertaken; and perhaps the best token of my appreciation of so many kindnesses will be to beg (as I now do) the favour of their continuance in the future.

FRED J. MELVILLE.

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CONTENTS

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

LIST OF PLATES

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PHILATELIC
TERMS

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PHILATELIC TERMS

Albino.—An impression made either from an uninked embossing die, or from a similar inked die, under which two pieces of paper have been simultaneously placed, only the upper one receiving the colour.

Aniline.—A term strictly applicable to coal-tar colours, but commonly used for brilliant tones very soluble in water.

Bâtonné.—See Paper.

Bisect.—A term applied to a moiety of a stamp, used as of half the value of the entire label.

Bleuté.—This word implies that the blueness of the paper has been acquired since the stamp was printed, as the result of chemical action.

Block.—An unsevered group of stamps, consisting of at least two horizontal rows of two each.

Bogus.—An expression applied to any stamp not designed for use.

Burelé.—A fine network forming part of design of stamp, or covering the front or back of entire sheet.

Cancelled to order.—Stamps which, though postmarked or otherwise obliterated, have not done postal or fiscal duty.

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Centimetre (cm.).—The one-hundredth part of a metre = .3937 inch.

Chalky, or chalk-surfaced.—Before being used for printing, paper sometimes has its surface coated with a preparation largely composed of chalk or similar substance: this renders the print liable to rub off if wetted; and, in combination with a doubly-fugitive ink, renders fraudulent cleaning practically impossible.

Cliché.—The ultimate production from the die, and of a number of which the printing plate is composed.

Colour trials.—Impressions taken in various colours from a plate, so that a selection may be made.

Comb machine.—A variety of perforating machine, which produces, at each descent of the needles, a line of holes along a horizontal (or vertical) row of stamps, and a short line of holes down the two sides (or top and bottom) of each stamp in that horizontal (or vertical) row. And see Perforation.

Commemoratives.—A term applied to labels issued chiefly for sale to collectors, and commemorating the contemporaneous happening, or the anniversary, centenary, &c., of some often unimportant or almost forgotten event.

Compound.—See Perforation.

Control.—An arbitrary letter or number, or both, printed on the margin of a sheet of stamps, for facilitating a check on the supply. Also used to denote a design overprinted on a stamp (e.g. Persia, 1899) as a protection against forgery.

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A Pair of Great Britain embossed Six Pence.

A Pair of Cape of Good Hope Triangular Shilling.

A Block of four Great Britain Penny Red.

A Strip of three Grenada "4d." on Two Shillings.

EXAMPLES OF SOME PHILATELIC TERMS.

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Current number.—The consecutive number of a plate, irrespective of the denomination of the stamp.

Cut-outs.—A term used to denote the impressions, originally part of envelopes, postcards, &c., but cut off for use as ordinary stamps.

Cut-squares.—Stamps cut from envelopes, &c., with a rectangular margin of paper attached, are known as "cut-squares."

Dickinson paper.—See Paper.

Die.—The original engraving from which the printing plates are produced; or, sometimes, from which the stamps are printed direct. See Plate and Embossed.

Doubly-fugitive.—See Fugitive.

Double-print.—Strictly applicable to two similar impressions, more or less coincident, on the same piece of paper; though often, but erroneously, applied to instances where the paper, not being firmly held, has touched the plate, so receiving a partial impression, and then, resuming its correct position, has been properly printed.

Duty-plate.—Many modern stamps are printed from two plates, one being the same (key-plate, which see) for all the values, but the other differing for each denomination: this latter is the duty-plate.

Electro.—A reproduction of the original die, made by means of a galvanic battery from a secondary die. See Matrix.

Embossed.—Stamps produced from a die, or reproductions thereof, on which the design is cut to varying depths, are necessarily in relief, i.e., embossed. And see Printing.

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Engraved.—The term is often used to denote stamps printed direct from a plate, on which the lines of the design are cut into the metal. And see Printing.

Entires.—This expression includes not only postal stationery (which see), but when used in describing an adhesive stamp, as being "on entire," implies that the stamp is on the envelope or letter as when posted.

Envelope stamp.—A stamp belonging to, and printed on, an envelope.

Error.—An incorrect stamp—either in design, colour, paper, &c.—which has been issued for use.

Essay.—A rejected design for a stamp; in the French sense also applied to proofs of accepted designs.

Facsimile.—A euphemism for a forgery.

Fake.—A genuine stamp, which has been manipulated in order to increase its philatelic or postal value.

Fiscal.—A stamp intended for payment of a duty or tax, as distinguished from postage.

Flap ornament.—This refers to the ornament (usually) embossed on the tip of the upper flap of envelopes, and variously termed Rosace or Tresse, or (incorrectly) Patte, which see.

Fugitive.—Colours printed in "singly-fugitive" ink suffer on an attempt to remove an ordinary ink cancellation; but if in "doubly-fugitive" ink it was thought that the removal of writing-ink would injure the appearance of the stamp. And see Chalky.

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The figures "201" indicate the Plate Number, and "238" the Current Number. The Plate Number is also on each of these stamps in microscopic numerals.

Corner pair showing Current Number "575" in margin.

Corner pair showing Plate Number "15" in margin. The Plate Number is also seen in small figures on each stamp.

The above stamps are those of Great Britain overprinted for use in Cyprus.

EXAMPLES OF SOME PHILATELIC TERMS.

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Generalising.—The collecting of all the postage-stamps of the world.

Government imitation.—Sometimes, when it is desired to reprint an obsolete issue, the original dies or plates are not forthcoming. New dies have, in these circumstances, been officially made, and the resulting labels are euphemistically called "Government imitations." "Forgeries" would be more candid.

Granite.—See Paper.

Grille.—Small plain dots, generally arranged in a small rectangle, but sometimes covering the entire stamp, embossed on certain issues of Peru and the United States. The idea of this was to so break up the fibre of the paper, as to allow the ink of the postmark to penetrate it and render cleaning impossible.

Guillotine.—The term used to define a perforating-machine which punches a single straight line of holes at each descent of the needles.

Gumpap.—A fancy term of opprobrium applied to a stamp issued purely for sale to collectors and not to meet a postal requirement.

Hair-line.—Originally used to indicate the fine line crossing the outer angles of the corner blocks of some British stamps, inserted to distinguish impressions from certain plates, this term is now often employed to denote any fine line, in white or in colour, and whether intentional or accidental, which may be found on a stamp.

Hand-made.—See Paper.

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Harrow.—The form of perforating-machine which is capable of operating on an entire sheet of stamps at each descent of the needles. And see Perforation.

Head-plate.—See Key-plate.

Imperforate.—Stamps which have not been perforated or rouletted (both of which see) are thus described.

Imprimatur.—A word usually found in conjunction with "sheet," when it indicates the first impression from a plate endorsed with an official certificate to that effect, and a direction that the plate be used for printing stamps.

Imprint.—The name of the printer, whether below each stamp, or only on the margin of the sheet, is called the "imprint."

Inverted.—Simply upside-down. And see Reversed.

Irregular.—See Perforation.

"Jubilee" line.—Since 1887, the year of Queen Victoria's first Jubilee—whence the name—a line of "printer's rule" has been added round each pane, or plate, of most surface-printed British and British Colonial stamps, in order to protect the edges of the outer rows of clichés from undue wear and tear. The "rule" shows as a coloured line on the sheets of stamps.

Key-plate.—Stamps of the same design, when printed in two colours, require two plates for each value; that which prints the design (apart from the value, and sometimes the name of the country), and is common to and used for two or more stamps, is termed the head-plate or key-plate. And see Duty-plate.

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A sheet of stamps of Gambia, composed of two Panes of sixty stamps each.

The single "Crown and CA" watermark as it appears looking from the back of the Gambia sheet illustrated above. The watermark is arranged in panes to coincide with the impressions from the plate.

EXAMPLES OF SOME PHILATELIC TERMS.

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Knife.—This is a technical term for the cutter of the machine which cuts out the (unfolded) envelope blank, and is principally used in connection with the numerous varieties of shape in the United States envelopes, amongst which the same size may show several variations in the flap.

Laid.—See Paper.

Laid bâtonné.—See Paper.

Line-engraved.—Is properly applied to a print from a plate engraved in taille douce (which see) but is often applied to the plate itself.

Lithographed.—Stamps printed from a design laid down on a stone and neither raised nor depressed in the printing lines are denoted by this term. And see Printing.

Locals.—Stamps having a franking power within a definitely restricted area.

Manila.—See Paper.

Matrix.—A counterpart impression in metal or other material from an original die, and which in its turn is used to produce copies exactly similar to the original die.

Millimetre (mm.).—The one-thousandth part of a metre = .03937 inch.

Mill-sheet.—See Sheet.

Mint.—A term used to denote that a stamp or envelope, &c., is in exactly the same condition as when issued by the post-office—unused, clean, unmutilated in the slightest degree and with all the original gum undisturbed.

Mixed (Perforations).—In some of the 1901-7 stamps of New Zealand, the original perforation was to{36} some extent defective: such portions of the sheet were patched with strips of paper on the back and re-perforated, usually in a different gauge.

Mounted.—Usually applied to indicate that a stamp, which has been trimmed close to the design, has had new margins added. And see Fake.

Native-made paper.—See Paper.

Obliteration.—A general term used for any mark employed to cancel a stamp and so render it incapable of further use.

Obsolete.—Strictly, an obsolete stamp is one which has been withdrawn from circulation and is no longer available for postal use; but the term is often applied simply to old issues, no longer on sale at the post-office.

Original die.—The first engraved piece of metal, from which the printing plates are directly or indirectly produced.

Original gum.—Practically all stamps were, before issue, gummed on the back, and the actual gum so applied is known as "original": the usual abbreviation is "o.g.": it is also implied in the expression "mint", which see.

Overprint.—An inscription or device printed upon a stamp additional to its original design. Cf. Surcharge.

Pair.—Two stamps joined together as when originally printed. Without qualification, a pair is generally accepted as being of two stamps side by side: if a pair of two stamps joined top to bottom is intended, it is spoken of as a vertical pair.

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EXAMPLES OF SOME PHILATELIC TERMS.

A "Bisect," or "Bisected Provisional." The One Penny stamp of Jamaica was in 1861 permitted to be cut in halves diagonally, and each half used as a halfpenny stamp.

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Pane.—Entire sheets of stamps are frequently divided into sections by means of one or more spaces running horizontally or (and) vertically between similarly sized groups of stamps: each of these sections or groups is termed a pane.

Paper.—The two main divisions of paper are hand-made and machine-made: the former is manufactured, as its name indicates, by hand, sheet by sheet, by means of a special apparatus; the latter is made entirely by the aid of machinery and generally in long continuous rolls, which are afterwards cut up as required.

Each of these, apart from its substance, which may vary from the thinnest of tissue papers to almost thin card, is divisible according to its texture, distinguishable on being held up to the light, into—

Wove, of perfectly plain even texture, such as is generally used for books.

Laid: this shows lines close together, usually with other lines, an inch or so apart, crossing them—"cream laid" notepaper is an example.

Bâtonné is wove paper, with very distinct lines as wide apart as those on ordinary ruled paper.

Laid bâtonné: similar to bâtonné, but the spaces between the distinct lines are filled in with laid lines close together.

Quadrillé paper is marked with small squares or oblongs.

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Rep is the term applied to wove paper which has been passed between ridged rollers, so that it becomes, to use a somewhat exaggerated description, corrugated: the small elevation or ridge on one side of the paper coincides with a depression or furrow on the other side—the thickness of the paper is the same throughout.

Ribbed paper, on the other hand, is different from rep, in that one side is smooth and the other is in alternate furrows and ridges—the paper is thinner in the furrows than it is on the ridges.

Native paper, so called, is yellowish or greyish, often with the feel and appearance of parchment; generally laid somewhat irregularly, but often wove. The early issues of Cashmere and some of the stamps and cards of Nepal are printed on native paper: it is always hand-made.

Pelure is a very thin, hard, tough paper, usually greyish in colour.

Manila is a strong, light, but coarse paper, and is used for wrappers, large envelopes, &c.; usually it is smooth on one side and rough on the other.

Safety paper contains ingredients which would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to remove an obliteration in writing-ink without at the same time destroying the impression of the stamp: usually this paper is more or less blued, owing to the use of{41} prussiate of potash, and its combination with impurities arising in the manufacture.

Granite paper is almost white, with short coloured fibres in it, sometimes very visible, but at others necessitating the use of a magnifying glass.

Dickinson paper, so called from its inventor, has a continuous thread, or parallel threads, of silk in the centre of its substance, embedded there in the pulp at an early stage of the manufacture.

Paraphe is the flourish which is sometimes added at the end of a signature: examples on stamps are found in the 1873-6 issues of Porto Rico.

Patte.—French for the loose flap of an envelope; it is sometimes (but incorrectly) used for Rosace or Tresse, the ornament on the flap.

Pelure.—See Paper.

Pen-cancelled denotes cancellation by pen-and-ink, as opposed to the more customary postmark; it usually implies fiscal use.

Percé is a French term denoting slits or pricks, no part of the paper being removed, in contradistinction to perforated, in which small discs of paper are punched out. There are several kinds of perçage, or, in English, rouletting:—

Percé en arc, the cuts being curved, so that, on severing a pair of stamps, the edge of one shows small arches, whilst the other has a series of small scallops, something like, but{42} more curved than, the perforations on the edges of an ordinary perforated stamp.

Percé en ligne: the cuts or slits are straight, as if a continuous line had been broken up into small sections. This variety usually goes by the English term rouletted.

Percé en pointe denotes that the slits are comparatively large and cut evenly in zigzag, so that the edges of a stamp show a series of equal-sided triangular projections.

Percé en points, usually expressed as pin-perforated, implies a pricking of holes with a sharp point, but without removal of paper, which is merely pushed aside.

Percé en scie is somewhat similar to percé en pointe, except that the slits are smaller and are cut in uneven zigzag (alternately long and short), so that the edge of a severed stamp is like that of a fine saw.

Percé en serpentin occurs when the paper is cut in comparatively large wavy curves of varying depth, with little breaks in the cutting which serve to hold the stamps together.

And see Perforated and Perforation.

Perforated—in French piqué. This word implies removal of small discs of paper, not simply slits or cuts. And see Percé.

Perforation is either "regular," where the number of holes within a similar space is constant along the entire row; or, where the number varies more or less, "irregular." The gauge of the perforations (or roulettes) of a stamp is measured{43} by a perforation-gauge, a piece of metal, card, or celluloid, on which is engraved or printed a long series of rows of dots, each row being two centimetres in length and containing a varying number of dots from, say, 6 to 17 or 18.

A stamp, the edge of which shows holes (perforated) corresponding in spacing and number to the row on the gauge marked, say "12," is said to be "perforated 12." If the stamp gauges the same on all four sides, it is simply "perforated ..."; if the top and bottom are of one gauge, say 12, and the sides, say, 14, the stamp would be perforated "12 × 14." If the gauge varies on each of the four sides—an unlikely combination—then the order of noting same is, top (say 12), right (say 11), bottom (say 13), and left (say 15)—"perforated 12 × 11 × 13 × 15." In the above the gauges are supposed to be regular.

PERFORATION GAUGE.

Should, however, the gauge be irregular, the extremes are noted even if not showing on the stamp: for instance, a stamp may be perforated{44} with a machine, which, in its entire length, gradually varies from 12 to 16 holes in the two centimetres, though the stamp itself does not show all those gauges. Such a stamp would be "perforated 12 to 16."

On the other hand, a row of perforations, instead of gradually altering in gauge, may do so abruptly; for instance, along a row of holes, part may gauge 14, the next part 16, and then 16¹/₂, all quite distinct over a particular space. This would be termed "perforated 14, 16, 16¹/₂," implying that the intermediate gauges did not exist.

The use of a regular machine, in conjunction with one of irregular gauge, might produce, say, "perforated 14" (horizontally) "× 12 to 15" (vertically); and so on.

Stamps perforated, horizontally and vertically, by differently gauged machines are sometimes said to be "perforated, compound of ... and ...". There are many difficulties in the way of obtaining a full knowledge of the combinations and vagaries of perforating-machines.

Perforation-gauge.—A means of measuring perforation or roulette, which see.

Philatelic.—The adjective of Philately.

Philatelist.—One who studies stamps.

Philately—from two Greek words, "φίλος" (= fond of) and "ἀτέλεια" (= exemption from tax)—signifies a fondness for things (viz., stamps) which denote an exemption from tax, i.e., that the tax, or postage, has been paid. The word{45} is a little far-fetched to imply the study of stamps, but as "Philately" has been the accepted term for over forty years, "Philately" it will doubtless remain, even if some one succeeds in finding a word which more accurately expresses the popular and scientific hobby.

Pin-perforated.—See Percé.

Plate is the term used, not always quite correctly, to describe the ultimate reproductions from the die which constitute the printing surface in the manufacture of stamps: the word covers not only a sheet of metal with stamps engraved on it, but also a group of clichés or a forme of printer's type and even a lithographic stone.

Plate number is the consecutive number of each plate of a particular value, appearing on the margin of the plates and (in some of the British series) on the stamps themselves.

Postal-fiscal is a fiscal stamp the use of which for postal purposes has been duly authorised, in contradistinction to a "fiscal postally used," a use which has been tacitly permitted in many countries.

Postal stationery, i.e., envelopes, postcards, letter-cards, wrappers, telegram forms, &c.: frequently termed entires.

Postmark.—The official obliteration applied to a stamp to prevent its further postal use.

Pre-cancelled.—Two or three countries have adopted the system, to save time in the post-office, of supplying sheets of stamps cancelled prior to use. This may be a convenience, but the{46} practice undoubtedly opens the door to possible fraud.

Print is an impression taken from any die, plate, forme, or stone.

Printing, in its fullest sense, is reproducing from a die, plate, stereotype, &c. (all of which see). There are, on this definition, four kinds of production: "Embossing," where the paper is impressed with a raised design, by pressure from a cut-out die (see Embossed); "Surface-printing" or "typography," where the portions of the plate which receive the ink and print the design are raised: this process causes a slight indentation on the surface of the paper and a corresponding elevation at the back; "Printing direct from plate" (so-called Line-engraved, which see), in which the portions to be inked are recessed: in this process, the printed design on the stamps is in very slight relief, due to the ink being taken from the recessed engraving. "Lithography" is printing from a stone, on which the design has been drawn or otherwise laid down: impressions from a stone are flat.

Proof.—An impression, properly in black, from the die, plate, or stone, taken in order to see if the design, &c., has been properly engraved or reproduced.

Provisional.—A make-shift intended to supply a temporary want of the proper stamp, which may have been unexpectedly sold out, or may not have been supplied owing to lack of time.

Quadrillé.—See Paper.

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Re-issue denotes the bringing again into use of a stamp which has become obsolete, or at any rate has been long out of use at the post-office; it sometimes implies a new printing.

Remainders.—Stamps printed during the period of issue and left on hand when that issue has gone out of use.

Reprint.—Strictly a reprint is an impression taken from the identical original die, plate, stone, or block, after the stamps printed therefrom have gone out of use. The term is used to include printings from new plates or stones, made from the original die. And see Government imitations.

Rep.—See Paper.

Retouch, re-set, re-engraved, re-drawn, re-cut.—All these terms have a somewhat similar meaning, and imply repairs to, or alterations of, the die, plates, stones, or blocks: instances of most drastic re-engraving are known, e.g., that of the 1848 Two Pence ("Post Paid") of Mauritius, the plate of which was so altered as to produce a practically new stamp, the Two Pence, "large fillet," of 1859; and the Half Tornese "Arms" of Naples, which had the entire centre removed from each of the two hundred impressions on the plate and replaced by the Cross of Savoy. To differentiate—retouching is generally undertaken to remedy minor defects caused by wear and tear: re-setting suggests slight re-arrangement of stamps made up, wholly or partly, of printer's type; re-engraving, the replacing of parts of a design worn away by use or intention:{48} re-drawing rather leads one to infer that the original design has been reproduced in an improved form; and re-cutting implies going over the original die, &c., and strengthening the engraving, with, perhaps, slight accidental variations of the design.

Revenue.—This word indicates availability for fiscal use, as distinguished from postal use. A stamp may be available for either purpose, or for one only; the use is almost invariably indicated by the inscription.

Reversed.—Backwards-way; "as in a looking-glass." The term is often, but quite erroneously, used for inverted—which see—implying upside-down.

Ribbed.—See Paper.

Rosace.—The small ornament frequently found on the upper flap of old envelopes; known also as tresse.

Rough perforation.—When the holes in the lower plate of the perforating-machine get damaged or partly clogged up, or the punches are very worn, the perforation becomes very defective, the little discs of paper not being punched out, but (though generally distinct) left only partly cut through: this state is termed "rough," but must not be confused with percé en points (pin-perforated), which see.

Rouletted.—See Percé.

Rouletted in coloured lines is a variety of rouletting, and always so termed, in which the slits or cuts are made by means of type ("printer's rule") a little higher than the clichés or stereos{49} composing the plate, and which cut into the paper under the pressure of the printing-press.

Safety paper.—See Paper.

"Seebecks."—The late Mr. N. F. Seebeck, the contractor to various South American Republics had an arrangement under which there was a new issue of stamps every year, he to retain for his own benefit any demonetised remainders of the previous set: stamps provided under such conditions are called after their originator.

Se tenant.—A French expression signifying that the stamps referred to have not been separated: usually employed in reference to an error, or variety, when still forming a pair with a normal stamp.

Serpentine roulette.—See Percé en serpentin.

Sheet (of paper).—There are three "sheets": a mill-sheet, as manufactured; a sheet as printed, which may be, and often is, less than a mill-sheet; and a "post-office" sheet, either the whole or an arbitrary part of a printed sheet, so divided for convenience of reckoning.

Silk-thread paper.—See Paper (Dickinson).

Single-line perforation.—See Guillotine.

Spandrel is the term for the triangular space between a circle, oval, or curve, and the rectangular frame enclosing it.

Specialising.—To develop in a collection a complete record of the inception, history, and use of the stamps of a particular country, or group of countries, in the fullest and most detailed manner. In contradistinction to Generalising (which see).

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Stationery.—See Entires.

Stereotype or stereo.—A reproduction of the original design, made by means of a papier-maché or other mould, in type-metal. And see Matrix.

Strip is the philatelic term for three or more stamps unsevered and in the same row, horizontal or vertical.

Surcharge.—An overprint (which see) which alters the face value of a stamp, or confirms it in the same or a new currency. The term is loosely used to mean any overprint, but it is desirable that its application be confined to inscriptions affecting the denomination of face-value.

Surface-printed, that is, printed by a process in which the parts of the plate, &c., which produce the coloured portions of the stamp are raised up. See Printing.

Taille douce.—When a design is cut into the substance of the plate it is said to be engraved in taille douce. A familiar example is a visiting-card plate.

Tête-bêche is a French expression signifying the inversion of one stamp of a pair (or more) in relation to the other stamp (or stamps): naturally, the peculiarity disappears on severance, and such varieties must necessarily be in a pair or more.

Toned, as applied to paper, implies a very slight buff tint.

Tresse.—See Rosace.

Trials.—These are impressions from die, plate, stone, &c., taken to ascertain if the design be correct, or to assist in the selection of a suitable colour.

{51}

EXAMPLES OF SOME PHILATELIC TERMS.

Photograph of a flat steel die engraved in taille douce (i.e., with the lines of the design cut into the plate). The stamp is the 50 lepta of Greece, issue of 1901, showing Hermes adapted from the Mercury of Giovanni da Bologna.

{53}

Type.—A representative common design, as distinguished from "variety," which indicates slight deviations therefrom.

Type-set.—Stamps—e.g., the 1862 issue of British Guiana—have sometimes been set up with ordinary printer's type, as used for books, and the ornamental type-metal designs to be found in a printing establishment.

Typographed.—See Surface-printed.

Used abroad.—Prior to certain countries and colonies having their own stamps, British post-offices were established in them, at which British stamps were to be purchased; such stamps, identified by their postmarks as having been so used, are termed "British used abroad." The stamps of other countries have been similarly "used abroad."

Variety.—A slight variation from the normal design, or type, which see.

Watermarks.—A thinning of the substance of the paper, in the form of letters, words, or designs, &c., during the manufacture. On the paper being held up to the light, or placed on a dark surface, the designs become more or less visible.

So-called "watermarks" are sometimes produced by impressing a design on the paper after manufacture; this has a somewhat similar effect, though the paper is only pressed, not thinned.

Wove.—See Paper.

Wove bâtonné.—See Paper.

{55}

I

THE
GENESIS
OF THE
POST

{57}

CHAPTER I

THE GENESIS OF THE POST

Postage is so cheap and so easy to-day that we are apt to forget how, not very many years ago, it was a privilege of the rich. To-day the Post Office is no respecter of persons, and the "all swallowing orifice of the pillar-box" receives without favour or distinction the correspondence of the humble with the messages of the mighty. The Post Office treats everything confided to its charge with the same organised routine. In the palatial new edifice, King Edward the Seventh Building, a few days before Christmas, a letter was handed to me for inspection in the "Blind Division," where they deal with insufficiently addressed letters. The missive bore in the handwriting of a little child, "To Santa Claus, No. 1, Aerial Building, London."{58} That letter, I was informed, had to be passed through the Blind Division, thence to the Returned Letter Office, where it would be opened to discover if the enclosure contained any indication of the identity and whereabouts of the writer. If not returnable, the letter would be preserved for a period lest it should be claimed. The Department is as careful of the precocious petitions of a child as it is of the papers of State which it carries throughout the length and breadth of the land.

By all who would know the true love of stamps it must needs be understood how postal matters were before the birth of the Penny Black. Else we shall not fitly appreciate all the benefices that the "label with the glutinous wash" has brought to our present civilisation. Without this comparison of the old order with the new, we should be in peril of passing over the true significance of the postage-stamp in the surfeit of blessings it confers upon the world to-day. Postage to-day is as fecund of bounties as a fruitful garden, yet do we accept all as our rightful heritage, without giving much consideration to the little postage-stamp which was the seed which, planted in every civilised country of the earth, has yielded blessings in abundance.

So in our first chat, we would open up the book in which is told the history of things that are written from one to another. The first letter of which we have any particular knowledge was that by which David achieved his evil purpose of sending Uriah the Hittite to the forefront of the battle, that{59} he might be smitten and die. The unfortunate Uriah was himself the messenger, bearing the fatal letter to Joab with his own hand. The brazen-faced Jezebel forged her royal husband's name to letters, so our first meeting with letters in scriptural history shows that they could be used to evil as well as to good purpose.

As the Scythians made contracts one with another by mingling the warm blood of their bodies in a cup and drinking thereof, so the Persians used living letters in their early correspondence. Herodotus tells us how they shaved the heads of their messengers and impressed or branded the "writing" upon their scalps. Then they were shut up until the hair had grown again and concealed the message, when the runners were sent off upon their divers journeys. A messenger on reaching his destination was again shaved and the epistle was made plain to the eyes of the beholder.

This was a primitive method, one of many which had vogue amongst the ancients. Under Darius I. the Persians had a service of Government couriers, for whom were provided horses ready saddled at specified distances on their route, so that the Government could send and receive communications with the provinces. "Nothing in the world is borne so swiftly as messages by the Persian couriers," says Herodotus.

The word "post" descends to us from the Roman posita (positus = placed), and is a link between our posts of to-day and the cursus publicus of the time of Augustus. In those days of arms the roads were{60} laid for armies to traverse, not for traffic, and the organisation of the posita was military. Stations were established at intervals on the chief routes, where couriers and magistrates could be furnished with changes of horses (mutationes.) For the benefit of the travellers mansiones or night quarters were erected. These State posts were only for the use of the Government, and they were ridden by couriers who had, besides their own mount, a spare horse for carrying the letters. Individuals were at times permitted to use the posts, for which privilege they had to have the permits or diplomata of the Emperor. The Romans also had what may be compared with sea-posts, from Ostia and other ports.

Foot-runners and messengers on horseback have been organised for Government communications in most lands where civilisation has dawned, even in remote times. In the West the Incas and the Aztecs had runners from earliest times, and in the Orient carrier-pigeons provided an additional means of communication.

It is not until the fifteenth century that we find posts in operation on a more public scale, the first being a horse-post plying between the Tyrol and Italy, set up by Roger of Thurn and Taxis in 1460. From that modest beginning sprang the vast monopoly of the Counts of Thurn and Taxis, which dominated the posts of the Continent during five centuries, remaining into the early period of the postage-stamp system. By 1500, Franz von Taxis was Postmaster-General of Austria, the Low Countries, Spain, Burgundy, and Italy. In 1516{61} he connected up Brussels and Vienna, and his successor Leonard provided a link between Vienna and Nuremberg. In 1595, Leonard von Taxis was the Grand Postmaster of the Holy Roman Empire, and he established a post from the Netherlands to Italy by way of Trèves, Spire, Wurtemburg, Augsburg, and Tyrol. In the next century, Eugenius Alexander subscribes himself in a postal document as "Count of Thurn, Valsassina, Tassis and the Holy Empire, Chamberlain of His Majesty the Roman Emperor, Hereditary Postmaster-General of the Realm." The postal dominion of this princely house flourished until the wars of the French Revolution, from which period the power of the Counts began to dwindle. Some of the German States withdrew from their arrangements with the house of Thurn and Taxis, and others purchased their freedom and set up postal establishments of their own. By the middle of the nineteenth century Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover, Baden, Brunswick, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Holstein, Oldenburg, Lauenburg, Luxemburg and Saxony had independent posts, but the Thurn and Taxis administration still controlled an area of 25,000 square miles (with 3,750,000 inhabitants), under the direction of a head office at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. In 1851, however, Wurtemburg, at a cost of over £100,000, bought its freedom from the monopolists; and sixteen years later (1867) Prussia paved the way for the completion of the consolidation of the German Empire by purchasing for three million thalers (approximately £450,000) the last remaining rights of the{62} house of Thurn and Taxis in the postal affairs of Germany.

In England the royal Nuncii et Cursores were the forerunners of the King's Messengers of to-day, and were exclusively employed upon State affairs and for the correspondence of the Sovereign and of the Court. At what period the people were admitted to the privilege of the posts is obscure. The first Master of the Posts of whom we know was one Brian Tuke, Esq., afterwards Sir Brian Tuke, who is best remembered in Holbein's several portraits of him, and as the author of the preface to Thynne's "Chaucer." He was at one period secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, and it is in a letter (1533) to his successor in that office, Thomas Cromwell, that we find the one clue to the state of the posts at that time:

"By your letters of the twelfth of this moneth, I perceyve that there is grete defaulte in conveyance of letters, and of special men ordeyned to be sent in post; and that the Kinges pleasure is, that postes be better appointed, and laide in al places most expedient; with commaundement to al townshippes in al places, on payn of lyfe, to be in suche redynes, and to make suche provision of horses, at al tymes, as no tract or losse of tyme be had in that behalf."

In the sixteenth century, there were regular carriers licensed to take passengers, goods, and letters, and of these the most remarkable was Tobias Hobson, who was an innkeeper at Cambridge. His memory is perpetuated in the common expression of "Hobson's choice." The innkeeper{63} kept a stable of forty good cattle, but made it a rule that any who came to hire a horse was obliged to take the one nearest the stable door, "so that every customer was alike well served, according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice." Milton, in one of his two punning epitaphs on Hobson, refers to his position as letter-carrier:—

From 1609, the Posts of Great Britain have been under the monopoly of the Crown, and at that time they were carried on at a loss. As the posts did not carry the correspondence of the public, there was no likelihood of their being made self-supporting until the facilities they offered were of utility to the people. The general admission of the public to these facilities dates from 1635, under the Postmastership of Thomas Witherings, and two years later was set up the "Letter Office of England." The cheapest rate under Withering's management was 2d. for a "single letter" (that is, one sheet of paper) conveyed a distance not exceeding 80 miles. If the letter weighed an ounce, the charge was 6d. A single letter to Scotland cost 8d. and to Ireland 9d.

For a number of years prior to 1667, the posts were farmed to various individuals, and during the Commonwealth, Parliament passed an Act settling the postage of the three kingdoms, which "pretended Act" was practically re-enacted at the Restoration. The profits on the Post Office were settled by Charles{64} II. upon his son, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., and the latter took care upon his accession to the throne to secure the continuance of his enjoyment of its revenues.

Private enterprise was responsible for putting a good deal of pressure on the Post Office in the early days. In 1659, a penny post was first proposed by one John Hill and certain other "Undertakers," but the most notable instance was the success that attended the efforts of William Dockwra in establishing the London Penny Post in 1680. By this penny post, Londoners had for three years an excellent and frequent service of postal collections and deliveries of their letters and parcels within the City and suburbs. The Government post had one office in London—the General Letter Office—up to 1680. Consequently, persons who had letters to send by post had either to take them, or procure messengers to take them, to the office in Lombard Street. Dockwra established between four and five hundred receiving offices for letters, and a good part of the business he did was in transmitting letters to and from the General Letter Office in Lombard Street.

The penny post made many friends, but also a few enemies. Of the few there was one of powerful influence, the Duke of York, who envied the prospective income to be derived from a popular post; there were others who were unscrupulous in their attacks, led by the notorious Titus Oates, who pretended to expose the whole of Dockwra's plan as "a farther branch of the Popish plot," and the porters of London, who, fearing to lose many of

{67} their chances of employment, vented their spleen in the manner of vulgar rioters.

SCARCE PAMPHLET (FIRST PAGE) IN WHICH WILLIAM DOCKWRA ANNOUNCES THE PENNY POST OF 1680.

Proceedings were taken against Dockwra for infringement of the Crown's monopoly, and the case being carried, the London Penny Post was shortly afterwards re-established and carried on under authority for nearly a hundred and twenty years, until 1801, when the penny rate was doubled and the Penny Post became the Twopenny Post.

Charles Povey's "halfpenny carriage" (1708) was a poor copy of Dockwra's post, covering a smaller area at the lower fee of one halfpenny. Its originator was fined £100 in 1760, and the incident of this post is only remarkable in postal history for its having originated the use of the "bellman" for collecting letters in the streets.

The Edinburgh Penny Post, set up by the keeper of a coffee-shop in the hall of Parliament House, Peter Williamson, in 1768, was also stopped by the authorities as a private enterprise; but its promoter was given a pension of £25 a year and the post was carried on by the General Post Office. Just three years previously, local Penny Posts had been legalised by the Act of 5 George III., c. 25, provided they were set up where adjudged to be necessary by the Postmaster-General. Such penny posts increased rapidly towards the end of the eighteenth century, and just before Uniform Penny Postage was introduced there were more than two thousand of them in operation in different parts of the country. In spite of the increase in these local posts, however, the general postage was high, the{68} tendency of the later changes in the rates being to increase rather than to lessen them.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the rates were such that few but the rich could make frequent use of the luxury of postage, and these rates, coming close up to the period of the new régime of 1840, form an extraordinary series of contrasts. Here is an old post-office rate-book kept by the postmaster (or mistress) at Southampton in the 'thirties, which I like to show my friends when they sigh for the good old times. It is a printed list of the chief places to which letters could be sent, with columns to be filled in by the postal official after calculating distances and exercising simple arithmetic. In Great Britain the rates were for single letters:—

and one penny in addition on each single letter for every 100 miles beyond 300. These rates did not include "1d. in addition to be taken for penny postage" and in certain cases toll-fees.

A Post-Office in 1790.

By permission of the Proprietors of the City Press.

Under these rates, a single letter to Kirkwall from Southampton cost 1s. 7d.; to London 9d.,
{71} plus the penny postage; Cork 1s. 3d., &c. These rates were for a single-sheet letter, the charge being multiplied by two for a double letter, by four for an ounce, which is one-quarter of the weight at present allowed on a letter which costs us a modest penny.

Letters for overseas were correspondingly high as the following comparisons will show:—

The registration fee on foreign letters was, in the early nineteenth century, one guinea per letter; to-day it is twopence.

THE COMMEMORATIVE LETTER BALANCE DESIGNED BY MR. S. KING, OF BATH (1840).

A monument "which may be possessed by every family in the United Kingdom."

These are but a few examples showing what a mighty change was wrought with the introduction of the Uniform Penny Postage plan of Rowland Hill. The circumstances under which the new plan was introduced included several factors to which may{74} be attributed a share in the success of Hill's plan. First, the uniform and low minimum rate of one penny on inland letters, dispensing with tedious calculations of distance. By some it was feared that the necessity for calculating the weight would be more troublesome than examining the letter against a lighted candle to see if it were "single" or "double," and scores of "penny post letter balances" were placed upon the market at the outset. Next was the increased facility of transit provided by the then growing system of railways, and the subsequent development of steam-power at sea.

MR. KING'S LETTER BALANCE HAD A TRIPOD BASE, AS IN THE UPPERMOST FIGURE, THUS AFFORDING THREE TABLETS, ON WHICH THE ASSOCIATIONS OF J. PALMER, ROWLAND HILL, AND QUEEN VICTORIA WITH POSTAL REFORM ARE RECORDED.

But the one factor which to us is the most notable contribution to the success of the Penny Postage plan, was the square inch of paper with its backing of glutinous wash. This enabled the authorities to effect the introduction of prepayment, and save the long delays formerly occasioned by the postman having to await payment for each letter on delivery. It saved the complicated system by which the Post Office had to ensure that the postman did get paid, and in his turn accounted for the money to his office. It was to this simple contrivance of a small label, issued by authority, to indicate the prepayment of postage that the practical success of Hill's plan was greatly due. The little stamps are the royal diplomata which enable us all, at a modest fee, to use His Majesty's mails, a privilege enjoyed by great and small, by rich and poor. So stamp-collectors deem the objects of their interest to have achieved a vast reform in internal and universal communications, giving a powerful impetus to social{75} progress, international commerce, and the world's peace.

The year before the introduction of Uniform Penny Postage there were 75,907,572 letters dealt with by the Post Office. The number was more than doubled in the first year of the new system, and the subsequent growth of correspondence is outlined in the figures (letters only) for the following years:—

{77}

II

THE
DEVELOPMENT
OF AN
IDEA

{79}

CHAPTER II

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN IDEA

The simplest inventions are usually apt adaptations. The postage-stamp, as we know it to-day, can scarcely be said to have been invented, though much wild controversy has raged about the identity of its "inventor." The historian must prefer to regard the postage-stamp of to-day as the development of an idea.

It would not serve any purpose useful to the present subject to trace to its beginnings the use of stamped paper for the collection of Government revenues; but it is highly interesting to disentangle{80} from the web of history the facts which show this system to have been recognised as applicable to the collection of postages by the prototypes of the reformers of 1840.

The first known instance of special printed wrappers being sold for the convenience of users of a postal organisation occurred in Paris in 1653. At this time France had its General Post, just as England about the same time had set up a General Letter Office in the City of London; but in neither case did the General Post handle local letters. To despatch a letter to the country from Paris, or from London, there was no choice but to deliver it personally, or send it by private messenger, to the one solitary repository in either city for the conveyance of correspondence by the Government post.

The porters of London found no small part of the exercise of their trade in carrying letters to the General Letter Office, and in Paris, no doubt, a similar class of men enjoyed the benefit of catering at individual rates for what is now done on the vast co-operative plan of the State monopoly.

In 1653, a Frenchman, M. de Villayer, afterwards Comte de Villayer, set up as a private enterprise (but with royal authority) the petite poste in Paris, which had for its raison d'être the carrying of letters to the General Post, and also the delivery of local letters within the city. He distributed letter-boxes at prominent positions in the chief thoroughfares in Paris, into which his customers could drop their letters and from whence his laquais could collect them at regular intervals. At certain appointed{81} places M. de Villayer placed on sale letter-covers, or wrappers, which bore a marque particulier, and which, being sold at the rate of a penny each (two sous), were permitted to frank any letter deposited in the numerous letter-boxes of the Villayer post to any point within the city. The post is the one afterwards referred to by Voltaire as the "two-sous post."

These wrappers, then, were the first printed franks for the collection of postage from the public. The exact nature of the matter imprinted upon them is uncertain; but it probably included M. de Villayer's coat of arms, and it was on this hypothesis that the late M. Maury, the French philatelist, reconstructed an approximate imitation of the original form of cover. The covers, it should be stated, were wrapped around the letters by the senders, and were then dropped in the boxes. In the process of sorting for delivery, the servants of M. de Villayer removed the special cover, which removal was practically the equivalent of the cancellation of the stamps of to-day.

These covers undoubtedly represent the first known form of printed postage-stamps, being the forerunners of the impressed non-adhesive stamps of to-day. The Maury reconstruction is fanciful, but the inscriptions thereon are literally correct. Owing to the removal of the covers (which were probably broken in the process) during the postal operations no originals of these covers are now known to exist. Indeed, the only true relics of the billets de port payé of M. de Villayer are in the two fragments of correspondence between M. Pellisson and the French Sappho, Mlle.{82} Scudéri. Pellisson, who was not noted for his good looks, addressed "Mademoiselle Sapho, demeurant en la rue, au pays des Nouveaux Sansomates, à Paris, par billet de port payé." Signing himself "Pisandre," he inquired if the lady could give him a remedy for love. Her reply, sent by the same means, was, "My dear Pisandre, you have only to look at yourself in a mirror." It was of this correspondent that the lady once declared, "It is permissible to be ugly, but Pellisson has really abused the permission."

The London Penny Post of 1680, while it did not use special covers for the prepayment of letters, introduced the system of marking on letters, by means of hand-stamps, the time and place of posting and the intimation "Penny Post Payd." Dockwra, instead of setting up boxes in the public streets, organised a great circle of receiving houses to which the senders took their letters and paid their pennies over the counter. So the principle of the postage-stamp, as we know it to-day, was not represented in the triangular hand-stamps of Dockwra, or of his successors in the official Penny Post.

A device representing the arms of Castile and Leon was used in the eighteenth century as a kind of frank or stamp which passed official correspondence through the posts, and in the last quarter of that century the Chevalier Paris de l'Epinard proposed in Brussels the erection of a local post with a mark or stamp of some kind to denote postage prepaid—a plan which, however, was not adopted.

A FACSIMILE OF THE ADDRESS SIDE OF A PENNY POST LETTER IN 1686, SHOWING THE "PENY POST PAYD" MARK INSTITUTED BY DOCKWRA AND CONTINUED BY THE GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES.

FACSIMILE OF THE CONTENTS OF THE PENNY POST LETTER OF 1686.

There is a curious account given by a correspondent in The Philatelic Record [xii. 138] of some{85} so-called stamps said to have been used in the Dutch Indies. The writer, whose account has never so far as I am aware received any definite confirmation, says:—

"At the beginning of this year [1890] were discovered amongst some old Government documents at Batavia some curious and hitherto—whether here or in Europe—unknown postally used envelopes, with value indicated.... In the time of Louis XIV. it is believed that postage-stamps existed; but nobody has been able to bring them to light, consequently we have in these hand-stamped envelopes of the Dutch East Indian Company absolutely the oldest documents of philatelic lore.

"The letter-sheets are all made from the same paper, and are all of the same size—namely, about 23 × 19 centimetres; whilst the side which is most interesting to us—the 'address' or 'stamp' side—is folded to a size of 103 × 88 mm. Up to the present the following values have been found:—

"On the address-side is no date stamp, and no indication of the office of departure; also the figures denoting the year are only discernible on the seal{88} of each letter. On the specimens hitherto found are the dates from 1794 to 1809; but it is quite possible that other values may be unearthed. So far, of all the above values together, only about thirty specimens are known.... These envelopes came from various places in the Dutch Indian Archipelago."

THE OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION OF DECEMBER 3, 1818, RELATING TO THE USE OF THE SARDINIAN LETTER SHEETS.

Described in the records of the Schroeder collection as "the oldest official notification of any country in the world relating to postage stamps."

(Continuation from previous page.)

THE MODELS SHOW THE DEVICES FOR THE THREE DENOMINATIONS: 15, 25, AND 50 CENTESIMI RESPECTIVELY.

The foregoing statement is open to much question, in view of the lapse of twenty years since the matter was first aired in The Philatelic Record. If authentic, these would be the earliest denominated stamps for the prepayment of postage, the Dutch stuiver in use in the colonies being a copper coin equal to about one penny. Perhaps the introduction of the matter in these Chats will, in the light of increased modern facilities for research, bring the subject before the notice of our Dutch philatelic confrères.

The Sardinian letter sheets of the early nineteenth century are now tolerably well known to stamp-collectors. They, however, represented a Government tax on the privilege of letter-carrying, rather than a direct prepayment of postage. These were the product of a curious anomaly in the exercise of the postal monopoly by the Government of Sardinia. It was forbidden to send letters and packets otherwise than through the Government post; but as this latter was very inefficient, and in many parts of the country was practically non-existent, the authorities established by decree, in 1818, a system whereby the people for whom the Government post was inconvenient, if not absolutely{91} useless, could send their letters by other means. To effect this the senders had to supply themselves from a post-office with a stock of special letter sheets, stamped with a device of a mounted post-boy, within a circular, oval, or octagonal frame, at a cost of 15, 25, or 50 centesimi apiece. The use of these stamped letter sheets, bought from the post-office, was an authority for their conveyance by private means, but not through the ordinary channels of the Sardinian postal organisation. Thus, while the Post Office took its full charges for the conveyance of such letters, it did not perform the work of collecting, transmitting, and delivering them. The three denominations, 15, 25, and 50 centesimi were used for letters conveyed varying distances according to the Government postal tariff, from which, however, the actual messenger derived no benefit, his remuneration being over and above these official charges.

SARDINIAN LETTER SHEET OF 1818: 15 CENTESIMI.

THE 25 CENTESIMI LETTER SHEET OF SARDINIA.

Issued in Sardinia, 1818: the earliest use of Letter Sheets with embossed stamps.

The next proposal of stamped covers the historian has to note, is that embodied in a Bill introduced in the Swedish Riksdag, March 3, 1823, by Lieutenant Curry Gabriel Treffenberg. His proposals included: "Stamped paper of varying values, to be used as wrappers for letters, should be introduced and kept for sale in the cities by the Chartæ Sigillatæ deputies, or by other persons appointed for that purpose by the General Chartæ Sigillatæ Office at Stockholm, and in the rural districts, by the sheriffs and other private persons." Private persons were to be granted the privilege of selling these "Postage Charts" by the local officials representing the Crown authorities on obtaining proper security.

{92}

The actual proposals for the distinguishing character of the stamped covers were:—

"The Postage Charts should be made of the size of an ordinary letter sheet, but without being folded lengthwise as these are. The paper should be strong but not coarse, and in order to make forgery more difficult, should contain a circular design, easy to discover. It should also be of some light colour.

"In the centre of the paper two stamps should be impressed side by side, occupying together a space of six square inches. One of the stamps should be impressed into the paper and the other should be printed with black ink. Both should contain, besides the value of the Chart, some suitable emblem which would be difficult to imitate. The assortment of values should be made to meet all requirements."

The letters were to be folded so that the stamps would be outside, and so easily cancelled or otherwise marked if required; and in the case of the despatch of packets too large to enclose within a chart, the latter could be cut down, preserving the stamped portion, which was to be sent along with the packet, both packet and chart bearing marks by which the two could be identified and associated in the course of the post.

The Bill did not pass the Riksdag, and so Sweden was deprived of the national credit of giving a lead to the nations of the world in a postage-stamp system, not very different in principle from that of Great Britain in 1840.

THE HIGHEST DENOMINATION, 50 CENTESIMI, OF THE SARDINIAN LETTER SHEETS.

ONE OF THE TEMPORARY ENVELOPES ISSUED FOR THE USE OF MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, PRIOR TO THE ISSUE OF STAMPS AND COVERS TO THE PUBLIC, 1840.

I now come to the period of the active development{95} of the idea, and so far from the stamp being a particular invention of the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, we must recognise that, beyond all controversy, the notion—whether for an impressed or an adhesive stamp is of little matter—was "in the air." It was stated before the Select Committee on Postage, on February 23, 1838, by a Mr. Louis, formerly Superintendent of Mails, that a plan for stamped covers was communicated to him "by Mr. Stead of Yarmouth, a gentleman who has interested himself a good deal about the Post Office."[1] The sheets of paper were to be stamped and sold to persons who would then be at liberty "to send their letters by conveyances not suitable to Post Office hours."

The scheme had been proposed to the Post Office according to Mr. Louis in his evidence "many years ago," and it is attributed by some writers to 1829, though I can trace no source for their information as to this date.

The plan, from the rather vague remembrance of the witness before the Committee, may have been simply one to introduce the Sardinian method of 1818 into this country, and in any case there are no concrete relics of Mr. Stead's ideas in the shape of essays. Mr. Charles Whiting, of the Beaufort House Press, entered the arena of postal reform some time prior to March, 1830, but we have no definite knowledge of his proposals previous to that date. In that year Mr. Whiting suggested the use of{96} stamped bands for the prepayment of postage on printed matter.[2]

Mr. Whiting called his stamped wrappers "Go frees," and he is understood to have intended the plan to extend to written matter, if it proved successful in an experimental trial with printed matter. The plan did not get a trial, and no greater success attended the efforts of Mr. Charles Knight, the celebrated publisher, who suggested stamped wrappers as a means of collecting postage on newspapers, subject to the abolition of the "Taxes on Knowledge," which were the occasion of a vigorous campaign set on foot in 1834. According to Hansard, a resolution was moved by Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer, May 22, 1834, "that it is expedient to repeal the Stamp Duty on newspapers at the earliest possible period," and in the course of the debate the member for Hull, Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill, advocating the payment of a penny upon an unstamped newspaper sent by post, said: "To put an end to any objections that might be made as to the difficulty of collecting the money, he would adopt the suggestion of a person well qualified to give an opinion on the subject—he alluded to Mr. Knight, the publisher. That gentleman recommended that a stamped wrapper should be prepared for such newspapers as it was desired to send by post; and that each wrapper should be sold at the{97} rate of a penny by the distributors of stamps in the same way as receipt stamps."[3]

Mr. Knight had made the proposal referred to in a private letter to Lord Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer.[4]

The ultimate result of the campaign was the reduction, not the abolition, of the Newspaper Tax, and, as the reduced tax of one penny for an ordinary newspaper included free transmission in the post, there was no need for the adoption of Mr. Knight's proposal at that time. It is to be noted, however, that Mr. Knight was an active supporter of Rowland Hill's plan a few years later, and that Hill was not unaware of the suggestion, for he wrote of it in his pamphlet that: "Availing myself of this excellent suggestion, I propose the following arrangement:—Let stamped covers and sheets of paper be supplied to the public from the Stamp Office or Post Office, as may be most convenient, and sold at such a price as to include the postage: letters so stamped might be put into the letter-box, as at present."

Dr. Gray, the eminent zoologist of the British Museum and one of the earliest scientific collectors of postage-stamps, made a somewhat ambiguous claim to the authorship of the proposal for the prepayment of postage by means of stamps. When challenged by Rowland Hill in The Athenæum,[5] he stated in that journal that "I have simply said I believe I was the first who proposed the system{98} of a small uniform rate of postage to be prepaid by stamps." When Mr. Knight entered upon the Athenæum correspondence, Dr. Gray reminded him of an incident:

"In the spring of 1834 we [Knight and Gray] were fellow-passengers in the basket of a Blackheath coach, when the subject was discussed. I then stated, as I had frequently done before to other fellow-travellers, my views in relation to the prepayment of postage by stamps. These views Mr. Knight combated, and so little was he then prepared to adopt them that he exclaimed, as he quitted the coach at the corner of Fleet Street, 'Gray, you are more fit for Bedlam than for the British Museum.'" Knight, whose case has the advantage of attaining substantial record in Hansard and The Mirror of Parliament, disclaimed any connection with the incident, and left his friends to decide "whether the language, stated to have been used by me to a gentleman of scientific eminence, would not have been better suited to a costermonger returning from Greenwich fair than to mine."

THE "JAMES CHALMERS" ESSAY.

ROUGH SKETCHES IN WATER-COLOURS SUBMITTED BY ROWLAND HILL TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER FOR THE FIRST POSTAGE STAMPS.

Mr. Wallace, the member for Greenock, was perhaps the first to turn Rowland Hill's attention in the direction of a serious campaign for postal reform, and Wallace succeeded in 1837 in getting a Committee "to inquire into the present rates and modes of charging postage, with a view to such a reduction thereof as may be made without injury to the revenue; and for this purpose, to examine especially into the mode recommended for charging and collecting postage in a pamphlet published by{101} Mr. Rowland Hill." The Committee started its sessions in February, 1838, and it had the advantage of the reports of the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry, and the collection of much valuable material by a Mercantile Committee, of which Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Cole was secretary.

The proposals from this time on, till the issue of the stamps, were numerous. The Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry had printed samples of several suggested letter-sheets for use by the London District post, in their "Ninth Report, 1837." Mr. J. W. Parker, of the Cambridge Bible Warehouse, West Strand, London, printed a somewhat similar letter-sheet, with advertisement on the reverse, which was circulated with W. H. Ashurst's "Facts and Reasons in support of Mr. Rowland Hill's plan for a Universal Penny Postage,"[6] and Mr. James Chalmers of Dundee first communicated to the Mercantile Committee a proposal that stamped slips should be printed at the Stamp Office on prepared paper, furnished with adhesive matter on the back. These slips were to be sold to the public, and affixed by senders to their letters; and postmasters were to deface the stamps in the course of the post. He included two specimens; similar specimens were submitted by Chalmers to the Treasury in the same year.

In 1839, the first uniform postage Act (2 and 3 Vict. c. 52) was passed, and the Lords of the Treasury, in preparing to give effect to the plan of Rowland Hill, extended an invitation to "artists, men of science and the public in general" to submit{102} proposals in competition for prizes of £200 and £100, for the best and next best proposals. My Lords stated that in the course of the inquiries and discussions on the subject, several plans were suggested, viz., stamped covers, stamped paper, and stamps to be used separately, and "the points which the Board consider of the greatest importance are:—

The contest brought in about 2,700 suggestions, and although none was actually adopted, the suggestions contained in some were deemed of value. The Treasury increased the amount of prizes to £400, dividing that sum equally between Mr. Benjamin Cheverton, Mr. Charles Whiting, Mr. Henry Cole, and Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. Mr. Stead of Norwich, Mr. John Dickinson, the paper-maker, Mr. R. W. Sievier, the sculptor, Mr. S. Henderson of Dalkeith and others were included amongst the competitors. Until recently, however, little or nothing has been known as to the nature of these suggestions, except that the majority were impracticable; but it is on record that Mr. Charles Whiting sent in at least one hundred samples, embodying his ideas or illustrative of designs and methods of duplication in use at his printing establishment.

HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED EXAMPLES OF THE PROPOSALS SUBMITTED TO THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY IN 1839 IN COMPETITION FOR PRIZES OFFERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE PENNY POSTAGE PLAN.

(From the Author's Collection.)

However, in May, 1910, an article which I contributed{105} to The Daily Mail brought from the daughter of Mr. Cheverton a letter in which she made the interesting statement that her late father's papers relating to the proposals made by him in 1839 were still in her possession. She very kindly promised me a sight of them.

Enthusiasts know how difficult it is, when on the verge of an anticipated discovery, to possess their souls in patience, hoping for at least a sight of the find; but my patience in this case was unavailing, for the next I heard of the treasured papers and the dies was—and this is some consolation—that they were in the capable hands of the Earl of Crawford, who prepared and subsequently read before the Royal Philatelic Society a scholarly reconstruction of Cheverton's plan.

Fortune, however, made me some compensation shortly afterwards. The upheaval and dispersal of an old store of rubbish and unconsidered trifles brought into my possession a considerable parcel of papers accumulated by the Lords of the Treasury in response to their invitation of 1839, and which, after lying hidden for nearly three-quarters of a century, have fortunately escaped total destruction in the year of grace 1911.

The suggestions are mostly crude designs in the form of pencil or crayon work on envelopes, pen and ink drawings for adhesive labels, and in one case the latter were made up in such form as to suggest how the labels would be printed in sheets. The unravelling of the plans for which these various suggestions were made is not yet complete, but they{106} will, I trust, yield to further investigation and admit of extensive description in a forthcoming work in which Mr. Charles Nissen is collaborating with me on the subject of British essays and proofs for postage-stamps.

It was towards the end of 1839 that Mr. Henry Cole visited Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co., then at Fleet Street, and told them that the idea of the authorities was that the adhesive labels should be about one square inch in size, and on December 3, 1839, that firm submitted their first estimate of not exceeding eightpence per thousand, nor less than sixpence per thousand, the price being exclusive of paper. The process by which they were to be produced is the now well-known system known as the "Perkins mill and die" process, a method of production which was adopted in due course, and has never been superseded for the production of artistic stamps.

The history of the making of the stamp, the combination of the art of Wyon, Corbould, and Heath, I have dealt with elsewhere, so I turn to the envelope plan. Stamped covers, as we have seen, had been used in Sardinia in 1818 and, in a different fashion, in Paris as early as 1653. In 1838, while Britain was in the throes of the postal agitation, New South Wales actually issued and used embossed envelopes, which were sold in Sydney at 1s. 3d. per dozen sheets. The embossed design consisted of the royal coat of arms of William IV. enclosed in a circular frame, bearing the words "General Post Office—New South Wales."

{107}

THE ADDRESS SIDE OF THE MODEL LETTER WHICH HAS THE STAMP (SHOWN BELOW) AFFIXED TO THE BACK AS A SEAL.

ANOTHER OF THE UNPUBLISHED ESSAYS SUBMITTED IN THE COMPETITION OF 1839 FOR THE PENNY POSTAGE PLAN.

(From the Author's Collection.)

{109}

The envelope proposals that were before the Treasury in 1839 consisted mainly of rough sketches, but in a few cases of elaborate printed designs (e.g., Harwood's envelope), and the patterns made up of intricate geometrical work like the specimens in Ashurst's "Facts and Reasons" and the "Ninth Report." Cole called upon Mr. William Mulready and invited him to draw a design for the envelope, and it was decided that this design should be printed on the paper with the silk threads embedded in its substance, a paper which has since been known to philatelists as "Dickinson" paper, after the name of its inventor. Mr. Dickinson had all along been keenly interested in the proposals for postage reform, and was a witness before the Select Committee in 1837, providing paper with threads in it for the essays in the Report. Many of the chief officials and the agitators were convinced of the protection that this paper offered against forgery, and it is not generally known—I mention it as specimens of the paper are by no means commonly met with—that Mr. Dilke was so convinced of the importance of the use of this paper that he printed the entire issue of The Athenæum for April 28, 1838, on the thread paper.[7] Mr. Dickinson's firm was at that time supplying the regular Athenæum paper.

Among the rarities for which collectors, even general collectors, will pay high prices are the temporary letter-covers prepared in January, 1840, to give members of Parliament the first privilege of{110} using the penny "post-frees." There are several kinds with inscriptions reading "Houses of Parliament," "House of Lords," and "House of Commons." These were in use from January 16th, but their great rarity suggests that the use of them was not extensive. That, no doubt, was attributable to the injunction, "To be posted at the House of ... only."

The public in London first saw the stamps on May 1, 1840, when Sir Rowland Hill reports, "Great bustle at the Stamp Office"—£2,500 worth were sold on the first day. They did not come into use, however, until May 6th, when Sir Henry Cole went to the Post Office and reported that "about half the letters were stamped."

The envelopes, covers and labels were issued simultaneously. Within six days the "labels" won the race for popular favour. "I fear," wrote Hill on May 12th, "we shall be obliged to substitute some other stamp for that designed by Mulready, which is abused and ridiculed on all sides.... I am already turning my attention to the substitution of another stamp, combining with it, as the public have shown their disregard and even distaste for beauty, some further economy in the production."

PROOF OF THE MULREADY ENVELOPE ON INDIA PAPER, SIGNED BY ROWLAND HILL.

(From the Peacock Papers.)

Sir Rowland Hill was perhaps pardonably piqued at the success which the label won from the start, at the expense of the elaborate envelope design on which the artistic ideals of both Cole and Hill had set their hopes.[8] It was not the public lack of {112}appreciation of beauty or art, but their ready selection of the convenient and the practical, instead of the imaginative and sentimental, and, it must be admitted, very impracticable, design for the envelopes and covers. More than two decades later—May, 1863—Sir Rowland Hill, writing to Signor Perazzi, who was making inquiries on behalf of the Italian authorities, said, "I do consider them [stamped envelopes] as of real use to the public, although the small proportion used (not more than 1 per cent., I believe), shows that the demand for them is comparatively insignificant."

{113}

III

SOME
EARLY
PIONEERS
OF
PHILATELY

{115}

CHAPTER III

SOME EARLY PIONEERS OF PHILATELY

We have already seen something of the growth of the postage-stamp idea among the nations of the world. It will now be convenient for us to discuss the manner in which these postage-stamps first came to be regarded in the light of objets de curiosité. From the beginning of the postage-stamp system there is no doubt many people of advanced ideas took a very keen interest in the success of the new institution. The accumulating of the stamps by individuals began almost immediately after their issue in 1840, as is clear from the advertisement in The Times of 1841 in which "A young lady being desirous of covering her dressing room with cancelled postage-stamps" invited the assistance of strangers in her fanciful project. This is probably{116} typical of the character and motif of the collecting until circa 1850, and Punch's quip (1842) that the ladies of England betrayed more anxiety to treasure up Queen's heads than King Henry VIII. did to get rid of them, has served to perpetuate the popular early definition of the stamps of the Victorian reign as "Queen's heads."

This form of collecting was "hobbyhorsical" in the extreme; it recognised no other objects than the attainment of numbers, or the production of a new form of wall-paper, using the old stamps as the tesseræ of a mosaic. At these times collecting was probably considered a test of the bona fides of philanthropic appellants, for we trace to the earliest decade of stamp issuing the popular notion that the accumulated treasure of a million of old stamps will provide an "open sesame" for an orphan into a home, or that in old age one may find a haven of rest in an asylum. There is the grain of truth in the latter prospect which is sufficient to perpetuate a great error. To take a million stamps collected from old letters to any asylum might well ensure a ready admittance and hospitable retention.

It was during the middle 'fifties that schoolboys began to give their attention to the "foreign stamp collecting." I say "foreign" advisedly, for the early interest was almost entirely centred in the stamp issues of other countries, and it pleased the youthful mind to receive specimens from Brazil or the United States. The stamps which passed in the post before his own eyes every day were treated{117} with the contempt that is bred of familiarity. In later years the old designation of "foreign stamp collecting" is by no means correct as applied to the scope of modern Philately. Patriotism had led the fashion of the time to the cult of the stamps of our own nation and its possessions.

There are several claims to priority of interest in collecting stamps which have been put forward in recent years. Mr. E. S. Gibbons is said to have collected when at school in 1854. He was then fourteen, having been born in the year of the introduction of postage stamps. He is said to have been dealing in stamps about 1856. Mr. W. S. Lincoln tells of an album still in his possession inscribed "Collection of stamps made by W. Lincoln 1854." The memoranda in that book are:

"1854, 210 varieties.
1855, 310 varieties."

In the following year (1856) he was exchanging stamps with another collector.

The late editor of Le Timbre-Poste (Brussels), M. J. B. Moëns, started collecting about 1855, and produced the earliest of the continental periodicals devoted exclusively to philately from 1863-1900. His earliest English rival of any pretensions, The Stamp Collector's Magazine, was edited by Dr. C. W. Viner, whose interest in the subject began about 1855 by assisting a lady friend to form a chart representative of the postage-stamps of the world. This simple form of collecting was evidently much in vogue in the later 'fifties and remained{118} during the next decade, and a photograph of one of these taken in the 'sixties will be found among the illustrations. It was not until 1860 that Dr. Viner took up the pursuit on his own behalf. And with 1860 and the next few years we have evidences of the spread of the newer form of stamp-collecting, which was to give the pursuit the scientific interest and value which were to ensure its permanence and to make it in the present year of grace the most widely popular of all collecting hobbies. In those days collections were limited by the comparatively small number of stamps that had been issued, but even then the phantom of completeness was not within reach. "I remember counting my stamps with much glee when they reached a hundred," wrote Dr. Viner in 1889. "I saw some collections with two or three hundred, and heard of one with five hundred. Cancelled specimens were principally seen; but I can recall one collection rich in unused Naples, Sicily, Tuscany, and other Italian States purchased at their several post-offices by a young traveller."

{119}

A POSTAGE STAMP "CHART"—ONE OF THE EARLY FORMS OF STAMP-COLLECTING.

It is very significant that the collectors of this early period of whom any records are preserved were mostly men of culture and of position. The boy was still the main influence and in a majority, but he was in stamp-collecting the father to the man. The historic and scientific possibilities of the pursuit were still but dimly recognised by the mass of collectors. An active exchange of stamps had been carried on from about 1860 in Birchin Lane, London, where crowds of youngsters used to{121} meet and exchange stamps. They were frequently joined by their elders. Fifty to a hundred barterers of all ages and ranks and of both sexes were there in the evenings of the spring of 1862. "We have seen one of Her Majesty's Ministry there," says The Stamp Collector's Magazine of 1863. Characteristic examples of the conversation at these gatherings were given in the same magazine: "Have you a yellow Saxon?"—"I want a Russian"—"I'll give a red Prussian for a blue Brunswicker"—"Will you exchange a Russian for a black English?"—"I wouldn't give a Russian for twenty English." The date attributed to these overheard remarks is 1861. The police intervened later and the exchanging had to be done more or less surreptitiously. But still the group formed in the neighbouring alleys, and still included the Cabinet Minister and "ladies, album in hand," and it is recorded that one of the ladies "contrived to effect a highly advantageous exchange of a very so-so specimen for a rarity, with a young friend of ours, who salvoed his greenness with the apologetic remark that he could not drive a hard bargain with a lady."

Similar scenes went on in the gardens of the Tuilleries at Paris, and in other cities they centred around establishments set up by the earliest dealers in postage stamps. Birchin Lane contained the business premises of at least one dealer—a lady—and there was in Paris, in the rue Taitbout, Mme. Nicholas, a little person, "rather lean, very active, lively and intelligent," of whom M. Mahé tells in his reminiscences. For a long period she{122} held "le sceptre dans le royaume des timbres, royaume où la loi salique n'exerce pas ses injustes rigueurs." A woman with considerable talent for business, she and her husband kept a modest little reading-room in a small shop in the rue Taitbout. To this business she added, possibly at the suggestion of one of the Paris amateurs of the period, the business in stamps. Her shop became the regular meeting-place of the dilettanti, and these were men of substance and intelligence who were not to be charged with following "fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle for girls of nine."

In London, too, there was a coterie of amateurs among whom were men of distinction. We might trace the birth of the higher ideals in stamp collecting in London to the rectory adjoining All Hallows Staining. Charles Dickens described the church, all of which save the tower is now demolished, as "a stuffy little place." The perpetual curate in charge of this old City living at the time of which I write was the Rev. F. J. Stainforth, one of the most zealous promoters of the hobby, "assisting the movement by his well-known readiness to bid high for any real or supposed rarity." Mr. Stainforth gathered around him the chief of the serious collectors of the period, and his influence on the beginnings of the study is probably greater than most collectors of the present day are aware. Cultured, amiable, and generous, his rectory was a rendezvous for all seeking information on the subject of stamps and for those who had information to impart. Perhaps a too abundant good-nature{123} occasionally resulted in the host being imposed upon, for it is said that, "utterly devoid of guile himself, he frequently became the prey of much younger, but more worldly-wise, heads."

But if there were those who abused the welcome of the rectory, there were others who imparted a lustre to the little gatherings in the upper room. Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., the first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, was one of these. He returned from Australia about 1860-61, and formed an important collection of stamps. He was elected first President of the Philatelic Society when that body was formed in 1869. The legal profession was frequently represented at the rectory by Mr. Philbrick, afterwards his Honour Judge Philbrick, K.C., and Mr. Hughes-Hughes, who had been called to the Bar in 1842. There was also a physician in Dr. Viner, a young merchant in Mr. Mount Brown, and a youngster in his 'teens, who occasionally travelled to town to attend the Saturday afternoon gatherings and who quickly displayed an intuition for the scientific in philately which few have surpassed, and made the name of E. L. Pemberton one of the most distinguished in the annals of philately.

The cult was not confined to the metropolis. Most of the early dealers began operations in the country. The first published list of stamps for collectors came from a young artist residing in Brighton. Mr. Frederick Booty was aged twenty when he issued his "Aids to Stamp Collectors" in April, 1862. Mr. Mount Brown was twenty-five when his "Catalogue{124} of British, Colonial, and Foreign Stamps" appeared in May of the same year. The wide difference of years among the enthusiasts of this time is notable in the third of the early English chroniclers, Dr. Gray, the eminent naturalist and all-round scientist of the British Museum, who published his first "Hand Catalogue of Postage Stamps" towards the end of 1862, the author being then sixty-two years of age.

The first three catalogues represent three distinct independent aspects of the collecting of the time. Booty, of Brighton, coming of an artistic stock, an artist himself, discusses in his preface the "great variety in execution, colour, and engraving of the design," the "tasteful arrangement," the whole of a collection, in Mr. Booty's view, arranged with the embellishments suggested by the artist, forming "a handsome appendage to the drawing-room table."

Mr. Mount Brown's catalogue was more practical, if less imaginative in view.

Dr. Gray brought the profundity of his scientific training into his classification of stamps in his "Hand Catalogue." So far as we know, he worked within the precincts of the British Museum, where he resided, and had little association, if any, with the rectory reunions. Mr. Overy Taylor (another of the early and able writers on philately and the editor of the later editions of "Gray") tells us that the venerable scientist regarded stamps as "the visible signs of the complete realisation of a system of communication which in his early maturity was scarcely more than a generous dream, and by treating them as such in{125} the preface to his catalogue he at once lifted them above the level of mere meaningless curiosities." The same writer points out that Dr. Gray, "bringing to the task the habits and predilections acquired in the classification of zoological specimens, attached no importance to colour; to him the design was everything; and whether printed in black on coloured paper or in coloured ink on white was to him of very little importance. The intricacies of design he described with the utmost minuteness, and some of the terms he introduced into his description have been generally adopted."

The early continental catalogues showed a similar diversity of treatment of the subject. The first lists of M. François George Oscar Berger-Levrault (1861) were mere twelve-page indices to the stamps known to the compiler, and were printed by autographic lithography at Strasbourg.

The first edition of the catalogue of Alfred Potiquet was the first regularly published guide for the amateur. Its first edition, the rarest of the items in the collections of the philatelic bibliophiles, was dated from Paris, 1862, but was actually issued at the end of 1861. The author, who was an employé of the French Ministry, essayed to present his catalogue in a geographical classification, but abandoned it in favour of the alphabetical arrangement as "le plus commode." His descriptions, though in many cases now known to be inaccurate, were for the most part very minute, and he notes variations in shade, the method of production (lithographiés, gravés en taille-douce, typographie), and, more remarkable still,{126} he states when the specimens are perforated (piqués).

The catalogue of François Valette—"Père Valette," as the juniors of the time used to call him—is the most remarkable of all the early works of this kind. It was more ambitious in its scientific treatment of the subject. Valette, already an elderly man in 1862, was "un érudit, un demi-savant," perhaps even a "savant tout entier." He was a contributor to the journal La Science and acting-proprietor of the Bazar Parizer. His list was arranged on a synoptic basis, and his introductory essays are the most ambitious of any of the philatelic writings of 1862, the chapter on frauds and counterfeits providing a most conclusive indication of the extent to which stamp collecting was rapidly becoming a popular cult. "Old stamps having become rare, there are those who have sought methods of counterfeiting them." Valette's "tableaux synoptiques" are typical of the remarkable character of this work, and may be briefly summarised here as representing three styles of classification: (1) Genealogical; (2) heraldic; (3) systematic, the latter being a scheme for arranging the stamps according to their colours for comparison.

It was in Paris that the serious collectors first began to systematically note the watermarks and to measure the perforations. The collectors there were divided into two camps over the designation of the new study. Dr. Legrand, a veteran collector happily still with us, and still having a warm regard for the objects of his early studies, led the group who{127} preferred the style of "timbrophile," while M. G. Herpin produced by a combination of the Greek words φίλος ("philos" = fond of), ἀτέλεια ("ateleia" = exemption from tax) the word Philatèle, which was accepted by many as indicating their interest in the little labels which denoted that the tax or postage had been paid. For a long time there was war between the rival camps, and to this day while Philately (ugly word as it is) is generally accepted in English-speaking countries and in many other places, Timbrologie is still preferred by many of the French collectors, and is used in the title of the chief Parisian institution, the Société Française de Timbrologie.

Although several of the English dealers claim to have been engaged in the business prior to 1862, the study of stamps has been reduced to so exact a science that students are sceptical of mere reminiscence and require documental evidence to support claims of this kind. These should be forthcoming in advertisements in periodicals of the time, most of which have been thoroughly searched by the historian, and in early dated lists. In the order of their first known appearances in print as dealers Mr. P. J. Anderson, of the Aberdeen University Library, records from The Boys' Own Magazine, 1862, Mount Brown, J. J. Woods, Henry R. Victor, of Belfast, H. Stafford Smith, of Bath (September, 1862, founder of Stafford Smith and Smith, now Alfred Smith & Son), Edward L. Pemberton (October), and "Wm. Lincoln, jr., at W. S. Lincoln & Sons" (December, 1862). Of these the veteran Mr. Lincoln is still engaged in the{128} business of stamp-dealing, as also are a son of Alfred Smith and a son of Edward L. Pemberton.

In 1862 the special periodical literature of the new cult began with The Monthly Advertiser (December 15th), though The Monthly Intelligencer and Controversialist, published a few months earlier (September), had been chiefly, but not wholly, devoted to stamp-collecting. In 1863 The Stamp Collector's Magazine was founded, and this publication achieved a splendid record during the twelve years of its existence and laid the basis of much of what is accurate and precise in our knowledge of the early issues of stamps. Le Timbre-Poste, of Brussels (1863-1900), shared with its British contemporary a high place in the records of the period and enjoyed a much longer life of thirty-eight years, the publication having only ceased upon the retirement of its founder, M. J. B. Moëns. The beginning having been made, it must soon have become apparent that there was something in stamp-collecting which called for an extensive periodical literature; the output practically ever since has been extremely prolific. These and almost countless monographs have swelled the libraries of the philatelic bibliophiles to an extent which must impress, if not necessarily convince, the unbeliever in the fact of there being some real basis of interest and value to not merely stimulate the cacoëthes scribendi, but also to justify so vast a number of printers' bills.

The albums of Justin Lallier date back to 1862, and the name is one with which to conjure in these days. To describe an old collection for sale as in a "Lallier" so piques the curiosity of many buyers{129} that I wot there are many such old collections made up in these days upon the basis of an old discarded album of the 'sixties or 'seventies, and offered as tempting baits at the auctions. Lallier is said to have been no philatelist, and probably that is correct enough, for those early albums had their spaces so arranged that the collectors of long ago were led to trim their fine "octagonals" to shape, and to otherwise vandalise choice items by removing integral portions of them to beautify the purely commercially issued works which were intended to be "elegant appendages to the drawing-room table," a character which, if it did not imply deep study, certainly gave the stamp album of those days a place second only in veneration and respect to the Family Bible.

Arising out of the gatherings at Mr. Stainforth's rectory there grew up in 1869 the Philatelic Society of London, which started its auspicious career under the presidency of Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., and has a roll of Presidents and Vice-Presidents more distinguished than almost any other learned society can claim. It may fittingly close my third chapter if I give an outline of this notable succession, adding only that in November, 1906, His Majesty King Edward VII. graciously allowed the Society the style and dignity of the prefix "Royal," and that throughout its long career of usefulness the work of the Society has been strengthened by numerous other bodies of enthusiasts who have formed societies in the metropolis, in the provinces and abroad, extending the popularity of the stamp collector's hobby{130} in every country which has seen the dawn of civilisation, and moreover creating a bond of universal brotherhood which makes Philately a world-wide Freemasonry, and an "open sesame" to the fellowship and hospitality of collectors everywhere.

{131}

ROLL OF PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE ROYAL PHILATELIC SOCIETY, LONDON.

Presidents.

• Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., F.R.G.S., April 10, 1869.
• His Honour Judge F. A. Philbrick, K.C. (elected when Mr. Philbrick), July 20, 1878.
• H.R.H. the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, K.G. (Hon. President), (elected when Duke of Edinburgh), December 19, 1890.
• The Earl of Kingston, May 20, 1892.
• His Majesty King George V. (elected when Duke of York), May 29, 1896.
• The Earl of Crawford, K.T., June 16, 1910.

Vice-Presidents.

• His Honour Judge F. A. Philbrick, K.C. (elected when Mr. Philbrick), April 10, 1869.
• V. G. de Ysasi, Esq., May 20, 1880.
• T. K. Tapling, Esq., M.P., November 5, 1881.
• M. P. Castle, Esq., J.P., May 29, 1891.
• His Majesty King George V. (Hon. Vice-President), (elected when Duke of York), March 10, 1893.
• The Earl of Crawford, K.T., June 13, 1902.
• M. P. Castle, Esq., J.P. (Hon. Vice-President, June 13, 1902), June 16, 1910.

{133}

IV

ON
FORMING A
COLLECTION

{135}

CHAPTER IV

ON FORMING A COLLECTION

It may be reasonable to judge a philatelist by the stamps he has, rather than by the way in which he puts them together in his collection. Yet none can have justice in the process unless he has given due attention to order and method. Postage-stamps, more perhaps than any other objets de collectionner, are well suited to neat, orderly arrangement and effective display, with a minimum of house-room. This very suitability and convenience make some collectors careless of the arrangement of their specimens, especially the commoner issues, but I would have everyone treat stamps rare or common with the same tenderness, and with a keen eye to the beauty of their arrangement. A rare stamp in itself has little significance; it requires to be allocated to its fitting place in the mosaic of stamp-issues comprising a collection, and there can be no beauty{136} in a few rare stamps if there has been no proper care exercised in the selection and arrangement of the accompanying issues which go to complete the picture.

It is scarcely necessary for me to more than briefly discuss the methods of starting to collect stamps, but it may serve some useful purpose to indicate a sound method of establishing a good start. The prime necessity to the collector is stamps—if he be an enthusiast he can never have too many. But at the outset, if he have none, the best start is in one of the numerous packet collections, the stamps in which are all different. These are sold by all dealers, and a fair price for such packets is indicated in the following scale:—

Such packets contain the commoner stamps, as a matter of course, but they are a necessity to the general collection, which is made up of all grades of common to rare specimens.

The album for the beginner should be a small inexpensive one, the importance of keeping the small collection compact being that it is more readily comprehensible than if scattered meagrely through a wilderness of blank, or nearly blank, pages. If the stamps are carefully arranged in a small album,{137} a rare delight will be found later on, when the collection is bulging the first album covers, in transferring it to a more commodious home. But at the outset too many beginners waste their substance in an elaborate album instead of on the all-important stamps. They buy cumbersome volumes in which the collection in embryo is lost. They should realise from the start that the purpose of the album is to assist in the formation of the collection, by keeping the stamps easy of access for reference and study.

A supply of stamp-hinges or "mounts" should be acquired at the outset (their use is explained hereafter), and a pair of tweezers—the kinds sold by stamp-dealers are the most suitable—the points of which should not be too sharp or pointed, lest they penetrate into the delicate substance of a stamp. The collector should cultivate the habit of holding stamps always by means of the tweezers.

A good catalogue arranged on a chronological basis is indispensable; the beginner will find the illustrations in it of great assistance in allocating his specimens to their proper places in the album.

So much for the primary needs of the beginner. The general collector, who is advancing towards the large collection, will probably use one of the large printed and spaced-out albums provided for his needs by the enterprise of philatelic publishers. He has his work made easy for him, so far as the identification of specimens is concerned, and the allocation and symmetrical distribution of them upon the pages. Being saved all this, and nearly all necessity for individual annotation, he should{138} give his best attention to the excellence of condition in his stamps and the perfection of mounting.

The stamps should be clean before they are mounted, that is to say, they should have any superfluous envelope-paper removed by careful floating on warm water, or by moistening between damp sheets of clean white blotting-paper. If there be any extraneous marking or blemish, it may be removed if it admits of removal without damage to the specimen. The result of atmospheric action on some colours (such as vermilion and ultramarine), which will frequently be found to have turned a red or blue stamp into one that appears to be black, or at any rate black in parts, is removed by treatment with peroxide of hydrogen applied with a camel's-hair brush to the parts which have been affected by the action of the atmosphere. The process is erroneously called "de-oxidising" by many philatelists; it is really de-sulphurisation.

In the case of very stubborn specimens with this defect, they may be steeped in the peroxide and allowed to soak, but should not be left longer than is necessary to restore the original fresh colour.

A crease in an unused stamp may, if it has not cracked the paper, be removed by following the crease on the back of the stamp with a fine camel's-hair brush dipped in water. The slight soaking swells the gum and enables one to gently press the paper into its normal position. Pressure in the case of a big crease is best applied by ironing, the stamp being protected between glazed cards. Where the gum is untidy on the back of an unused stamp{139} it will sometimes be useful to lay it, after cleaning, upon the surface of smooth glass or the glazing-sheets used for glossy prints by photographers, which will preserve what remains of the original gum, and impart a gloss which compensates for a partial loss of gum.

To preserve the tidy appearance of a collection in a printed album one must sacrifice those portions of the margins adjoining stamps from the outer edges of the printed sheets. In most cases it serves no purpose to retain them, and they interfere with the symmetry of the pages. The collector, too, must use his judgment as to the desirability of trimming away unnecessary ragged protrusions of the perforation.

For all cleaning purposes benzine is an excellent medium, as its rapid evaporation is a convenience, and it does not injure the stamp. Most used stamps may be soaked in benzine and be much improved by the bath; but where the colours of the stamp are such that immersion in liquid is unsafe, treatment may be applied to the edges or to the back as required by means of the camel's-hair brush.

The whole purpose of this care with individual stamps is to preserve the specimens and to impart a composite beauty of condition to the whole, without which no collection can be pleasing to its owner or to any one else. Every unused stamp should be spotless so far as extraneous blemishes are concerned; the colour should be fresh as when it came from the printers' workshops; the perforations of each stamp should be complete, and should have been neatly severed, and the gum on the back, unless it is so{140} thick and crackly that it is a danger to the stamps, should be preserved intact.

A used stamp should be selected for its lightness of postmark, though there are often times when a more heavily postmarked copy showing the date of use will be valuable evidence in the pursuit of historical researches. The colour of the used stamp should not be less good than that of an unused one, and the perforations should be all there.

In the case of imperforate stamps it is desirable always to have as large margins round the printed impression as possible; while in all perforated stamps one should endeavour to secure well-centred copies—that is to say, copies in which the printed impression falls evenly between the perforations on all four sides.

These are the chief desiderata for the general collector. They read rather portentously; but the cult of condition comes by practice to all who have the true love of stamps, for if stamps are worth collecting at all they are worthy of our best endeavours to keep them in the pink of condition. "It is part of the decency of scholars," says Richard de Bury, "that whenever they return from meals to their study, washing should invariably precede reading, and that no grease-stained finger should unfasten the clasps or turn the leaves of a book"; it should be no less a part of the decency of the philatelist, and in the case of his treasures the true lover of stamps will not neglect the merest trifles which will perpetuate the perfect preservation of his specimens.

The use of the stamp-hinge or mount is simple, and, with proper care, perfectly effective. It is a{141} small strip of paper gummed on the one side for folding in the form of a hinge, the gummed surface being on the outside of the hinge when folded. One arm of the hinge is lightly affixed to the top back, or right side of the back of the stamp, the other portion being fixed to the album. The slightest touch of moisture is sufficient for the purpose. The best hinges are stamped with a die out of a kind of onion-skin paper, are semi-transparent, and evenly coated on the one side with a colourless mucilage. In folding for use, the hinge should be formed of a long arm for the album—say, two-thirds of the hinge—and a short one—one-third—for the stamp. The short arm should be applied quite close to the top or side (top mounting is the more general), so that in turning up a stamp for examination there is no creasing of the upper part of the stamp. The process should be manipulated with the tweezers, so that the stamp is never fingered, and in smoothing down the page of mounted stamps a clean blotter should be used.

There can be no doubt that repeatedly mounting a stamp, even if carefully done by a practised hand, has a cumulative detrimental effect on the specimens. The temptation to use the convenient digit is present on every occasion, and even the cleanest finger must make some—perhaps infinitesimal—mark on the face; multiply this by, say, seven times, and the stamp, from being "mint," becomes merely "unused," and so on until after the proverbial seventy times seven the stamp would come within the category of "soiled." So, too, with each successive{142} remounting, unless the first mount be preserved intact (as is possible with good "peelable" mounts handled with care), through a succession of removals of the stamp there is a loss of the gum which is part of the stamp, and in the various stages this becomes a skinned, or "thinned," copy.

A stamp is a tender, delicate thing—especially if "chalky"—and should be handled as little as possible, whether common, scarce, or rare; in fact, the old Latin proverb, Maxima debetur pueris reverentia, might well be parodied, if one knew the Latin for stamps. Care, coolness (physical), and cleanliness are necessary attributes of the ideal collector, and even he would do well to use tweezers instead of fingers; but if he must use a finger, let him interpose a piece of tissue or blotting paper between it and the stamp.

The best peelable mounts are good; but the ideal mount which, once affixed to the back of the stamp, need never be removed therefrom has yet to be manufactured. I will hand on a suggestion for the ideal mount, a little troublesome to adopt in the first instance, but which well repays a little extra initial trouble in the preservation of the stamps, and which even saves trouble in the event of "removals."

Imagine a mount, of standard size, and of very thin tough paper, manufactured from linen rags to give it a long fibre, to be sold ready folded, but gummed only on the upper part above the fold; this is fixed in the usual way to the stamp.

Accompanying each mount are several narrow (say, ¹/₈ in.) slips of similar paper, gummed at{143} the extreme ends, and as long as the mount is wide.

Cut into the mount are two vertical slits—thin pieces punched out, not mere cuts—immediately below the fold, one about ³/₁₆ in. from each edge of the mount. Insert one of the narrow slips, so that the two gummed ends are at the back of, but away from, the mount; slightly moisten each of these gummed tips—instead of, as usual, the back of the mount—and fasten the stamp on the page of the album as if the hinge were of the ordinary make; the stamp will be fixed just as firmly as if the mount were fastened to the page by a square inch of gummed back.

When it is desired to move the stamp, a snip with a pair of small scissors will sever the narrow slip where it crossed the upper side of the mount, which will then pull off from the two pieces. To remount use a fresh narrow slip.

It sounds tedious, and the original mounting may take longer than usual, but a removal takes considerably less time than the ordinary remounting if the hinge has stuck firmly, and there is in any case absolutely no wear and tear of the stamp, risk of "skinning," "cockling" from moisture, or possible loss of gum. In fact, a permanent mount, secured by a movable slip, which can be renewed.

This ideal mount answers wonderfully well, and should be tried by all who care for their stamps, and the slight extra cost and trouble should be more than repaid by the preservation of the stamp, even if the commonest "continental" ever printed: it may,{144} though it is no reason for treating it properly, some day be rare.

In mounting on blank pages some kind of gauge is necessary, and I offer this one as a very serviceable assistance to the specialist mounting stamps on either blank or quadrillé leaves or cards.

The gauge should be in the form of a letter H, the centre-bar being equal in length to the width of the space available for mounting stamps, and the uprights about the same height as the full page.

Suppose the available stamp space, after allowing for leaf-margins and linen hinge, is 9¹/₂ in. high by 7 in. wide, then the gauge would be thus, cut out of fairly stout white cardboard with a sharp knife:—

The long sides being placed and kept parallel with the sides of the ornamental border on the leaf are obviously to enable the centre-bar to be kept{145} perfectly horizontal, whether at the top or bottom of the page.

In the measurements about to be given "c" stands for centre, when the number of stamps in a row is odd; and the figures represent inches, to be measured from the centre of the page when the number of stamps is even, or from "c", as the case may be.

One of two methods can be adopted—mark the lower edge of the centre-bar in thirty-seconds of an inch, starting from the centre and working in each direction horizontally; or use a separate gauge for differently sized (viz., in width) stamps, in which case mark the gauge to show the position of the centre of the middle stamp (if an odd number), and of the inner corner of any other stamps to be placed equidistant from the centre. The former is the preferable course; and the following scale will, it is hoped, be useful, premising that it is unnecessary to give measurements when there are only two or three stamps in a row.

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With a gauge and scale as above suggested, it is extremely easy to quickly mark out a page with pencilled dots, so soon as it is decided how many stamps are to go in each row—experto crede.

Of course, allowance must be made if the stamps of a set are of uneven size, but there is no difficulty if a little patience be exercised.

I have arranged many pages of stamps by the aid of a home-made scale on this and similar plans, and have experienced no trouble in allowing for the occasional inclusion of pairs and short strips—a little mental calculation, and a side movement of the gauge to the extent of the width of one stamp will compensate for, say, a pair instead of a single; and so on.

The specialist can rarely have the advantage of a prepared printed album, as his possessions include pairs, blocks, marginal pieces, original covers, and evidential items of a variety of shapes. He works therefore on albums that have blank pages, generally enclosed within a form of semi-binding which allows the interchanging of the leaves. Spring-back covers are now much used, though there are excellent peg and clutch attachments in the British-made albums of the specialist class. The leaves are either quite plain or with a faint quadrillé ground which is an aid to symmetrical arrangement.

The early stamp collectors used to elaborate their albums with gay colourings; some, following the early artistry of Mr. Booty in the preface to his "Aids to Stamp Collectors" (1862), mounted their stamps on squares of coloured paper, and emblazoned the{148} country's arms and painted its flags upon the pages of their albums. The stamps, being of small size, suffered in the contrast with these gaudy trappings, and in the latter-day philately such contrivances are left to the nouveau riche, who will embellish each of his pages with his name, titles, address, coat of arms, and would add his portrait were album-pages not made so ridiculously small for such big men. To-day all extravagant flourishes and gay trimmings are a vulgarity; simple elegance and nice judgment in the arrangement make for beauty in our albums.

At the same time we must recognise for the specialist two schools of collecting; one is concerned with the collecting of purely philatelic items, the other devotes itself to the formation of an historical as well as philatelic collection. The former does not require much writing-up on the pages. The latter advocates a good deal of it, and it is this form of collecting—the highest exponent of which is the Earl of Crawford—that allows of the most free scope for the individuality of the collector. It is in the collection which aims at a complete history of the stamps of a country, with all the associated circumstances leading up to their issuance and connected with their use, that the highest summit of philatelic pleasure and culture is attained.

In writing-up, there are several details about a stamp, some patent and some latent. To complete the history of a particular stamp, every collector ought to know and to inscribe in the proper place in the album these points, so far as the information can{149} be obtained from reliable sources, and so far as it may be applicable:—

• Date of issue.
• Artist.
• Engraver.
• Printers.
• Mode of production.
• Paper, including watermark.
• Perforation.
• Date of supersession.

In a more elaborate form the writing-up will develop into a full manuscript history—not too diffuse—of the postal issues of a country. The record of each stamp or issue will extend over several pages, interspersed with the collector's specimens, proofs, &c., appropriately inserted at points where they will be explanatory to the text and make a valuable, readable, and individualistic volume. To indicate succinctly the range of the more comprehensive writing-up, it would be the student's endeavour to show and explain the circumstances leading up to the necessity for the stamp; its creation by act, decree, or order; advertisements or requests for designs, tenders for manufacture, &c., with results; a note as to some of the principal essays; the chosen design, with name of artist and source of his inspiration; the engraver; the maker of the plate and the process of printing adopted; the number of stamps on the plate and their arrangement and marginal inscriptions; the varieties (if any) on the plate; how such varieties arose and how frequently they occurred; the paper used—mill-sheet, printing-sheet{150} and post-office sheet—and its watermarking; the printers; the colour, gum, and perforation of the stamps; the quantities printed; the notices to the Post Office and the public of the impending issue; the date of issue; the duration of use; the withdrawal, supersession, or demonetisation; the quantity of remainders (if any), and what became of them.

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V

THE
SCOPE OF
A MODERN
COLLECTION

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CHAPTER V

THE SCOPE OF A MODERN COLLECTION

The scope of the modern collector extends beyond the collection of actually issued stamps. He uses the stamps as a starting-point, but in the historical collection he works—as it is said the writers of detective stories used to do—backwards. He traces to its earliest inception the service which ultimately gave us the postage stamp. The collection is literary as well as philatelic: stamps are preceded by documents, prints and postal records of all kinds. The essays, as we term the suggestions for stamp designs submitted by artists, inventors or printers to a Government or other issuing authority, are of a high degree of interest and should be included in the historical collection, which will also show, where possible, the engraver's proofs taken in the course of{154} his work, the finished die-proofs in black, plate-proofs in black and in colours, and the stamps, generally of the first printing, which are overprinted with the word "Specimen," or its equivalent in other languages, and are sent out to show postal officers what the newly-authorised stamps are like.

It is in this broad field that the collector in these days gets the most enjoyment; here he may heighten the pleasures of the hunt for philatelic and associated rariora. So many wonderful tales have been told of the fabulous fortunes acquired in the finding of a few old letters bearing stamps, that many a deal is frustrated by the uninitiated owner having too fanciful an idea of the value of his goods. It is rare in these days for such an incident to happen as I witnessed about twelve years ago. A gentleman, who had been turning out some old papers, came across an unsevered block of eight five-shilling British stamps which had been sent to his father, presumably as a remittance, somewhere in the early 'eighties. Here was £2 lying idle for years, but having luckily noticed them in clearing out these old papers, the gentleman thought he would see if they were still exchangeable at a post-office. At the first post-office he visited, he was told that the stamps were of an old issue, and that to get them converted into cash he would have to take them to Somerset House. On his way thither he noticed a stamp-dealer's show case, and apparently the possible interest of his specimens in the stamp-market then first occurred to him. He called in, and simply asked if the dealer would give him the £2, to save him the trouble of{155} going on to Somerset House. The dealer, who had probably never seen an unsevered block of eight of the five-shillings "anchor" of 1882, obliged him readily, which he could well afford to do, as he passed on the stamps the same week to a collector for £75.

These things do happen, but in the "legitimate" stamp-collecting they are necessarily of rarer occurrence in these days of popular newspapers, over-educating in certain directions, or at least pandering to the common desire for a royal road to easy wealth. Many dealers have told me that it is their experience that, if they make a fair offer for valuable stamps submitted to them by the uninitiated, they never succeed in effecting a purchase at all in these days. The hawker of "finds" visits the stamp-shops to get an idea of the value of his wares, and plays off one dealer against another, with the result that it is necessary for the seller nowadays to state his price in the first instance.

The modern collection is specialised, that is to say, it deals with the postal history of a country or group of countries, instead of being a mere accumulation of specimens of the postage-stamps of the world. The advanced collector's albums of to-day are like the "association books" of the autograph collector, and indeed there have been many successes in "grangerising" the more important specialist monographs on stamps. One of the most interesting of these latter was the late Mr. Thomas Peacock's copy of "The Postage and Telegraph Stamps of Great Britain," written by the late Mr. (afterwards{156} Judge) Philbrick and the late Mr. W. A. S. Westoby, and published by the Philatelic Society, London, in 1881. This book was sold by auction after Mr. Peacock's death, and realised only £19, its treasures not having been generally noticed before the sale; and it had been denuded of some of its wealth before I saw it, an act for which it is not easy to forgive the man of commerce. Peacock, as Inspector of Stamping at Somerset House (1853-93), had had intimate associations with the Hill family (of whom several members got comfortable positions in the Government service), and his connection with the mechanical side of the production of stamps enabled him to enrich his "Philbrick and Westoby" with copious notes, photographs, proofs, and stamps. Major Evans published most of the notes in Gibbons Stamp Weekly, and I had the privilege of adding the notes and some photographs from the original to my own copy of this book.

The collector "grangerising" a book on the British stamps to-day would, of course, work on the later authority, "The Adhesive Stamps of the British Isles," by the late Mr. Hastings E. Wright, and Mr. A. B. Creeke, jun., or on the sectional works of mine, of which Mr. W. H. Peckitt has issued large paper sets with special bindings for that purpose.

THE SMALL "EXPERIMENTAL" PLATE FROM WHICH IMPRESSIONS OF THE TWO PENCE, GREAT BRITAIN, WERE MADE ON "DICKINSON" PAPER.

Only two rows of four stamps were impressed on each piece of the paper.
(Cf. next plate.)

Generally, however, it is the stamp collection itself that is enriched by a variety of evidential matter and extensive notes by the owner. I have traced with fair success in my Great Britain collection the early history of the Post Office in this country, and have been fortunate enough to secure{159} several of those raræ aves among historic documents, the proclamations relating to the post. Lord Crawford has the finest set of these in any private collection, and he has given a list of them in the catalogue of the philatelic section of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana, with details of the location of all known copies. Acts of Parliament are not always convenient for inclusion with the stamp collection, but those relating to the issuance of stamps should be included where possible. The original of the "pretended Act" of the Commonwealth, to which I have already alluded, was a bookstall-bargain, costing a few shillings. The Uniform Penny Postage Acts of 1839 and 1840 should be included in the "association collection" of the stamps of Great Britain. My copy of the former is an original, but the 1840 one is a reprint. The years 1837-39 are of great importance in the history of postage-stamps; this was the first period of the essays and proposals for the system, to the advocacy of which Rowland Hill devoted himself with such tenacity of purpose. The published proposals, samples of the printed envelopes and covers of which were included in the "Ninth Report of the Commissioners appointed to Inquire into the Management of the Post Office" (1837), and in Mr. Ashurst's "Facts and Reasons in support of Mr. Rowland Hill's Plan," are accessible to the specialist, and are the natural priores of the Mulready envelopes and covers. Not so accessible are the proposals of Forrester, Cheverton, Dickinson, and the minor lights who sought to provide the Treasury with the key to success in the adoption of prepayment.{160} My "Forrester" is a perfect copy which came from the sale of the Philbrick library, where it had been overlooked and classed among some more ponderous but less treasured productions. The Cheverton papers and the metal dies intended for striking the impressions of his proposed labels remain in the possession of the inventor's relative, Miss Eliza Cooper, though casts have been made of the die for the collections of his Majesty the King, Lord Crawford, the British Museum, and the Royal Society. Mr. Lewis Evans, the grandson of the late Mr. John Dickinson, the great paper manufacturer—a contemporary of Fourdrinier and no mean rival of that genius—has a family treasure-store in the Dickinson correspondence with Rowland, Ormond, and Edwin Hill, and Mr. Spring Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer; and particularly in a fine series of the patterns drawn up by Ormond Hill for the envelopes printed on Dickinson "thread" paper. Samples of the actual thread-papers (unprinted) as used for the Mulready and the later embossed envelopes and for the first Ten Pence and One Shilling embossed stamps are surprisingly rare—indeed, the authors of "Wright and Creeke" had only seen three-quarters of a mill-sheet at the time of writing their book. Mr. Lewis Evans has a number of the original samples, and has been good enough to allow me to prepare a complete transcript of the Dickinson papers, so far as they relate to postal matters, and I have included facsimiles of Ormond Hill's pattern instructions for the paper for the Ten Pence and Shilling adhesives in "Great Britain: Embossed Adhesive{163} Stamps." These are items which form part of the life-history of the stamps or impressed stationery to which they relate, and are properly included with the stamp collection. But, except in the facsimile state, it will be obvious that but few can enrich their collections with items of so unique a character as Ormond Hill's carefully measured and ruled patterns and the autograph letters with instructions from Rowland Hill. But it is open to each specialist to introduce much individuality into a collection of Great Britain, or some other country, on these and similar lines.

THE TWO PENCE, GREAT BRITAIN, ON "DICKINSON" PAPER.

The upper block is in red (24 stamps printed in all, of which nine copies are known) and the lower block in blue (16 stamps printed, of which twelve copies are known). The above blocks of six each are in the possession of Mr. Lewis Evans; the pairs cut from the left side of each block were in the collection of the late Mrs. John Evans.

Mention has already been made of the "find" of a quantity of the suggestions submitted to the Treasury in 1839 as a result of the offer of prize-money. These, too, are within the scope of the stamp collection carried out on the thorough historical basis, but then nearly every item being unique designs in pen and ink, in crayon and watercolour, and with manuscript matter, they are not to enrich more than one collection at a time. Yet there may be others of a different kind, each in itself unique, to be had at some future timely frustration of a holocaust of waste-paper.

AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM ROWLAND HILL TO JOHN DICKINSON, THE PAPER-MAKER, ASKING FOR SIX OR EIGHT SHEETS OF THE SILK-THREAD PAPER FOR TRIAL IMPRESSIONS OF THE ADHESIVE STAMPS.

The City Medal of William Wyon is closely associated with the history of our stamps, and used to be represented in my collection by a silver cliché, though it has now been replaced by the medal in silver. The medal is accessible to the collector in bronze, silver, or gold, but for most philatelic purposes a cliché showing only the obverse with the Queen's head is more convenient for mounting in the album,{167} in a heavily sunk card, and protected with "glass" paper.

ONE OF THE ROUGH PENCIL SKETCHES BY W. MULREADY, R.A., FOR THE ENVELOPE.

The "flying" figures are not shown in this sketch.

Original drawings are in nearly every case unique in themselves. Curiously enough, Mulready is supposed to have made two, possibly three, original sketches for his envelope, though even here each must be regarded as dissimilar from the others. One is a pencil design in outline, and is in the possession of His Majesty the King; the sketch was sold with other drawings and sketches by Christie, Manson & Woods on April 28, 1864, when it was stated by the auctioneer that this was the only sketch of the design made by the artist. It is practically the whole of the design as printed, and shares the peculiarity of the issued envelopes and covers that one of the flying angels is drawn without a second leg. Another sketch, according to Sir Henry Cole,[9] had this omission corrected before it was presented to Mr. Thomas Baring, M.P. If Sir Henry Cole were not mistaken, I must consider the sketch in the possession of Miss Jaffray to be yet a third "original," as it is lacking the winged four figures entirely.

Another pair of sketches of unequalled importance is in the possession of His Majesty. These are the two rough sketches in water-colours of the designs of the first (1840) One Penny and Two Pence stamps, submitted by Mr. Rowland Hill for approval of the Chancellor of the Exchequer: across the head of the one in black Rowland Hill has written "1d." in pencil, and similarly "2d." across the one in blue.

Original drawings of issued stamps very rarely{168} leave the Government or printer's establishments, but in a few cases they have come on the market. A few years ago, in a large collection of colour-proofs of stamps printed by De La Rue, I saw the original drawing for the 1881 stamps of Cyprus, a unique item which went to embellish the specialised collection of the stamps of that colony formed by Mr. J. C. North, of Huddersfield. Shortly afterwards I myself secured two original colour drawings for the 1897 issue of British Central Africa.[10] I found them in the Strand, where, strange to say, many of these out-of-the-way items are often moderately priced, quite out of proportion to their interest and relative scarcity, for it is only in comparatively recent times that specialism has admitted these historic side-issues into the stamp album. Mr. Charles J. Phillips, one of those rare combinations of student and dealer, has permitted me to reproduce an original sketch of the canoe type of Fiji, from the fine collection of this colony formed by him.[11] The drawing was by Mr. Leslie J. Walker, Postmaster of Suva, and represents "a young colony (the canoe forging ahead towards the rising sun shows the progress of the colony); the crown is retained, indicating that it is a colony of England."

Other sources of stamp-engravings are of interest, and some are not difficult of access. A familiar one is the source of the picture on the "Omaha" $1 stamp which the United States Post Office literally "cribbed" from the etching published by Dunthorne,{169} of Vigo Street, of the late Mr. MacWhirter's painting "The Vanguard." The American Post Office altered the title to "Western Cattle in Storm," but the picture is unmistakably the same. My statement of MacWhirter's authorship of the picture having been challenged by an artist, who was probably misled by the Scottish painter's devotion to landscape, led me to submit the stamp to Mr. MacWhirter, whose reply admits of no doubt.

ORIGINAL SKETCH FOR THE "CANOE" TYPE OF FIJI STAMPS.

{170}

A more scarce engraving, which was the basis of some of the most classic designs in the history of postage-stamps, is the mezzotint by Samuel Cousins, A.R.A., of the portrait of Queen Victoria painted by Alfred Edward Chalon, R.A., in 1837. The original picture was a present from the Queen to her mother, the Duchess of Kent, as a souvenir of Her Majesty's visit to the House of Lords to prorogue Parliament on July 17, 1837. According to The Athenæum, the original picture "may take its place as the portrait, whether in right of the likeness, which is faithful and characteristic, or in right of its artistic treatment." From the mezzotint Edward Henry Corbould, the son of the artist of the "Penny Black" of Great Britain, made a drawing in water colours, from which the engraver William Humphrys produced the fine miniature for the first stamps of New Zealand.

In a number of cases photographs have provided the subject for stamp vignettes, and here the collector is able, if he takes a little trouble, to procure copies for extra-illustrating his collection. The photograph of the Llandovery Falls in Jamaica, used on the picture stamp of that colony in 1900, was an unauthorised copy of one of a published series of local views; that of the Victoria Falls on the 1905 stamps of the British South Africa Company recently formed a frontispiece to The Stamp Lover (October, 1910). The subject of the quaint vignette on the British New Guinea and Papua stamps was engraved from a photograph taken by a naval officer, and I traced a copy to the collection of a returned missionary.

{171}

Bank-note and other engravings of a like character have provided copies for stamp pictures, and Lord Crawford has formed a truly magnificent historical collection of the United States stamps, in which his lordship, in the course of about forty volumes, traces each design to its inception, in some cases to the first rough pencil sketch. He endeavours to show every stage in the development of the stamp, and, as every philatelist should do, he follows the stamp through its period of currency, showing the different kinds of obliterations, the varying shades of successive printings, and where they exist re-issues, reprintings, and forgeries. His lordship's collections of Great Britain and of the Italian States are equally comprehensive, but that this manner of collecting is not entirely exclusive is evidenced by the number of collectors who have formed really worthy individual "association albums"—to borrow an expressive term—of the stamps of these same countries.

Proofs are comparatively easy of access, which, considering their relative scarcity, is surprising. The reason that they were neglected in the middle period of stamp-collecting was probably that the creation of a market for such items had led in some instances to an illegitimate supply by the employés of printing firms entrusted with the storage of Government dies. The misuse of stamp dies is rare now, most self-respecting Governments taking ample precautions not to admit of any improper use of their property. The opportunities for finds in the way of rare proofs are still plentiful. Stamp-collecting, though firmly established, is still young, and it is little over seventy{172} years since the first adhesive postage-stamp was issued. A number of near descendants of the originators of the first postage-stamp are alive, and no doubt there are still treasures in the way of proofs among the little-valued waste of later stamp-engravers and designers. Shortly after the death of the engraver Herbert Bourne (1825-1907), I acquired practically the whole of his reliques in the way of proofs of stamp dies; but during his long life the engraver had done so many engravings that a little while prior to his death he had been burning the proofs he had saved to clear them out of the way. His son fortunately saved the thirty to forty items now in my collection, of which one of the most curious, if least in dimensions, is the extremely small head of King Carlos for the small opening in the frame of the picture stamps of Portuguese Nyassa. He appears to have done the die for the 1876 (June) issue of Spain, which stamps, printed in taille douce by Messrs. Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co., are a flat contradiction of the statements of both the Somerset House authorities and the Crown Agents for the Colonies. Each of these departments has averred that the recess-plate printing offers more scope to the forger than our paltry surface-printing, yet Spain, prior to 1876, had to change her stamp issues practically every year owing to the prevalence of forgeries making heavy inroads on the Government revenues. Yet the forgeries were of surface-printed issues, and this first Spanish issue in taille-douce engraving, printed in London from the die of a London engraver, was never forged to defraud the Government,{175} neither have the stamps been successfully imitated to deceive the collector.

ENGRAVER'S PROOF OF THE QUEEN'S HEAD DIE FOR THE FIRST ADHESIVE POSTAGE STAMPS, WITH NOTE IN THE HANDWRITING OF EDWARD HENRY CORBOULD ATTRIBUTING THE ENGRAVING TO FREDERICK HEATH.

As an instance of how little Mr. Bourne had regarded the proofs taken of his work at various stages, a very fine proof in the set obtained by me was the Queensland head die proved upon a large sheet of thick porous paper, the whole of which proof had been used as a convenient blotting-pad!

Proofs of the Mulready are not very difficult to obtain, even on India paper. There was in the Peacock papers a proof on India paper to which Rowland Hill had affixed his signature, the latter being added on a separate piece of writing-paper pasted over the India paper, which does not take writing.

There must be many engravers of stamp dies who have accumulated a stock of proof specimens of their work, and these are well worth looking out for. A particularly choice item—said to be one of three copies originally taken—is the engraver's proof of the first adhesive postage, head only, without "POSTAGE," and undenominated. Mrs. Haywood, a grand-daughter of Henry Corbould and daughter of Edward Henry, and who is still further associated with the stamp as the niece of Frederick Heath, the engraver, has one of the three, which is in itself a unique item, for it bears in the handwriting of Edward Henry Corbould the note:

"Engraver's Proof by Fredk. Heath after drawing by Henry Corbould, F.S.A."

To this undoubtedly important piece of evidence I{176} give special prominence, as it should establish the association of Frederick Heath, rather than his father Charles, with the engraving of this stamp. To Charles it was popularly attributed at the time of the issue of the stamp, as the father's name had been generally associated with much of the work done under his supervision, but not necessarily by his own hand, by his many pupils and assistants.[12] Mrs. Haywood tells me that there has never been any doubt among the older members of the family—the Heaths and Corboulds having intermarried—that Frederick was the engraver and not Charles, and Edward Henry Corbould was himself a collaborator with Frederick Heath on the coin-shaped Five Shillings stamp of New South Wales, of which Mrs. Haywood treasures also an engraver's proof.

In the plate stage proofs are more common than die-proofs, but still in many cases they are scarce compared with the stamps; yet, by a strange inversion of scarcity value, one can obtain a magnificent proof of the famous "twelve pence" black stamp of Canada for fewer shillings than the stamp itself costs in pounds. The old-fashioned collector used to say he only wanted "stamps," and turned up his nose at a "proof," but the modern advanced school is changing all that. The old idea is the more ridiculous when one considers that the Connell essay of New Brunswick (it was never issued for postal use), if perforated and gummed, though still not an issued stamp, fetches £30,{179} while an imperforate proof costs 20s. More absurd still is it where philatelists, in the desire to establish rariora, are inconsistent enough to deem an undoubted "proof" of Cape Colony, the celebrated 1d. red-brown triangular stamp on paper watermarked Crown over CC, as an issued stamp, and to pay a fabulous sum for the privilege of possessing it. The price—if its rarity be the token by which price may be gauged—was cheap enough; there are about ten copies known to collectors, all the specimens being unused, but by that same token we know that it was never used in the post nor issued to any post-office.

AN EXCEPTIONAL BLOCK OF TWENTY UNUSED ONE PENNY BLACK STAMPS, LETTERED "V.R." IN THE UPPER CORNERS FOR OFFICIAL USE.

(From the collection of the late Sir William Avery, Bart.)

In regard to the actual stamps, there is much in the modern advanced collection which has not yet been fully appreciated even by the majority of collectors. Much less has it been grasped by the uninitiated vendor of "finds" among old letters and papers. It is but little known that a stamp in itself may be very common, but in a pair it may be of a high degree of value. This is putting it by extremes; but in the case of early imperforate stamps it is a fact that many of the first issues of Great Britain, her colonies, Holland, Belgium, German States, Uruguay, Chili, and other countries, the stamps are readily accessible as single copies, but pairs, much less blocks of four, are almost unheard-of rarities. Our own first stamp, the Penny Black, may cost 6d. to 1s. for a single used specimen, but a pair fetches 6s. to 7s. 6d., and a block of four would be worth 40s. to 50s. Alas! that many a one even among collectors has never yet realised that it is vandalism{180} to take the scissors to a fine block of imperforates, simply because he is a collector of the one-stamp-of-a-kind order and has no use for a block.

Mr. Hugo Griebert of London, in a painstaking study of the "Diligencias" of Uruguay, says: "If blocks and pairs had been available it would have saved me years of work"; and again, "It is very unfortunate that blocks of the 'Diligencia' stamps are practically unknown. Not a single pair even of the 60 centavos or 1 real has come to my knowledge." Of the 80 centavos, there are a priceless block of fifteen and a block of four in a collection in the United States; there may be others to be found, and they would well repay the finding!

A block of eight of the Penny Black stamp (used) has fetched £15, and a block of sixteen would bring its owner at least £25—some thousands per cent. over the catalogue quotation for single copies.

AN ENVELOPE BEARING THE RARE STAMP ISSUED IN 1846 BY THE POSTMASTER OF MILLBURY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ONE OF THE STAMPS ISSUED BY THE POSTMASTER OF BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, DURING THE CIVIL WAR, 1861.

Here, too, I may remark that with old used stamps, especially the imperforates, really fine copies cannot always be got at the prices indicated for them in the standard catalogues. The same applies to some extent to the unused copies also; but the beginner would be well advised to choose even his (apparently) common stamps with painstaking regard to their perfection of condition, and not to break up pairs or blocks of early imperforates, even though they may be inconvenient for insertion in his album. Fine copies are often sold by the smaller dealers and in the provinces and from private sources at prices based on the catalogue rates, and it is in these directions that{185} even to-day, with many thousands of keen hunters, bargains are still to be had by the collector possessing an appreciative eye for the rarity of condition.

ANOTHER OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES RARITIES ISSUED BY THE POSTMASTER OF GOLIAD, TEXAS.

THE STAMP ISSUED BY THE POSTMASTER OF LIVINGSTON, ALABAMA.

(From the "Avery" Collection.)

In the advanced collection of to-day there is no wavering over the used and the unused question. A lot of ink has been spilt in the controversies over the comparative interest, importance, or other claim of these two general conditions of postage-stamps. To-day both unused and used stamps are necessary to the study of stamps. A specialised collection containing only unused specimens would indeed be an "ill-roasted egg," and would fail to show the history of the stamps during their currency. The unused stamps show the pristine condition of the varying shades of successive printings; the used ones enable the collector to place those successive shades in their correct sequence, even to show for what purpose special printings were required. The most evidential items in a stamp collection are often the used copies which have been preserved on the entire original envelope, a fact which gives to the stamp used on the envelope a special value not always to be gauged by the catalogue quotation for an ordinary used copy. A Penny Black stamp of Great Britain should be worth at least two to three times "catalogue" if on the entire original; but if the original had been used on May 6, 1840 (the first day authorised for its use), the envelope with stamp would acquire an exceptional interest out of all proportion to "catalogue." In a specialised price list before me at this moment it is priced at £10, less 25 per cent., for the entire letter; one used on the following Sunday, May{186} 10th, is priced at £15.[13] The Rev. G. C. B. Madden, of Armitage Bridge, had a copy on a letter of May 5th, but the stamp was not cancelled. The cover bears the stamp and the indication—

"Paid Penny Postage,
"Miss Jones,
"Addington Square,
"Camberwell."

and the enclosure is as follows:—

The cancellation may also be a factor in the relative scarcity of a used specimen. Coloured postmarks often have some special significance or may be merely accidental applications of the "chops" to the wrong inking pad. In the price list already mentioned I find the Penny Black quoted with the various coloured Maltese cross postmarks (ordinary used copies, not on "entire") as follows:—red 8d., black 9d., blue 60s., violet 40s., marone 4s., brown 5s.,{189} orange 7s. 6d., yellow 15s., vermilion 4s., carmine 2s. 6d.

THE ONE PENNY "POST OFFICE" MAURITIUS ON THE ORIGINAL LETTER-COVER.

(From the "Duveen" Collection.)

Beyond the items the character of which I have indicated as desirable in the historical collection, there are others, which will readily suggest themselves to the collector who develops a keen enthusiasm for his specialité. Portraits of persons concerned in the production of the stamps and in their use often lend an enhanced interest to the collection as a whole, and sometimes maps are conveniently inserted in the album to show the geographical disposition of the places where stamps were issued or used. No one can expect those who have not studied the particular specialité to understand, without such a guide, the use of the "zemstvo" stamps of Russia, the courier stamps of Morocco, the Treaty-Port stamps of China, the provisionals of Mexico, or the Chilian stamps used in the Peruvian campaign of 1881-3.

In concluding this chapter I would allude to the interest and value of the collector's acquisition and preservation of modern documents. In the present day there are few events of importance that are not duly chronicled in the newspapers, and events of philatelic interest are largely recorded in the newspapers specially devoted to Philately, such as The Postage Stamp (weekly) in Britain and Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News in the United States. But with the enormous increase in bulk of newspaper records, they are becoming constantly more difficult of ready access for information on many points of even considerable importance. Further, the original Act,{190} Decree, Postal Notice included within the album containing the stamps referred to leaves no room for any question of printer's errors, which may often crop up in newspaper reproductions, telegraphed perhaps in cipher from a distant colony. Among modern items added to my own collection I regard the card sent out by the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, as Premier and Postmaster of New Zealand, on the establishment of Universal Penny Postage from that colony as of historic interest.

Another is a typewritten circular calling for designs from artists in competition for the new stamps of the Australian Commonwealth, and I was recently indebted to a correspondent in Pretoria for sending me the following notice, the historic interest in which needs no enlarging upon from me.

{191}

A ROUGHLY PRINTED CARD SHOWING THE DESIGNS AND COLOURS FOR THE UNIFIED "POSTAGE AND REVENUE" STAMPS OF GREAT BRITAIN, 1884.

{193}

THE FIRST POSTAGE STAMP OF THE PRESENT REIGN, TOGETHER WITH THE POST OFFICE NOTICE CONCERNING ITS ISSUE ON NOVEMBER 4, 1910.

{194}

This class of document should be the more accessible to collectors from the little interest attached to them by the officials to whom they are generally sent. How little they appreciate their evidential value was brought home to me in a painful disappointment a year or so ago. Having been on the Continent for a few days, I returned to find among my correspondence an offer from an elderly man who had kept a post-office for a long period of years, and he had saved in a series of portfolios all the printed notices sent out from the General Post Office to postmasters from the 'fifties until the end of the nineteenth century. I had had some curiosities from this individual before, which led him to offer me these papers when he came upon them in a clearing-up mood. I was then engaged on a section of my history of the English stamps, and wrote off immediately upon my return home. To my utter dismay he replied that, not having heard from me, after a few days of waiting he had burnt the lot to get rid of them!

{195}

THE OFFICIAL NOTICE OF THE ISSUE OF THE NEW STAMPS OF GREAT BRITAIN FOR THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE V.

{197}

VI

ON LIMITING
A COLLECTION

{199}

CHAPTER VI

ON LIMITING A COLLECTION

To the child in stamp-collecting the boundless world is small; he will seek to bring into his net stamps from everywhere, postage and fiscal, exhibition labels, trading stamps, and all that has the shape or semblance of what he conceives to be subjects for his collecting. The collector of fuller experience knows that he must make a lesser world of his own. To attempt the whole wide world, even in what I may term "ordinary" postage-stamps, is a task which can scarcely attain even approximately to completion in these days, and the collector on such a scale would lose much of the advantage that comes of specialisation in particular directions. He would know little of the world's postage-stamps except in a superficial way, that would never bring him a{200} bargain, and would probably make him a frequent victim of the unscrupulous.

It is well enough that the beginner should first flounder in a sea of stamps, to learn the first rudiments of the study. The specialist needs a general education as a groundwork in stamp-collecting, just as he does in any other pursuit. But it is almost unavoidable that the tendency must come to the advancing collector to reserve his strength in the direction which most attracts him, or for which he enjoys special advantages.

It is in the defining of these limitations that many collectors are constantly seeking for guidance. "Can you tell me a good country in which to specialise?" is an ever-recurring query. The answer should, of course, be extracted from the experience of the individual who sets the question. It may be laid down as a maxim that the general collector is not yet ripe for specialism until his general experience has turned his inclinations to some well-defined speciality. The trend of one's inclinations may be clearly reflected in the general collection, where it is seen that one country has been by some—possibly unconscious—bias developed beyond all others. Every stamp-lover knows that there are some stamps which exert over him personally a peculiar fascination. It may be due to some interest in the country of their issue, or to some special attractions in their style of production, and indeed to a variety of other causes.

It was a solitary—rather bilious-looking—stamp that first obsessed me, a good many years ago now.{201} It was the 3 cents Sarawak, 1869, printed in brown on yellow paper, which was in the collection of my schooldays, and I had always wanted to make it the nucleus of a special collection. But, before the opportunity came for realising this ambition, a different interest had arisen in that adventure-story republic of Hayti, which led me first to try to specialise its stamps, which having done, after my notions of specialising at that period, the next start was made with my early friend the peculiar yellow-brown label which a Scottish firm lithographed for the Rajah of Sarawak. I suppose the spice of adventure suggested by both Hayti and Sarawak, and subsequently China and Abyssinia, was responsible for turning one's specialistic tendencies into definite channels.

But whatever the influence may be with some, the question is so constantly being put that it may be useful to outline some skeleton plans, which are all capable of providing good scope for the exercise of philatelic talent.

The close study of detail, and particularly the increasing interest taken by collectors in the manner of production, has led some students to devote themselves to the stamps produced by a particular firm of manufacturers. The finest collection on these lines would be that dealing with the stamps produced by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. during the period of, say, 1840-80. This would include the low-value English stamps of the line-engraved series, the early imperforate and perforated Ceylons, which in themselves afford ample scope for a big collection, those{202} old favourites the triangular Capes, the majority of the stamps of the West Indian Islands, a few from Mauritius and Natal, the most interesting of the issues for New Zealand, and several of the Australian States, some of our North American possessions, with many others, not forgetting Chili's early issues. The stamps in such a collection would all be line-engraved.

Messrs. De La Rue & Co., the greatest stamp-printers in the world, would also provide an interesting sphere for special study, embracing line-engraved stamps from the old Perkins-Bacon plates, printed in a superb series of pigments, distinctive from those of the earlier printers, and also the long range of surface-printed stamps for which this firm has been noted.

There are other printers whose work could be dealt with by the collector in a like manner, and the would-be specialist on these lines has an opportunity of choosing a very small field or a very large one, the two I have expressly mentioned being capable of treatment on a very large scale indeed.

A more general limitation begins with political or geographical grouping. "Europeans" are in constant demand, as there are many collectors who confine themselves to the stamps of the European States as a group. It is, however, a very large group, and few could hope to successfully cope with the whole of it on anything approaching specialist lines. The Castle-Mann collection, sold in 1906 for nearly £30,000, was limited to European stamps. But Europe{203} for the collector naturally subdivides into lesser groups, e.g., the German States, Italian States, Balkan States, &c., and these in their turn yield single countries, many of which will provide in themselves an abundance of work and study for the enthusiast.

The fashion which has for many years kept the stamps of the British Empire in constantly increasing demand is rather curious, in that what may be attributed—at least partly—to patriotism at home has yet prevailed in foreign countries, where British Colonials are collected even more than the national products. In the United States, for example, the collector has until quite lately somewhat neglected the grand series of beautifully engraved stamps of the Republic and has followed the crowd of collectors of British Colonials. This may be explained in some measure by the shrewdness of the American investor, whose confidence in the security of his money in good old British Colonial stamps is still unbounded. At the same time philatelic experience is that every country is gradually being taken by the students and getting its turn, so that as the United States has a growing family of its own, it is not unlikely that in due course we shall find more United States collectors working out their philatelic salvation on their own lines on a national, or American, basis. The American field is a particularly fine one and offers the most virgin philatelic soil. Nearly every other group has been pretty well collected and studied, though not exhaustively. The United States itself has had much attention, but Mexico and South and Central{205} America, Cuba, Hayti, the Dominican Republic are comparatively fresh soil, and the student can invest at present prices with a good assurance that, as United States expansion and influence become more overwhelming in the Western Hemisphere, all these countries will enjoy increased popularity with the stamp-collector.

THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA.

THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

The foregoing British Empire groups are given as examples of how this great division may be sub-divided.

Of the stamps of the great English-speaking Republic and the countries now or lately under her protection or looking to her for financial help groups may be formed:—

United States: The General Issues:—

{206}

Other suggested groupings may be taken from:—

The Pacific Islands.

Each of these, and the numerous other groupings, political, geographical, &c., which they will readily suggest to the reader, is capable of subdivision down to single countries or colonies, or into periods, just as others are capable of expansion if larger groups be desired.

In making his choice the collector will do well to give free scope to his tastes and inclinations, but he should not be disregardful of the financial side of the question, which is apt to confine the limitations of a speciality rather more closely than would his inclinations. It is well to realise from the start that some capital will be required to tackle a large group, and if the collector wants to specialise in the first issues of British Guiana,{207} the "Missionaries" of Hawaii, the "Post Offices" and "Post Paids" of Mauritius, the "Gold Diggings" of New South Wales, the "circular" Moldavias, he will have to loosen wide the strings of a bounteously filled purse. Happily for the stamp collector, the interest and charm of his hobby is its broad adaptability to all requirements, and it cannot be gainsaid that the joys of the hunt for stamps are more real and stimulating to the collector of modest means, who personally knows and loves his stamps, than to the magnate who deputes the "collecting" to a secretary. In many instances, of course, the secretary is a desideratum; the vast collections of modern times practically necessitate an expert assistant, especially where the owner is a busy man; but in the really great collections of postage-stamps it is good to see the evidences of the personal attention and study of the owner. Philately is indeed fortunate in the number of wealthy stamp-lovers who build up monumental collections, at great personal labour and expense, and are ever ready to show portions of them at exhibitions and societies' meetings, and, indeed, to publish the results of their researches for the benefit of their fellow-students.

{209}

VII

STAMP-
COLLECTING
AS AN
INVESTMENT

{211}

CHAPTER VII

STAMP-COLLECTING AS AN INVESTMENT

If we define the philatelist as a lover of postage-stamps, we may very properly express the view that his affections should be chiefly centred upon their historic and philatelic associations. Stamp-collecting for most of us is a recreation and a respite from the anxieties of the money-market, and many collectors are quite content with the joys of collation and research. At the same time we are not out of sympathy with the individual who,

He represents one of the strongest influences in{212} the collecting world, and is no doubt a tower of strength, imparting stability to the stamp-market. The term "amateur" is little used in connection with our pursuit, and the quibbles which seem inseparable in other pursuits, from the endeavour to draw an imaginary line round the amateur to separate him from the professional, are all but non-existent in philately.

We use the terms "collector" and "dealer," but that one is not the negation of the other is clear from the admission of the compound term "collector-dealer," which combination applies to a very great proportion of the more promiscuous portion of the philatelic world. The mere vending of postage-stamps would not, I think, convert the collector into the collector-dealer, as by the ingenious and widespread system of stamp-exchanges collectors are obliged to put a price upon their duplicates, and cash is the universal medium of exchange.

In a broad sense the collector-dealer class is composed of collectors who are glad to enjoy their hobby, but are under the necessity, or have the desire, to make their hobby pay for itself, and perhaps yield an addition to their regular income.

It is perhaps due to the all-absorbing character of the hunt for rare stamps that collectors and dealers enjoy unrestrained intercourse in most of the societies, though in the Royal Philatelic Society the rules forbid the admission of regular dealers to membership.

Among the best dealers we find some of the most advanced students of philately, who when it comes to research have many a time risen above considerations{213} of commerce. Some of the most valuable contributions to the literature of philately have come from their unaccustomed but painstaking pens, and most of the dealers of repute take a pleasure in assisting the student to unravel a problem. In whatever spirit we form our collections, and with no matter what object in view, it is but human to nourish the hope, even if some shrinking from the admission of pecuniary motives never permits us to express it, that the collection formed with loving care and a considerable expenditure of money shall not, if parted with, result in a loss, or if retained suffer a heavy depreciation. If we desire to interest others we must be prepared for the motif of the primary questions of the uninitiated, "What is it worth?" "What did you give for it?" though one can never hope to satisfy the ingenuous folk who ask the collector of many years' standing "How many stamps have you got?" and "I suppose they ought to be worth pots of money—how much do you think?"

There are several factors in the stamp trade which are worth noting, as they have contributed in no small measure to the prosperity of the business, and they must increase our confidence in the security of our collections as investments. A world-wide market is open to the vendor of rare stamps; it is convenient of access beyond all other markets for bric-à-brac, because the rarest stamp in the world may be safely transmitted anywhere, within an envelope, through the post. The adaptability of the postage-stamp to effective and convenient arrangement is not of more{214} importance to the collector than the portability of his goods, rare or common, is to the dealer. It involves no more trouble to sell a rare stamp in Yokohama than it does over a counter in that thoroughfare of stamp-dealers, the Strand. Nor is there the risk of damage that would attend the transmission of a bulky article of vertu to a customer in a remote country.

It is this same portability which is constantly increasing the demand for good and rare stamps from collectors. For the majority, almost any form of collecting brings with it a serious problem of space, arrangement, and security. We may display our collection of old English porcelain about the house, and beautify our surroundings, but it is at the cost of no little risk from the philistine fingers of the abigail. We may bring together a great array of ornithological specimens, but the cabinet space taken up by a collection of but moderate proportions is out of all comparison to the compact album, which may contain a large and portable collection of stamps. I would not be understood to even cursorily enter upon comparisons of different hobbies, but it is useful to mention the comparative facility with which transactions in rare stamps can be negotiated to indicate the cumulative effect this convenience must have in the value of old stamps.

Another important factor is the comparative standardisation of stamp values. No person of average intelligence need ever be totally in the dark as to the approximate selling value of the majority of old postage-stamps, for in nearly every{215} language, excepting some of the Oriental tongues, there are standard price-lists of the leading dealers which serve as guides to the majority of both buyers and sellers, for these works are accessible both to the dealer and the collector.

When we come to consider the supply of old postage-stamps, we cannot but recognise a further important factor in their security as an investment. The majority of the rare, medium and common postage-stamps have been issued with the Government imprimatur; re-issues and reprintings are known, but they are the exception. Generally speaking, a stamp is no sooner obsolete than it commences to soar in the stamp-dealers' price-lists. In the cases of stamps of the larger countries which have had a long period of currency the rise is slow, but the frequency of the occurrence of unusual circumstances which cut short the life of a stamp on the active postal list has introduced a sporting element into even the collecting of current stamps. But it is inevitable that, with the retirement of a postage-stamp from use, there must come sooner or later a stoppage in the supply at the normal rates prevailing during its period of currency. The older stamps, most of the early issues of all countries, have for fifty years past been gradually absorbed in the great collections, some of them extremely limited in their original use, now withdrawn from the market into the stable repositories of national museums, and the supply is the one serious difficulty with which the dealer has to contend. This difficulty has its value to the collector, for to replenish their stocks the{216} dealers have to buy back from the collector, and they compete keenly for the acquisition of collections formed by private individuals, if they contain the right class of stamps. My endeavour in this chat will be to indicate the character of the stamps which have risen in the philatelic period 1862 to 1911, all of which may be classed as "Collector's Consols," but most of which are at this date and at present prices likely to yield an excellent return in the future.

To take our own country first, for here purchases would have been made at first-hand, that is, at the post-office, there are many stamps, some of comparatively low facial value, that would have formed most desirable investments if one had only been able to prophesy, and prophesy correctly.

The most notable examples amongst British stamps of rapid and great appreciation in value are the Twopence Halfpenny of 1875, with error of lettering, the Two Shillings, orange-brown, the Ten Shillings and One Pound of 1878-83, the Five Pounds—both telegraph and postage in the earliest shade—and certain "Officials": there are, of course, others which show an even greater appreciation on their original face-value, but the reason in that case is that small printings were made of certain stamps from a particular plate or on certain paper—"abnormals" to give them their usual name—and such stamps were not obtainable except by accident.

The Twopence Halfpenny error, though not known to the philatelic world until 1893, was present in every sheet printed from Plate 2 of that value, to the{217} number of no less than 35,000, and yet, in mint unused condition, it is a very scarce stamp, probably worth £25. And yet none amongst the thousands who purchased and used one of these errors thought—even if he noticed the fact—that a mistake in one of the corner letters would some day cause a great rise in value.

Another well-known example is the Two Shillings, brown: issued originally in 1867, the first colour of that value was blue; but in 1880, to avoid confusion with other stamps, it was changed to orange-brown. It is said that only 1,000 sheets, or 240,000 stamps, were printed, a large number certainly, but comparatively small when it is remembered that of some stamps many millions were issued; small, too, when it is considered that the minimum charge on telegrams was a shilling, and foreign postal rates were high. An early price in dealers' catalogues was seven shillings and sixpence; now a fine unused copy realises more pounds than it formerly did shillings.

The desiderata of British stamps—ignoring the "abnormal" varieties of plate and paper—are the Ten Shillings and One Pound of 1878-83. Few among the great multitude of collectors purchased the two stamps, each on Cross paté paper and each on that watermarked with a Large Anchor, when current. But those few who did, and who kept them through the years when the rise in value was very slight, ultimately realised at the top of the market—say, £175 to £200—towards the end of the 'nineties. The £1 "Anchor" on bluish paper, which one could{218} have bought in 1882 for twenty shillings, is now priced at £80, showing a profit which makes many a collector in these days sigh over lost opportunities.

Five Pounds is a high facial value, but that sum invested in the purchase of the telegraph-stamp, or of the postage-stamp which superseded it, would now be represented approximately by £100; but in the case of the Five Pounds postage-stamp, the paper must be "blued"—"naturally," and not through the medium of the blue-bag—and the colour should be of a vermilion almost merging into orange, and not the scarlet-vermilion in which this stamp finished its career in 1902.

In a somewhat different category are the various Official stamps, but as they were obtainable up to about 1890 by any respectable applicant at Somerset House, the earlier varieties may fairly be included. Sets bought during the 1884-90 period appreciated very little until towards the close of the last century, when they attained high prices, the One Pound "I.R. Official" in brown-violet, on Imperial Crown paper, being the rarest, even rarer than the similar stamp on the Orb paper, which without the Official overprint is rarer than the normal variety.

Of subsequent Official stamps, not obtainable for the asking, special mention should be made of the three high values of the Edwardian issue—Five Shillings, Ten Shillings, and One Pound: in 1903 mint PAIRS of the three stamps were sold for forty guineas, and single sets for £25. Nowadays, pairs—the particular ones above referred to were subsequently{219} severed—would probably fetch a sum running into four figures.

It may be interesting to record a few of the notable rises in value, in the space of a comparatively short period, of stamps issued in one or other of the British colonies, or in some foreign country.

In March, 1878, there was an unexpected shortage in Barbados of the then current One Penny stamp, and the island Post Office authorities supplied the deficiency by means of a provisional: they perforated the large Five Shillings stamp down the centre, surcharging each half "1d." These makeshifts in due course reached England, and orders were duly sent out for a supply for the stamp-market; one dealer's order was actually held back by the Barbados postmaster until the arrival of a further supply of the ordinary One Penny, when a supply of that stamp was sent him. Other dealers and collectors probably fared as badly, and an unused pair, or even a single copy, of this rare stamp supplies an example of unearned increment which would delight a Chancellor of the Exchequer on the look-out for more subjects for taxation. What a nice little nest-egg would a shilling's-worth of those stamps now represent!

Of the circular British Guiana stamps of 1850-51 it is hardly fair to speak, as they were issued and became obsolete before even the oldest philatelist ever thought of collecting; but if any far-seeing individual had then invested the modest sum of thirteenpence in the purchase of an unused copy of each of the four values, and had had them "laid down" until the present year of grace, or even until{220} so comparatively far back as 1890, the sum they would realise in open market would not fall far short of £2,500. So, too, with the very rare large oblong type-set stamps of 1856, one of which—the One Cent, black on magenta—is literally unique.

The smaller stamps of 1862, printed from ordinary type with a frame of fancy ornaments, and issued on a shortage of One, Two, and Four Cents stamps, were for some considerable time fairly common, being obtainable for a few shillings, or sometimes, if one were fortunate, for pence; now a used set of the commonest variety of each value costs nearly £30.

Canada provides a rarity, dating back to 1851. A stamp—and it is a beautiful piece of work—of the apparently peculiar value of Twelve Pence was issued, but for some reason a very small portion of the large supply was sold, the remainder disappearing without a trace, never to be found even to this day: that stamp is now worth two thousand times its original cost. The reason for the value being expressed somewhat quaintly was that, whereas "One Shilling" was a fluctuating amount according to locality, "Twelve Pence" was the same everywhere.

It goes without saying that it is the rarities which have appreciated the most, and therefore a list of the stamps which ought to have been secured as an investment is practically a list of the rare and scarce stamps.

Beautifully engraved, of chaste design, and of quaint shape, the Cape "triangulars" are, and always have been, favourites; but they have been out-distanced,{221} as regards profitable investment records, by the two roughly-executed stamps, of similar design and shape, printed from hurriedly made stereotyped blocks to meet a temporary shortness of the ordinary One Penny and Fourpence.

These provisionals, erroneously called (as they always will be) "wood-blocks," were issued early in 1861, and the ordinary specimens are of considerable scarcity even used, and very difficult of acquisition unpostmarked; much more then are the errors, caused by the unintentional inclusion in the group of stereotypes of each value of one block of the other denomination.

These two stamps—the One Penny in blue, and the Four Pence in red, instead of vice versâ—are well-known rarities used, and there are only three known copies in an unused condition; one of these, obtained by its owner during the period when the wood-blocks were in issue at "face," realised five-and-thirty years later no less than £500. "Prodigious," but true!

Another desirable Cape stamp owes its rarity to having been printed in a small quantity on a paper in use for a short time only—the Five Shillings, orange-yellow, of 1883, on paper watermarked with a Crown and "CA". For some three to four years, 1883-87, these stamps were purchasable unused at the post-office; and now—£100, perhaps.

Cayman Islands, that hotbed of official speculation and jobbery, furnishes a more modern instance—instances would be more correct—of sudden and excessive rise in price, if not in philatelic worth;{222} certain provisionals, made by surcharging higher value stamps to meet the usual, and often avoidable, shortage. Fortunate, indeed, from the investors' point of view, are those who, subscribing to some "new issue" service, managed to obtain even single copies of these scarce labels at a small percentage over face.

Ceylon! The name raises a vision of the gorgeous East, and, to the philatelist, of rare imperforates, issued in the early days before Philately was. Who in the end of the 'fifties would have thought of investing in, say, a block of four of the Fourpence, dull rose, and, having held it for forty years, receiving the handsome return of—what shall I say?—£750? And yet it would be so.

Another Ceylon which has appreciated at a rapid rate is the Two Rupees Fifty Cents issued in 1880; for long it was catalogued and obtainable at 7s. 6d., but on suddenly becoming obsolete (through a change of postal rates) its price began to rise by leaps and bounds, until it is worth about twice as many shillings as it formerly was pence.

A glance at the catalogue prices of the first Cyprus set of Edwardian stamps, which were printed on paper known to philatelists as "Single Crown CA"—i.e., one entire watermark to each stamp—is a mild example of the abnormal rise which took place in nearly all colonial stamps, bearing the head of King Edward and printed on this "single" paper, when the unexpected change was made in 1904 to a "multiple" paper—that is, one in which the watermarks were arranged very closely together, so that{223} each stamp must show parts of three or four of the devices. Stamps sold in 1902 or 1903 at a little over their original cost jumped up and up in price until they fetched, even at auction, 700 or 800 or even 1,000 per cent. over "face": small fortunes were made; but, as has happened, the rise was permanent and still continues.

The quaint "Fiji Times Express" stamps, produced by private enterprise, and which were the forerunners of a most interesting series of stamps, many rare, were issued within the memory of many collectors—One Penny, Three Pence, Six Pence, and One Shilling—and yet that set of four stamps, dating from only 1870, is worth five hundred times "face," a fair return even for a wait of forty years. Certain stamps of a subsequent (1874) issue are now also very scarce; but they are varieties as distinguished from the normal printings, and scarcely come within the category of stamps obtainable by the casual purchaser.

The pretty embossed Gambias, particularly those printed on the old "Crown CC" paper, afford another instance of unearned increment: the set of seven values was, say in 1885, to be bought for 3s. or 4s.—now it is valued at about £6.

The reward of any far-seeing investor who had happened to purchase the Four Annas, red and blue, issued in India in 1854, would have been a rich one had he noticed an inversion of the Queen's head as regards its frame—copies of this rarity are known on the entire original envelope, so evidently they were, even if noticed, regarded merely as the results of carelessness. It would have been a (perhaps fatal){224} shock to any specialist in Indian stamps who had happened to purchase one of these rare errors still on the original, to find that he, by the irony of fate, had addressed and presumably stamped that very envelope thirty or forty years previously. The stamp bought originally for a few pence would have represented to-day, say, £130 unused, £70 used.

The purchase of a few copies of the Two Cents and Twelve Cents of the first issue of Labuan, in 1879, some years before the advent of the handsome "labels," all happily now obsolete, would not have proved a matter for regret, seeing that the prices have for some years been well over £10 for the two.

At present, the current Five Shillings stamps of Montserrat, Sierra Leone, Southern Nigeria, &c., are catalogued, unused, at about 25 per cent. over face, as once were the Two Rupees Fifty of Ceylon, the Five Shillings St. Vincent, and the Five Shillings Victoria, blue on yellow; without recommending it as an investment, it is by no means impossible that within twenty years from now a Montserrat Five Shillings may be worth £10 or even £15.

Incomparable as regards romantic interest and actual value, the first two stamps of Mauritius have been, ever since their discovery in the 'sixties, the desiderata of every collector.

Other stamps—and there are several—may be rarer; but, as examples of a genuinely necessary issue, small in quantity, the One Penny and Twopence "Post Office" of sixty-four years ago will always be looked upon as the ultimate, even if seldom attained, goal of the Philatelist.

{225}

THE KING'S COPY OF THE TWO PENCE "POST OFFICE" MAURITIUS.

THE MAGNIFICENT UNUSED COPIES OF THE ONE PENNY AND TWO PENCE "POST OFFICE" MAURITIUS STAMPS ACQUIRED BY HENRY J. DUVEEN, ESQ., OUT OF THE COLLECTION FORMED BY THE LATE SIR WILLIAM AVERY, BART.

{227}

Originally looked upon as errors of engraving—"POST OFFICE" instead of "POST PAID"—on the sheets of what is now known to be the second issue of Mauritius, it was many years before they took their position as a rare and distinct emission; now something under thirty copies are known, and their status is firmly established.

From philatelic records we learn that the first-known copies changed hands for the merest trifle: to-day they are catalogued at £1,000 and £1,200 respectively, in used condition.

In 1894 a firm of stamp-dealers acquired a well-known collector's unused mint copies of these stamps at what would now be the very low price of £680: they went into the collection of the late Sir William Avery, and have now passed to another famous collector at the record price of £3,500 for the two.

For romance, however, nothing approaches what occurred early in 1904. A collector, visiting a friend resident in the north-west of London, mentioned his hobby to his host, who, remarking that he once collected stamps, brought out his almost-forgotten schoolboy album. Looking casually through the old collection, the guest saw, to his amazement, what proved to be the finest known unused copy of the Twopence "Post Office," purchased by its owner forty years previously for a few pence: this stamp was sold shortly afterwards at auction for £1,450, and now adorns the fine collection of Mauritius stamps owned by King George V.

The quaintly designed stamps of Nevis, printed at first direct from line-engraved plates, and subsequently{228} from lithographic stones, show a wonderful increase in value, from a few shillings each in 1880 to three or four times the same number of pounds at the present time; then, the stamps were only just obsolete, and most collectors were satisfied with one or two single copies; now, the demand is for entire sheets of twelve varieties, or, failing these, from the not very large supplies printed, for plates "made up" from singles, pairs, and blocks, arranged in their respective proper places.

The handsome "pence" issue of New Brunswick, some of the similar stamps of Newfoundland, and the first emission of Nova Scotia, all supplied by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co., those unrivalled producers of postage-stamps, were, within the memory of many collectors, obtainable at very low figures; now many of the values, notably the One Shilling, realise, especially when "mint," very high prices indeed. As an instance, it may be mentioned that a young collector of thirty years ago, submitting his stamps to a well-known expert, had a nice unused copy of the One Shilling Nova Scotia valued at 25s., the present valuation of which would be £55.

It is related, on excellent authority, that, long ago, a dealer, learning that there was a small stock of these One Shilling stamps at one of the Nova Scotia post-offices, forwarded a remittance to secure them: he was successful in his desire, but the postmaster had applied to each stamp a fine impression of the local obliterator, possibly as a concession to the then collector's presumed preference for postmarked copies.

{229}

"Sydney Views," as the stamps of the first (1850) issue of New South Wales have been, and probably always will be, known to philatelists, afford another instance of unearned increment.

Far back in the 'sixties, the period of unappreciated but now regretted opportunities for wonderful bargains, "Sydney Views" were a few pence a dozen used, and about £1 a copy if unused—whether singles, strips, or blocks did not matter then; now, postmarked copies are worth several times the old price of unused specimens; and for the unused, from £25 to £50, according to condition and absence or presence of the original gum, is not unreasonable. And yet, despite this enormous increase in value, at a recent meeting of the Royal Philatelic Society a total of 2,363 of these now scarce stamps were produced from the collections of fourteen members for purposes of study.

Other stamps there are of New South Wales, showing a great increase in value during recent times, but none to compare in interest or demand with the famous "Sydney Views."

New Zealand has issued many stamps, even in fairly modern times, which have greatly appreciated: a famous collector, who has recently parted with most of his treasures, had sent him years ago a quantity of stamps at one penny each—one of them, on an examination some time afterwards, turned out to be the rare perforated One Penny, brown, of 1872, watermarked "NZ", and now worth some £30 used.

Of provisional issues, limited in quantity,{230} ephemeral of use, and the prey of speculators, there are many instances; but, though the rise in value, from the original cost at the post-office, is often sharp, such stamps can hardly be looked upon as investments one has missed, because they were never obtainable by the public at large, as were the great majority of stamps now rare and much sought after.

An instance of this limited and speculative creation of so-called "provisionals" occurred in the Niger Coast Protectorate, at the end of 1893, when a very few copies of the current One Shilling were surcharged "20/-," one or two (literally) in one colour, three or four in another, and so on. Possibly these proved to be good speculations, but they were not investments open to the man-in-the-street, gifted with the most prophetic of philatelic spirits.

In 1881, a bonâ fide shortage of the Fourpence stamps occurred in St. Vincent, and a small quantity of the current One Shilling was overprinted "4d": for some time the quotation for unused copies was about thirty shillings, but now the price is nearer £20. Other provisionals were issued in St. Vincent about this time, and most of them have similarly appreciated in value; but collectors little realised, even in 1881, that what was then considered a full price—and grumbled at as such—would ever attain to its present day dimensions. The very handsome Five Shillings stamp was priced five-and-twenty years ago at 7s. 6d.: now it costs about £14.

{231}

Sierra Leone afforded an instance, in 1897, by issuing Twopence Halfpenny provisionals, made by surcharging certain fiscal stamps of the value of Three Pence, Six Pence, One Shilling and Two Shillings: only fourteen years ago, and yet a sheet of thirty of the "2½d." on Sixpence, costing 6s. 3d., is now catalogued at nearly £9, whilst the set of five varieties surcharged on the Two Shillings stamp, originally costing 1s. 0½d., is now worth £50.

The great rarity of South Australia is the Fourpence, specially printed in blue in 1870-71, to be surcharged "3-PENCE", but from a sheet (or possibly part of a sheet) of which the new value was accidentally omitted. Very few copies are known, and all but two are used: the two being in a "pair."

The first issue of Tasmania, then known as "Van Diemen's Land," affords an instance of a substantial rise during the last thirty years; but, although substantial, it is not abnormal. The Fourpence, blue, of 1870-71, would have proved a satisfactory investment to the purchaser of a moderate quantity at its original cost, for it is now catalogued at £5.

Owing to the greater part of the stock of the Sixpence, stone, 1884, of Tobago, with watermark of Crown "CA", having been used for a provisional surcharged Halfpenny, that stamp rose from its first catalogue price of about 1s. 3d. to its present value of £7 10s. No dealer seems to have obtained more than a small supply of this Sixpence, and the subsequent consignments from London to{232} Tobago were printed in a totally different colour, orange-brown.

Practically all the stamps of the Transvaal have greatly appreciated, and large sums have been made by the fortunate holders of stock acquired at the old 1882 figures. In an old, but well-known catalogue, thirty-five stamps are priced in unused state, varying from 3d. to 10s., the latter being for a One Penny in red, on Sixpence, black, of May, 1879: and sixty-four used, ranging from 6d. to 7s. 6d., and including amongst the intermediate prices those of four of the May, 1879, provisionals. A glance at Gibbons will show, even taking the commonest varieties, a great rise all round, sufficient even to satisfy a greedy investor. Of minor Transvaal varieties there are many, and several of these show an abnormal rise in price: on the other hand, some have appreciated very little. How, therefore, is the would-be speculator-investor to know what to take?

In the old catalogue above referred to, some of the 1881 Turks' Islands provisionals are priced from 6d. to 2s. each unused—presumably the commonest varieties: now these stamps vary from 12s. to £5 for the "¹/₂", from £3 to £30 for the "2¹/₂", and from 30s. to £7 for the "4". The One Shilling, lilac, of 1873-79, largely used for the above provisionals, has increased some twelve-fold in value since 1882.

If the reverend gentleman who, by the help of a typewriter, evolved the earliest of the 1895 issues of Uganda, had only a few remainders on{233} hand, he should reap a handsome return for his original outlay of two or three hundred cowries: but most probably he did not keep any, consequently the stamps are, and will remain, scarce and expensive.

The Five Shillings, Victoria, blue on yellow, is a striking stamp, and its present value is somewhere about £15 unused: a very famous collection contains several mint copies, which the owner once remarked were "Not bad at 7s. 6d. each."

Mr. Stanley Gibbons's well-known half-sheet of the Twopence, Western Australia, printed in 1879, in mauve, the colour of the Sixpence, affords a fitting close to this cursory list of good investments in British Colonies: acquired at 6d. each, the price to the collector was 5s., then raised to £2, and now it stands at over £20.

Space precludes a similarly long list of foreign stamps which have greatly appreciated; but the following examples, with early prices (as indicated) and those at present asked, may be interesting, showing the rises in many of the medium stamps:—

Egypt—1st issue, set, 6s. 3d. (in 1882), now £6 2s. 6d.

Oldenburg—1st issue, ¹/₃₀ thaler, 1s. (in 1882), now £2.

Oldenburg—1859-61 issues (in 1882), from 9d. each; now 4s. is the lowest, 12s. the next, and the highest £11.

Schleswig-Holstein—the pretty little stamps of 1850 were (in 1882) 9d. and 1s. 6d. each: they have now risen to 28s. and 50s.

{234}

Holland—1st issue, 9d., 6d., and 1s. respectively for the three values, unused: now 15s., 20s., and 30s.

Of the following, most, if purchased twenty years ago, would now show a very handsome profit, even after allowing 5 per cent. compound interest.

The Swiss Cantonals, first issue Roumania (Moldavia), tête-bêche pairs of France, inverted U.S.A., Paris prints of Greece, early Uruguays, some Brazils, early Japans, middle-period Hawaiian Islands, Italian States, early Spain and Colonies, first Samoas, first Shanghais, &c.

Concerning the inverted U.S.A., it is said—though these stories are often more interesting than true—that a purchaser of a quantity of one of these errors took them back to the post-office and had them exchanged for normally printed stamps. If true, the present feelings of the purchaser (if he survives) on being reminded of his neglected opportunity would be interesting.

Instances might be multiplied almost indefinitely by comparing the prices in old and present catalogues, but the instances given are sufficient to show the great profits which might have been made by the judicious investment of small amounts in the proper stamps: large amounts would probably lower prices.

A purchase in 1882 of twenty £1 "Anchor" would not lower the market if now offered for sale, but £500 worth would probably result in a slump.

However, it is generally a case of Hinc illæ lacrymæ, for the would-be traveller on the royal road to ease and great wealth has either never invested at all or has selected stamps which show a marked depreciation{235} as the years roll on—e.g., the Fourpence Halfpenny of Great Britain, which was going to rise abnormally, but which has been "unloaded" at, or even under, "face." Only a trifling instance, but it serves to show the risks of investment in stamps when current or just obsolete; it is safer to buy those which have during a period of some years shown an inclination to rise steadily—but then investors and speculators are generally impatient and won't wait.

During the late South African War, there was an excessive speculation by the uninitiated among the soldiers and the populace in the provisional stamps overprinted "V.R.I." and "E.R.I."; thousands appeared to think that a few pounds invested during the war would enable them to retire on reaching the Strand with their booty. They all bought to sell, and genuine collectors, finding the supply so excessive, have only required a little patience to benefit their pockets by acquiring at "greatly reduced prices," much under "face," from the would-be get-rich-quicks who wouldn't or couldn't wait. As a rule, however, it is the early bird who catches the worm, and only at such rare seasons of extraordinary national excitement are excessive booms possible; and the early bird must have some solid ground of knowledge and intelligence to guide him to the worm.

{237}

VIII

FORGERIES,
FAKES, AND
FANCIES

{239}

CHAPTER VIII

FORGERIES, FAKES, AND FANCIES

Mr. Edward L. Pemberton, whose early writings on Philately will always be regarded as little short of inspired from the marvellous intuition which led him to the precise and the accurate, wrote a booklet on "Forged Stamps, and How to Detect Them" in 1863. Already in the history of this new hobby the forger had been at work catering for collectors; it was, of course, from still earlier times that the unscrupulous had endeavoured to relieve Governments of some portions of their revenues by counterfeiting what is a kind of paper currency. Pemberton was not the first author on this subject, but I turn to him because he was the best of several contemporary writers in this as well as in other directions. Of this superiority he was not entirely unconscious, for in his "Introduction"{240} he says: "We have tested the usefulness of the only English work on the 'Falsification of Postage Stamps,' having gone through it carefully, and after an impartial reading, feel convinced that, from the vagueness of the descriptions, both of the forgeries and genuine stamps, many persons testing stamps from them would select the forgery as genuine, and vice versâ."

To satisfy (in some measure) the curiosity of his readers, our early authority gives some particulars of the forgers. The "first and foremost" in the nefarious practice was a Zurich forger, whose productions—Swiss Cantonals, Modena, Romagna, &c.—had the largest circulation in Mr. Pemberton's time. This gentleman (evidently well known to the author) had an agent for the sale of his wares at Basle, the prices of these latter being quoted at "for most of the Swiss 80 cts. each used, or unused 1 franc; for the Orts Post and Poste Locale 50 cts. each; for Modena and Romagna 80 cts."

The dealer who occupied the second position of dishonour in the estimation of this philatelic Sherlock Holmes was a Brussels individual, whose provisional Parma, Modena, Naples, and Spain sold largely and were well executed.

These two appear to have been the leaders of the counterfeiting of their time, "those indeed who have made almost a trade of it"; but there was also a Brunswick dealer who "tried his hand at the Danish essays," and a few forged stamps were supposed to hail from Leipsic.

A couple of years later John Marmaduke Stourton,{241} in a brochure "How to Detect Forged Stamps," gives evidence of a swarm of forgers cropping up in even our own country at Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, and London, in Hamburg and New York, as well as the Swiss and Belgian forgers who still plied their traffic. The Glasgow productions were of the "facsimile" class, and were possibly manufactured with the well-intentioned but unwise endeavour to provide approximately correct coloured facsimiles of stamps which were too scarce to be readily accessible to all collectors. The "facsimile" has no doubt often been produced with the best of intentions by firms of high repute, but the protecting word "facsimile" or "Falsch," or other sign by which the true nature of the copy may be identified, has so often been removed for fraudulent purposes after it has left honest hands that there is no alternative in these days of later and fuller experience to define "facsimile," so far as it relates to Philately, as, in the words of my glossary, "a euphemism for a forgery."

It is, however, to be borne in mind by the student that in the beginning of Philately there was not entirely the same attitude towards the production of legitimate (if any could so be called) or honest facsimiles, and, indeed, a writer in one of the early journals, in proposing the formation of a philatelic society, suggests that one of the duties such an institution could properly fulfil would be the reproduction of choice editions (copies) of rare stamps for limited circulation! Also in the Stamp Collector's Magazine, whose proprietors and engravers were as free of just reproach as Cæsar's wife, we find the{242} engraver so pleased with the illustration he has produced for that journal of the Nicaragua stamp of 1862 that he announces:—

"Nicaraguan Stamp.—Will be ready in a week. A beautiful proof of the Nicaraguan Stamp (equal to the original) will be sent for 13 postage-stamps. Only 75 proofs of this will be taken; each proof will be numbered, and then the block burnt. An early application is really necessary, 25 copies being already sold. Address...."

These "proofs," rarer, no doubt, than the originals, were endorsed editorially, and collectors unable to procure the original stamp were told they "would do well to provide themselves with one of these facsimiles." The astute Mr. Pemberton, however, took a very different view. "Although he tells every one that they are merely facsimiles and not the real stamps, we cannot but help thinking that he is acting wrongly; for less scrupulous dealers than himself will sell them as genuine.... Again, these imitations are by far the best executed of any we have seen. The regularly forged stamps are wretched in comparison with these, and therefore all the more caution will be required to detect them." So he proceeds to a detailed description of the small differences existing between genuine and imitation.

There is no royal road by which the collector can attain to the accurate and ready discrimination between the right and the wrong copies of stamps. Forgeries have multiplied enormously between{243} 1863 and 1911, so that now the standard handbook by the Rev. R. B. Earée is a masterpiece of detail entitled "Album Weeds," occupying two large volumes containing nearly 1,300 pages of text. It would be idle to pretend that even the expert has every description contained therein "at his fingers' ends." Yet the expert is rarely deceived in a stamp, even when he has not access at the time to Mr. Earée's work or other references. I remember an early instruction, the only one that covers the subject, but I forget whence it comes. It was that if you study your stamps an imperceptible sense will come to you that will enable you at once to acclaim the true and to suspect if not denounce the false.

Beyond this I can only advise the reader that, as a complete novice, he would be unwise to purchase costly rarities and valuable stamps from unknown and irresponsible persons. The novice will remain a novice in these matters, unless he acquires some knowledge of the differences (generally readily distinguishable) between a stamp that is from an engraved plate and a forgery that is, say, lithographed or from a wood-cut. It is important to remember also—at least for the new collector—that strange though it may seem to him, stamps really do fetch what they are considered to be worth by collectors and dealers of experience, and that if rare stamps are offered much below the current quotation by individuals supposed to know their true worth, it may often be, and generally is, that the wares they have for sale are either{244} forgeries or carefully mended copies of damaged originals.

There is little danger of the collector being much at the mercy of the forger if his transactions are confined to the reputable dealers, for these latter have done more to purify the honest trade in stamps than can, I think, be said of the dealers in the objects of other forms of collecting. They have expert knowledge on their staff, and access to highly specialised opinions and advice in the various branches of the subject.

Personally, I do not consider the forgery question nearly so serious an obstacle in Philately as in other crafts. Most active stamp-collectors are companionable with other students of the same subject, and there would be little opportunity for an Affaire Vrain-Lucas, in which during a period of several years a French autograph collector accumulated 27,000 autographs for about £6,000, mostly forgeries, and all from the same source, or for such a string of incidents as was exposed in the recent china case in Great Britain.

Forgeries of stamps are made either for the purpose of defrauding the Government or else for rifling the pockets of the stamp collector; these may be classed in two groups: (1) where a stamp is a forgery either in its entirety or in some added, as distinguished from "altered," material detail; and (2) where a genuine stamp is so altered as to apparently convert it into some other stamp. The first group are generally covered in the term "forgeries," the second being specially distinguished{247} as "fakes." There is another class dubbed "bogus," or sometimes more elegantly timbres de fantasie, which comprises labels which are a pure invention, and never had any genuine existence at all.

A GENUINE "PLATE 6."

THE FAMOUS "STOCK EXCHANGE" FORGERY OF THE ONE SHILLING GREEN STAMP OF GREAT BRITAIN.

One specimen was used on October 31, 1872, and the other on June 13 of the next year. The enlargements betray trifling differences, in the details of the design as compared with the genuine stamp above.

The first attack on the Post Office revenue of which there is any record is the subject of a letter from Downing Street, London, dated September 2, 1840, and addressed to the late Sir (then Mr.) Rowland Hill:—"Mr. Smith has just called and informed me that a forgery of the Penny Label was yesterday detected in his office. The letter bearing the forged stamp has been handed over to the Stamp Office to be dealt with by them ... the forged stamp is a wood-cut...." An entry a few days later in Mr. Hill's diary reads:—"At the Stamp Office I saw the forged label. It is a miserable thing and could not possibly deceive any except the most stupid and ignorant."

The above seems to have been an almost isolated attempt to defraud the revenue, but it is interesting as being the earliest known forgery, appearing, as it did, within four months of the issue of the first postage-stamp.

A far more romantic forgery, and one of almost colossal magnitude, was discovered in 1898. About that time, a large quantity of British One Shilling stamps—those of the 1865 type in green, with large uncoloured letters in the corners—came on the market, though, as they had been used on telegram forms, they ought to have been destroyed: probably the guilty parties relied on this official practice, not always honoured in observance, as{248} offering a security against not merely the tracing of the offence but the discovering of the fraud itself.

Anyhow, after a lapse of twenty-six years, it was found that amongst these one shilling stamps there was a large proportion of forgeries (purporting to be from plate 5), all used on July 23, 1872, at the Stock Exchange Telegraph Office, London, E.C. More recent discoveries show that the fraud was continued for over twelve months,[16] and, as an indication of the precautions taken by the forgers, plate 6 (which came into use in March, 1872) was duly imitated, although the change of the small figures was a detail probably never noticed by members of the general public.

According to calculations, based on the average numbers used on several days, the Post Office must have lost about £50 a day during the period mentioned above. Who were the originators and perpetrators of the fraud will probably never be known: possibly a stock-broker's clerk (or a small "syndicate" of those gentlemen), or, more probably, a clerk in the Post Office itself. It was an ingenious fraud, well planned and cleverly carried out at a minimum of risk, and, but for the market for old stamps, it would never have been discovered.

Amongst foreign countries, Spain has been the greatest sufferer from forgery: her numerous, and until recent times almost yearly, issues were mainly necessitated by the circulation of counterfeits, which{249} appeared on letters within a very short time after each new series of stamps had been put on sale.

Some of the old Italian States, particularly Naples and the Neapolitan Provinces, were defrauded of part of their revenue by numerous forgeries of some of their stamps; and in these cases, as in that of Spain, letters survive on which the postage has been entirely, or in part, "paid" by means of counterfeits.

An ingenious fraud on the Indian Post Office was discovered in 1890, through the care with which collectors frequently examine their stamps. The One Rupee, slate, of the 1882-88 issue, very cleverly imitated, was found to be frequently coming to this country on letters from Bombay, and police inquiries, made on the information of a well-known philatelist, led to the detection of the culprit; he, it seems, engraved a facsimile on box-wood, and printed his stamps, one by one, on paper as similar as possible to the genuine, but without watermark; the perforation he effected by placing the printed label between two plates of thin metal each with holes corresponding to the intended perforations, and then, by the aid of a blunt wire, punching out the small circular pieces of paper!

Other instances have been noted, but those given are the best known, and serve as good examples of frauds against Post Offices, so far as forgery of the entire stamp is concerned; but, of recent years, a new kind of fraud has come into vogue—the alteration of a genuine stamp into one{250} of a much higher denomination, affecting British Colonies only.

The possibility of this has resulted from the desire of the authorities to print the majority of colonial stamps, available for postal or fiscal purposes, in two colours—one being distinctive of the particular value, and the other a purple or green, very susceptible to any attempt to remove an obliteration or cancellation, whether by the Post Office or by a member of the public: by the latter, in writing-ink.

The modus operandi is ingenious—a stamp is selected, of which nearly the whole design is, say, in green, the name and (low) value being in some distinctive colour; the original value and name are removed by chemical means, the name and new (high) value being substituted in a colour applicable to the higher denomination—result, if the work be carefully done, a stamp which would deceive not only the ordinary official (who is seldom of real philatelic inclinations) but even, at first glance, the average collector, unless he is on the look-out for such "fakes," which, as a matter of fact, have been made for his delectation also.

As has been remarked, the number of forgeries made to deceive collectors has been immeasurably greater than of those prepared for defrauding the Revenue; and it has been endeavoured to select some of the most daring, and often successful, attempts to palm off a clever forgery as a genuine—generally rare, but sometimes quite common—postage-stamp.

{251}

In 1903, taking our own country first, an attempt was made to place on the market unused copies of the rare Ten Shillings and One Pound stamps of 1878-83, printed on Large Anchor paper, and perforated 14: these were almost at once discovered by Mr. Nissen, the same philatelist who first noticed the One Shilling (plate 5) counterfeits used at the Stock Exchange Post Office, to be exceedingly clever forgeries. They were, save for a slight lack of finish in the finer details, practically of design identical with that of the original stamps; the colours were well matched, and, most deceptive of all, the paper and perforation were undoubtedly genuine. This timely discovery nipped the forgers' schemes in the bud, but, some eight years subsequently, the lower of these two forged stamps came again on the market, this time provided with a neat, though fraudulent, postmark.

So far as can be judged from the examination of specimens of this forgery, the paper used was that on which were printed certain "Inland Revenue" stamps—probably the Threepence, which alone was watermarked and perforated as were the two stamps imitated; but possibly other fiscals also were used—the colour being chemically removed, leaving a blank piece of paper, properly and genuinely watermarked and perforated, all ready to receive the fraudulent imitation. An undoubtedly clever, but almost unsuccessful, fraud on collectors; though rumour has it that a well-known philatelist, usually credited with capability to protect himself, was a victim for a substantial sum, as the price of an unused "Pound Anchor"!

{252}

A recently attempted fraud—this time of the kind known as a "fake"—has been, it is hoped, successfully exposed. As is well known, especially to collectors of British stamps, the first Twopence Halfpenny stamp, issued in 1875, shows an error of corner-lettering on plate 2: the twelfth and last stamp in the eighth horizontal row should have been lettered "L.H.—H.L." but, through want of care, actually bore the letters "L.H.—F.L." This error, especially in unused condition, is scarce, and the faker has naturally made an effort to supply the deficiency.

Obviously, the easiest way to manufacture this error is to select a stamp from plate 2 with the lettering of "L.F.—F.L." (the last stamp in the sixth row), and alter the first "F" into "H", with hope of probable success because the collector's criticism would naturally (if wrongly) be concentrated on the incorrect letter in the lower left-hand corner. Unfortunately for the "fake," which was very well executed, its creator, wishing no doubt to enhance its value, had left the "error" in pair with the eleventh stamp in the same row: result, a very nice pair from the sixth row, lettered "K.F.—F.K.", "L.H.—F.L.", showing (as a consequence of being in pair) a mistake—"H" for "F" in the upper right-hand corner. This, of course, condemned the error at once, but the example serves to show how very careful one must be, and how necessary it is to examine and consider every circumstance in connection with the particular stamp under observation.

{253}

There are two varieties of stamps, differing from the normal through some slip in the process of manufacture—bicoloured stamps, in which the portion printed in one colour is inverted as regards the remainder of the design, caused by carelessness in "feeding" the partly-printed sheet wrong way up into the press, for the second impression completing the design; and pairs of stamps, which, each quite normal if severed, are when se tenant inverted in respect to each other, a condition philatelically termed tête-bêche.

The fraudulent manipulator has turned his attention to these, generally scarce and frequently very rare, eccentricities, cutting out from the bicoloured stamp the part printed in one colour and replacing it with great care, but upside down; and, as to the tête-bêche pairs, manufacturing them by means of two single copies, a strong adhesive mixture and heavy pressure.

Sometimes, so well have these frauds been made that nothing short of several hours' boiling has sufficed to dissolve the illegal union of the two pieces of paper—a drastic test, and one somewhat detrimental to the value of such copies as are enabled, by their genuineness, to survive the ordeal. The possible result to, say, a mint imperforate Fourpence, Ceylon, suspected of having recently acquired its otherwise desirable "margins," reminds me of the test given (not advocated) by a famous philatelist for the detection of forgeries of early Cashmere stamps, which were printed in water-colour—"Put them in water; if the colour is 'fast'{254} the stamp is a forgery; if it comes off, leaving a blank piece of paper, the stamp is genuine"!

A famous forgery was put on the market some years ago, the stamp imitated being the One Penny value of the well-known first issue of New South Wales, commonly called "Sydney Views." This stamp was issued in sheets of twenty-five, each repetition of the design being separately engraved on the plate and so giving twenty-five minor varieties; and subsequently the entire plate was re-cut, doubling the number of varieties for the specialist. The forger engraved his fraudulent wares and printed the labels, as were the originals, direct from the plate, in a very good imitation of the ink used in 1850 and on similar paper; and these reproductions, often in pairs, were affixed to old envelopes and cancelled with forged postmarks.

So well executed were these forgeries that suspicions as to their character were not raised until an endeavour was made to ascertain the original positions on the sheet of these desirable (?) specimens: then it was found that the details of design did not tally with those of any of the known varieties, and the career of yet another forgery was brought (somewhat tardily) to an untimely end.

Watermarks in the paper were for many years a stumbling-block to the counterfeiter, and practically all the old and generally poorly lithographed forgeries were on plain paper: nowadays, however, the watermark is imitated by actually thinning the paper where necessary, or by impressing it with a die cut to resemble the design, or by painting the "watermark"{255} on the back with an oily composition which renders the paper slightly transparent, and so apparently thinner.

In a comparatively recent forgery of the Registration stamp of New South Wales sent by a correspondent, the counterfeit was produced by the same process (from line-engraved plates) as the original; the watermark showed very distinctly when the label was placed face down, but was not visible at all when held up to the light: it was a "paint" mark in a very faint tint of the ink used for printing that part of the forgery where it appeared.

Occasionally, but it must be admitted not very often, forgeries are so inscribed. A notable instance is the series of large handsome stamps issued by the United States during 1875-95 for payment of the postage on newspapers, singly or in bulk, and ranging from one cent to the high value of one hundred dollars: on each of these particular counterfeits the word "Falsch" was engraved as part of the design, and "Facsimile" was printed across the central portion of the stamp.

Practically the same course was adopted in the native manufacture of forged sets of the early Japanese stamps, the counterfeits (which were produced by the same process as the originals) being marked in the design with two microscopic characters signifying "facsimile": unfortunately for the honest intention of the forger to give due notice of the spuriousness of his productions, the incriminating letters are so small that a carefully applied postmark is apt to completely hide them.

{256}

Some stamps have been very extensively forged: for instance, of the 2¹/₂ rappen issued in the Swiss Canton of Basle, in 1845, no less than seventeen distinct counterfeits have been detected. The stamp, of which an embossed dove carrying a letter in its beak is the central part of the design, is tricoloured—pale greenish blue, dull crimson and black—and, in common with most of the other Swiss Cantonals, is becoming rare. Copies have also been faked by thinning down card proofs of the genuine impression and adding gum.

Of the rarest Cantonal stamp, usually known as the "double Geneva," and consisting of two stamps of 5 centimes each, joined at the top by a long label inscribed with the aggregate value of 10 centimes, fifteen (probably more) forgeries are known; and as the entire stamp is priced at £75 unused and £28 used, it is naturally worth the counterfeiter's while to persist in the improvement of his imitations, with little hope, however, of attaining a perfection sufficient to defy discovery.

Individuals, however, are not the only forgers of postage-stamps: Governments, too, in their anxiety to provide so-called "reprints" for sale to dealers and collectors, have not hesitated to supply the necessary dies and plates, replacing those originally used and long since cancelled; and some have sunk so low as to deliberately manufacture counterfeits, and sell them as genuine stamps out of a supposed stock left on hand!

A reprint is an impression from the old original die, plate, or stone, taken after the stamp has become{257} obsolete; but prints from a new die, however faithful a copy it may be, can only be correctly given one name—forgery.

In 1875, the United States Government, desiring to exhibit a complete series of their postage-stamps, and finding that the original dies and plates used for production of the Five and Ten Cents, 1847, were not available, ordered new dies to be cut: impressions from these, though closely approaching the originals, can be distinguished therefrom by certain minute but well-defined differences in the design.

The first issue of Fiji—a series printed from ordinary printers' type at the office of a local newspaper, and known amongst philatelists as the "Fiji Times Express" stamps—has been twice "reprinted" from a special setting-up of similar type; but, as the original printing forme had been "distributed," even a re-setting of the actual type would produce little less than a forgery of a class euphemistically described as "official imitations."

The greatest sinners in this respect were the officials at Jassy, Roumania, who, in response to numerous applications for copies of the four very rare stamps of July, 1858, caused to be made, at different times, no less than three varying types of the 54, 81, and 108 paras—which they sold as genuine. It was only in the late 'seventies that this official fraud was thoroughly exposed.

As I have indicated, it is impossible, within the limits of a single chapter, to do more than touch the fringe of the subject of forgery and "faking," and the dissection of a few skilful imitations would not{258} materially add to the warning which the previous few pages will have conveyed—that the interest taken by the forger in Philately is a purely mercenary one, detrimental to our scientific hobby and damaging to our pockets; the collector must always be on the defensive and on the look-out for pitfalls, not relying too much on a guarantee of genuineness (which only secures reimbursement of money paid) to prevent the admission into his album of a forgery or clever fake.

The prevalence of forgery—and the almost equally reprehensible "reprinting"—should be no insurmountable obstacle to the collector; rather it should be a spur to prick the sides of his intent to intimate study and patient research. By collecting in a thorough and scientific manner, the collector will so impress on his memory the general features of the majority of the world's issues, together with the details of the safeguards afforded by paper, watermark and perforation, that the first glimpse at a forgery or fake will reveal a something which at once rouses suspicion that the particular label is not the legitimate offspring of the Post Office.

The "bogus" stamp, that is, the fraudulent label which has never existed as an original, is not to be feared: standard catalogues of the present day contain a practically accurate list of the designs of all issued stamps, and information as to new issues is so widely disseminated by the philatelic press that the chances of successfully placing a bogus stamp or issue are very small.

There have been frauds of this kind, but they are so few, and their character is so easily ascertained{259} from the perusal of any catalogue deserving of the name, that it will suffice to merely mention two or three countries which have had bogus issues foisted on them.

A place supposed to be named Sedang and said to be ruled by a Frenchman was credited with a set of stamps for its non-existent Post Office; Brunei, in 1895 or thereabouts, was reported to have issued a set of stamps, which eventually turned out to be the private speculation of some European trader; and Cordoba (a province of Argentina) had her two legitimate stamps of 5 and 10 centavos supplemented by four higher values of similar design made for the delectation of collectors.

There are a good many more, including the so-called issues for Clipperton Island, Torres Straits, Principality of Trinidad, Counani (the character of these last named is, I believe, still contested), Spitsbergen; and certain labels purporting to hail from Hayti, Hawaii, German East Africa, and Mozambique.

For the novice it may be well to add that the absence of a variety of a known stamp from the catalogue does not necessarily signify that it must be so rare in that particular form that it is unknown to the cataloguer. It may, of course, be a new discovery, but it is not less likely to be a variety which has been built up by some one interested in beguiling you with a fancy of his own. Forgers have been known to add new denominations to the sets of stamps they have been counterfeiting, that is to say, bearing face values unknown in the genuine series, and sometimes fictitious overprints or surcharges are{260} applied to genuine stamps. The most remarkable instance of the latter I can recall is the "Two Cents" overprint on the 3 cents brown on yellow Sarawak, which even the local authorities had come to believe in as having been applied by an up-country official in need of Two Cents stamps, but which were surcharged in London, where the dies of the surcharge and the very genuine-looking combinations of postmarks were subsequently found during an important cause celèbre.

{261}

IX

FAMOUS
COLLECTIONS

{263}

CHAPTER IX

FAMOUS COLLECTIONS

To fail to emphasise the broadly democratic character of the world of stamp collectors would be to overlook an important aspect of the popularity of this science, or, as it is to the majority, the "hobby" of stamps. I have already indicated the dual side of the collecting in the 'sixties, when the boy-collector predominated in numbers, but the adult student had the influence that gave "Philately" or "Timbrologie" a permanent place among the recreative studies. A note on the "Postage Stamp Exchange" in The Express, in April, 1862, indicates the benevolent toleration on the part of the outside public and the press concerning the new "mania." "... We may mention that the mania has been increased in such a degree as to lead to the formation of a postage-stamp exchange, the locality being Change Alley, leading out of Birchin Lane.{264} There every evening about fifty boys, and some men, too, may be seen industriously exchanging old disfigured stamps, most of which are carefully fastened in books. The earnestness and assiduity with which the 'trade' is carried on is very remarkable."

"'Some men, too,'" says Mr. Mount Brown in sending me the paragraph, "is very lovely." It would be idle to disguise the fact that the mantle of bare toleration of the "mania" has not been entirely discarded by the uninitiated, and it has been a very disconcerting privilege to have for chairmen at lectures on postage-stamps, at literary and scientific institutions, gentlemen who have introduced the subject by confessing that they had once been collectors themselves, but that was when they were at school. The press, however, has shown a greater respect for the substantial basis of scientific interest which underlies the hobby, and to-day The Daily Telegraph, which has led the modern journalism in the matter of regular specialised articles, has its column of "Postage Stamp" notes every week, and so too has The Evening News.

To-day, the press frequently discusses interesting new issues of stamps, and much publicity is now given to that argumentum ad populum, the remarkable prices which are constantly being realised in the stamp-market. Considering that stamp-collecting can scarcely be regarded as having started prior to 1860-61, the prices of stamps quickly attained respectable proportions. In The Young Ladies' Journal of December 14, 1864, there is this paragraph:—

{265}

"We had almost heard nothing of late of the postage-stamp collecting mania, till suddenly the formidable announcement is made by advertisement that an amateur is ready to sell his collection—for what sum would it be thought?—nothing less than £250."

Had the doubting Thomas[17] (for I dare say gentlemen edited ladies' papers in those days, much as they undertake the duties of "Aunt Molly" and the "Editress's Confidences" in the ladies' journals of to-day) had the foresight to buy a collection worth £250 in 1864, it would have been worth not less than, say, £25,000, probably more, to-day.

The collecting of stamps has at all times in the history of Philately been enjoyed by young and old, by men and women of all ranks and stations. Kings have shared this pastime with the humblest of their subjects, and do so to this day. His Majesty King George V. once wrote of stamp-collecting to a friend that "it is one of the greatest pleasures of my life." A letter "enthusing" on the delights of stamp-hunting reached me the other day from a correspondent who claimed to be "only a working-man."{266} There are few old stagers amongst collectors who have not encountered, and perhaps even been stimulated by, the boastful eagerness with which a youngster in his 'teens tells you of bargains got from Gibbons's books, or of a rare "snap," an unnoticed variety priced as the normal from Peckitt. For the Strand is full of bargains to-day, to the personal hunter who has the right knowledge.

Having alluded to the wide differences in ages and in stations of collectors throughout the philatelic period 1862-1911, it will be interesting to follow the more notable collections in their vicissitudes. M. Alfred Potiquet, one of the very earliest collectors, whose catalogue is of extreme rarity in its first edition, was probably an almost solitary example of the collector of unused stamps only, in the first days of the hobby. It is strange that in these later days the collectors on the Continent, almost to a man, prefer used stamps. But to return to Potiquet: he was probably the first collector of importance to sell his collection outright, which he did about the time the second edition of his catalogue was issued by Lacroix. The collection was a small one, about five hundred stamps, all unused, and he sold the lot to Edard de Laplante in 1862 for five hundred francs, of which sum the purchaser had to borrow one half to complete the deal. But, if the reader considers that five hundred francs represents approximately £20, he will appreciate the purchaser's bargain when told that the collection included the New Brunswick 1s.{267} (representing to-day £70); the Nova Scotia 1s. (£55-£65 to-day); the Natal 3d. and 6d. embossed in plain relief, which now are almost unattainable, except as reprints; Tuscany's 60 crazie (now worth £35) and the 1 soldo (£7 to £8); and the 4 and 5 centimes "Poste Locale" stamps of the transitional period of Switzerland, which catalogue at £100 and £10 respectively; and add to these many of the early issues of the Americas, the prices of which are now leaping up in the catalogues, and of which we know Potiquet to have had a good number, including the very rare error, the half-peso of Peru, printed in rose-red instead of yellow, through a transfer of that denomination getting mixed up in the making up of the lithographic stone for the 1 peseta. The above error is priced £13 used, but an unused copy would be worth very considerably more. He had also the 1 real and 2 reales of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company stamps, on blued paper.

Who was the amateur whose collection was referred to in the Young Ladies' Journal in 1864? It was possibly the "long cherished album" of that "worthy embodiment of Christian and gentleman," the Rev. F. Stainforth, the chief gems of which passed about this time into the possession of Mr. Philbrick. What price the reverend invalid (he survived the sale but eighteen months) received has not been handed down to us, but as Mr. Stainforth had been in the swim from the beginning, as he was a ready and high bidder for "any real or supposed rarity," and as his album was a general{268} reference collection at the Saturday afternoon rendezvous at the rectory of All Hallows, London Wall, it goes without saying that it was rich in stamps that to-day would be of the greatest value. At least two of the St. Louis Postmaster stamps were included. The first "Patimus" British Guiana known was in the Stainforth collection, a rarity with the motto of the colony Damus petimusque vicissim, wrongly spelt "patimus," an error which, as Mr. Edward L. Pemberton pointed out, laid the colonists open to "the charge of selecting that which was beyond their ability to spell," but which was purely an engraver's error. The Stainforth collection was also rich in the American locals, and it was to this collection that Mr. Mount Brown was indebted for the useful lists of these stamps in his catalogues. From the little we know of the reverend gentleman's collection, we may be sure it would have well justified the remarkable price of £250 even in 1864 or 1865.

Few—very few—collectors of that period, and indeed of later times, withstood the temptations of a rapidly rising market or the emergencies of pecuniary embarrassments; many sold their collections when prices seemed to be great but were, as events have proved, still in their early stages. One collector retained his collection from 1859 to 1896: its owner, Mr. W. Hughes-Hughes, of the Inner Temple, started collecting in the former year, but ceased active collecting in 1874, from which time his album was latent until 1896—with the exception of some items lent for display at the{269} London Exhibition of 1890. Happily for our instruction, Mr. Hughes-Hughes was one of those methodical men who keep a strict account of expenditures, and he had spent £69 on his stamp-collection in those fifteen years. In 1896 he sold that collection for £3,000. It was then cheap at the latter price, for it contained among its 2,900 varieties a yellow Austrian "Mercury" unused; a 4 cents British Guiana of 1856, on blue "sugar" paper; the 12d. black of Canada unused; plate 77 of the 1d. Great Britain unused; and, mirabile dictu, an unused copy of the 4d. red "woodblock" error of the Cape of Good Hope, a stamp which afterwards fetched £500. One could go on to the rare used stamps, and so "pile on the agony," but let it suffice for the present to say that the collection contained many gems, especially in those classic early issues of Victoria, Trinidad, Mauritius, France, Reunion (the 15 centimes), Mexico, Naples (the ¹/₂ Tornese in both types), Tuscany, Saxony, &c., the very names of which countries conjure up for the present-day philatelist visions of pocket-money for millionaires.

Hying back to the Continent, the troubles in France led to considerable disruption of the philatelic life, and no doubt many collectors and their albums were parted. M. Oscar Berger-Levrault was the producer of the earliest privately printed lists of stamps. His firm of typographical printers, which had been established in Strasburg (the city of Gutenberg associations), had to move from Strasburg to Nancy, as a result of the German annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. The work of setting{270} up, in a new centre, establishments for his four hundred workmen left M. Berger-Levrault no time for stamps from 1870 to 1873, and this lapse in the continuity of his collection was so serious a gap that he decided to sell, especially as he had to undertake long bibliographical researches into his family history. He has told us something of his collection, but not the price it realised in 1873. Here is a brief statistical outline:—

These figures are without counting varieties of shade. In 1870 the collection contained 10,400 stamps in all, including 6,300 unused, and more than 1,400 genuine essays. "I was only short of fifty postage-stamps known at that date," he writes, "as also a certain number of Australian stamps, with their various watermarks, which I had begun to study towards 1866, with my old friends and collaborators, F. A. Philbrick and Dr. Magnus."[18]

Here indeed was a collection, probably as near to the collector's elusive ideal of completeness as has ever been attained in a general collection. Writing from memory, in January, 1890, he gives the following list of special items he remembers to have been amongst the 6,300 unused stamps:—

{271}

"On the other hand, Spain, without its colonies, was represented in my collection for the period of 1850 to the end of 1856 by 79 unused stamps, 80 postmarked stamps, 8 essays of the Madrid stamp (bear), and was very complete." Even on the extenuated scale of the modern Gibbons catalogue, the total of varieties of the issues 1850-56 only numbers 125.

{272}

The first four-figure price for a stamp collection was obtained in 1878, when the magnificent collection of Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., K.C.M.G., was transferred to the ownership of Mr. Philbrick, Q.C., for £3,000. Sir Daniel's public career, chiefly in connection with the promotion of "Advance, Australia!", is still well remembered, but it is significant of the character of the assemblages at Mr. Stainforth's rectory that this distinguished Australian should have been one of their most active promoters in 1861 and the following years. He was, with Mr. Philbrick, one of the founders of the Philatelic Society in 1869, and was the first of the line of distinguished occupants of the presidential chair of the now Royal Philatelic Society. It is only natural that, with his intimate associations with Australia, the early stamps of that continent and of New Zealand should figure strongly in his collection. It was he who supplied the data which enabled the young philatelic giant, Mr. E. L. Pemberton, to announce the existence of a pre-Rowland Hill stamped envelope in New South Wales, leading to the discovery of the embossed letter-sheets of Sydney, 1838.

On March 18, 1872, there was held the first auction of rare postage-stamps at the rooms of Messrs. Sotheby, in Wellington Street, London. The experiment was made with what was described as a portion of an American collection, and the only reason the whole collection was not offered was that the time of the public was too valuable to spread over three days! A criticism in the columns of{273} The Philatelical Journal of April 15, 1872, attributes some of the prices, even then considered low, to the distrust of amateurs when the owner was bidding. I give a few of the prices realised. Lot 6 was the 15 cents error, United States, 1869, with the frame inverted: "This fetched a good price" in the opinion of the contemporary philatelic writer, being knocked down to Mr. Atlee for 36s. My friend, Mr. E. B. Power, in his priced work "United States Stamps," 1909, prices this stamp at $2,500 unused, $150 used. Lot 12 was a 5 cents Brattleboro: "a beauty, was bought in at £3; it would have sold well but for the owner's bidding," &c. I suppose a Brattleboro, especially "a beauty," would find ready competition in three figures to-day. Other lots bought in were:—

The 5 cent St. Louis used is now catalogued at £25, and the 10 cent at £30; a pair of the 20 cents, these stamps being part of the treasure-trove of the celebrated find of 1895, was sold in the 'nineties for £1,026. Some of the Blood locals were bought in, but Mr. Pemberton secured for £5 a copy of the very rare pink Jefferson Market P.O. stamp.

"Here," says our chronicler, "occurred something amusing; the auctioneer probably fancied that as this was unique and exciting competition, it was a{274} handsome stamp, so as the bidding rose described it as 'beautifully engraved,' which created great laughter, for it was a foully hideous thing, and the engraving apparently done by a blind man with a skewer." Altogether there were many rare American locals, the majority of which fell to Sir Daniel Cooper, Mr. Atlee, and Mr. Pemberton. Then came "some miscellaneous lots, sets of used, &c., of which some fetched exorbitant prices, for instance, four varieties of 5 cents, green, eagle, Bolivia, were sold for 14s., the 5 cent lilac for 23s., the 10 cent brown for 17s. The early Luzons (Philippines), used, were good lots and the 5 and 10 cent 1854, with 1 and 2 rs., fetched in the aggregate £6 9s., so they were no bargain."

Lot 150 was the ¹/₂ T. Naples, arms type, bought in for 40s., and the cross type was bought in for 9s. Lot 160 was "a remarkably good 13 cent of the commoner type of the 1852 figure Sandwich Islands, which the owner boldly started at £6 and bought in for an additional ten shillings, a very full price indeed." Nevertheless it would have cost £90 or more to-day.

The record of this sale deserves more attention than I am able to give it here: the event was certainly one of extraordinary interest, though it was considered at the time something of a failure, and was not repeated. The next auction sale of stamps did not take place until sixteen years later. But I must spare a few lines for my chronicler's peroration.

"The results of this sale are so far satisfactory that they prove that Philately is not yet on the wane, and{275} never will be. It is a young science, but before many years pass, we shall regard £5 for a valuable stamp as calmly as we do now the pound sterling for an ordinary specimen; and those who have been the mainstays of the dealers will undoubtedly find that their outlays, however extensive, will produce at least cent. per cent. What are we to think of the matchless collections of Mr. Philbrick, Sir Daniel Cooper, Mr. Atlee, Baron Arthur de Rothschild, E. J., and others, gathered together with unflagging toil and patience, but all of which contain practically unattainable things? And will not these in the course of years inevitably become of fabulous value?"

Four years after the Cooper collection was sold for £3,000, Mr. Philbrick, to the deep regret of all his British colleagues, sold his general collection (not the Great Britain portion) to M. la Rénotière in Paris, for the then record price of £8,000. At his death, which occurred so recently as Christmas, 1910, it would have represented the comfortable fortune of, say, £50,000! It would be a shorter task to say what was not in this truly wonderful collection than to attempt a list of its gems, for the absentees were almost nil. The best idea of the strength of this collection must be gathered from the valuable papers Philbrick contributed to The Stamp Collector's Magazine and The Philatelic Record, chiefly under the pseudonyms "Damus petimusque vicissim," "An Amateur," and several "By the author of the 'Postage Stamps of British Guiana,'" and by his collaborated work with the late Mr. W. A. S. Westoby, "The{276} Postage and Telegraph Stamps of Great Britain." Here I may fittingly place on record a souvenir I recently acquired of this collaboration and close friendship between these two most renowned of the students of stamps, whose work is a classic in the literature of Philately, and is still constantly referred to, being only in some respects superseded by later authorities. The letter itself amply justifies publication in entirety here, as it throws an interesting light on the philatelic evidence before the Joint Committee on Postage Stamps appointed by the Postmaster-General, the "confidential" report of which was printed in 1885 ("Bibl. Lindesiana," p. 159).

I am not entering upon any details of the Philbrick collection, for the most I could give would be a bald citation of an almost untold list of rarities. Imagine—if you can—a complete list of all known stamps up to 1880, imagine also some of the rarities not merely in duplicate or triplicate, but in the course of advanced plating of the settings (especially in British Guiana), and you may get some idea of{278} what was in this great collection—and is still preserved in the collection of M. la Rénotière. His two used "Post Offices" of Mauritius were the first known copies of these rarities, and were at first considered to be an error of the inscription "Post Paid" of 1848, instead of a distinct issue of 1847. They came from the correspondence of a M. Borchard, whose widow found no fewer than thirteen of the twenty-five copies now known. The first pair was exchanged for a couple of "Montevideos," which had, in the eyes of the lady, so M. Moëns tells us, "the supreme advantage of having a place indicated for them in the Lallier album, where the 'Post Office,' like many other stamps, were not indicated." The two stamps were used on one envelope, and were postmarked together with one impression of the "Inland" handstamp, the 1d. specimen having the left upper corner defective. M. Albert Coutures, a youngster of twenty, secured the stamps in the "swap," and afterwards (October, 1865) parted with them to M. Moëns through the medium of a Bordeaux merchant, M. E. Gimet. The price Moëns paid must have been a mere trifle, as he parted with them to Mr. Philbrick on February 15, 1866, for a few pounds. The record of these stamps Nos. 1 and 2 in Moëns's "A History of the Twenty Known Specimens, &c.," is therefore briefly—

{281}

To-day their "weight in gold" would, of course, represent but an infinitesimal fraction of their market value.

THE UNIQUE ENVELOPE OF ANNAPOLIS (MARYLAND, U.S.A.) IN LORD CRAWFORD'S COLLECTION OF STAMPS OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Image collection was sold in the same year as the Philbrick albums. Mr. W. E. Image was yet another of the vieille garde of Philately, though he ploughed a lone furrow during the early years of his collecting, which began in 1859. His collection, sold for £3,000 in 1882, deserves to be especially noted, as it was in one sense the basis of the great national collection now at the British Museum. The late Mr. T. K. Tapling, M.P., was the purchaser, and so magnificent was his new acquisition that he at one time thought of parting with his own and continuing the Image collection. At this juncture, the death of Mr. Tapling's father enabled him to amalgamate the two collections, his own with that of Mr. Image, and to launch out upon the grandly conceived collection bequeathed in 1891 to the nation.

Mr. Image at first compiled his collection almost entirely by correspondence, and did not see the inside of a dealer's shop until the 'seventies. He is said, however, to have never refused a good specimen of a stamp he lacked, save on one occasion, an historic one. Moëns offered him for £240 the two Post Office Mauritius, but he declined, as he hoped to get another chance at a more moderate figure. That was in the 'seventies. Image lived to the advanced age of ninety-six (b. 1807), and within a few months of his death a copy of the 2d. Post Office alone was sold by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson for £1,450.

{282}

But if he lacked the "Post Offices," there was an abundance of other rarities. Philbrick travelled to Bury St. Edmunds to see Image's wonderful unused 6d. orange of Victoria ("beaded oval"), a stamp which in the Mirabaud sale (1909) fetched £140. The copy from the Avery collection attained in 1910 a price still higher. British Guiana, Guadalajara and the American locals were amongst the specially strong sections of this collection.

There have been so many really important collections formed since the Philbrick collection that almost any entry into details becomes invidious in a brief review. The collections of to-day are, as I have indicated, on a more broadly historical basis than was general in the early days of the study, though even the collections of Dr. Gray, Sir Daniel Cooper and Judge Philbrick, and others, were on a sound basis of historical research. Philately has had no more precise or more able historians than Judge Philbrick and his collaborator, Mr. W. A. S. Westoby, while to Dr. Gray we are indebted for the history of most of the English essays of the first period.

PART SHEET (175 STAMPS) OF THE ORDINARY ONE PENNY BLACK STAMP OF GREAT BRITAIN, 1840.

(From the collection of the Earl of Crawford, K.T.)

But the collections of Lord Crawford have carried the historical and scientific aspects of Philately to more profound depths, and the stamps have been collected on a more lavish scale to provide ample reference material not only for present but future study. Condition, too, has received more attention, and is now a primary consideration. The collections are mostly arranged{289} in countries or groups, and few suspect the wealth of material as yet not disclosed, among the sections which have not yet been publicly displayed. The United States collection, when shown to the New York Collectors' Club a few years ago, opened up a new aspect of Philately to the collectors in the States, and gave an effective stimulus to the serious side of collecting in America. The collection is very fully written up in the Earl's own writing, much of which was done on board his yacht, the Valhalla. The collection contains practically all that could be got together to illustrate the postal history of the United States, and makes the mention of particular items useless. The unique envelope of Annapolis, however, is especially noteworthy, and also the 10 cents, black on white, adhesive stamp of Baltimore, of which but three copies are known.

NEARLY A COMPLETE SHEET (219 STAMPS OUT OF 240) OF THE HIGHLY VALUED ONE PENNY BLACK "V.R." STAMP, INTENDED FOR OFFICIAL USE.

(From the collection of the Earl of Crawford, K.T.)

Of Great Britain, too, Lord Crawford has a large number of well-filled albums, including some extraordinarily large blocks ("part sheets" would describe them better) of the imperforate line-engraved stamps. There is nearly a complete sheet of the 1d. black "V.R." (219 stamps out of the 240), a part sheet of the ordinary 1d. black (175 stamps), and all but six rows of a sheet of the scarce 2d. blue, "no lines," which was the companion stamp of the 1d. black, and was issued on May 6, 1840.

PART SHEET (LACKING BUT SIX HORIZONTAL ROWS) OF THE SCARCE TWO PENCE BLUE STAMP "WITHOUT WHITE LINES" ISSUED IN GREAT BRITAIN, 1840.

(From the collection of the Earl of Crawford, K.T.)

The collections of Mr. Leslie L. R. Hausburg, have, next to those of the Earl of Crawford, attracted widespread attention and the unstinted{290} admiration of philatelists. They have hitherto dealt chiefly with the Australasian portions of the British Empire, but latterly have been extended to a number of foreign countries. Mr. M. P. Castle, J.P., has formed several great collections, as will be noted in the list of sales which concludes this chapter, and Mr. Henry J. Duveen has one of the three finest collections of Mauritius, including the superb "Post Offices," both unused, from the Avery collection, and a matchless block of four, unused, of the 1d. Post Paid, for which wonderful item its possessor paid £1,000. These "Post Offices" are the ones which in 1910 carried the record price for this popular pair of rarities up to £3,500. Mr. Duveen's Switzerland collection is also a very notable one, and contains the block of double Genevas, and the part sheet of "large Eagles" from the Avery collection, and the beautiful block of fifteen Basle "doves," which was the subject of a recent find in Berne. Baron Anthony de Worms is the owner of a fine collection of Great Britain and the collection par excellence of Ceylon. Mr. Harvey R. G. Clarke's collection of New South Wales is justly celebrated, and in the less costly countries the honours of possessing the most perfect collections are distributed by no means exclusively among the very wealthy. In stamp-collecting the personal search is often more productive than lavish expenditure without personal effort.

THE UNIQUE BLOCK OF THE "DOUBLE GENEVA" STAMP, THE RAREST OF THE SWISS "CANTONALS."

(Formerly in the "Avery" Collection, but now in the possession of Henry J. Duveen, Esq.)

In America there are some collections of great note. That of Mr. George H. Worthington has{295} been referred to elsewhere. Mr. Henry J. Crocker, a San Francisco magnate, had the misfortune to lose about £15,000 worth of his stamps in the disastrous fire which followed the earthquake of 1906. This included eleven out of forty-three of his albums, but luckily his greatest work, the Hawaiian collection, was safely in England at the time of the catastrophe. A wonderful collection of Japanese was completely destroyed. Mr. Crocker has no fewer than sixteen of the Hawaiian "Missionaries"; outside of the British Museum, his is the only copy of the 2 cents, Type I.; he has four used copies of the 5 cents, two of them being on the entire envelopes; and there is a unique item in an unbroken strip of three 13 cents "Hawaiian Postage" on entire. Two of the stamps are Type I. and the other Type II.; he has also an unused and two used copies of each type. Of the "H.I. & U.S. Postage" 13 cents stamp there are two specimens, one of each type used together.[19]

PART SHEET OF THE SCARCE 5C. "LARGE EAGLE" STAMP OF GENEVA, SHOWING THE MARGINAL INSCRIPTION AT THE TOP.

(From the collection of Henry J. Duveen, Esq.)

Of other American collections, that of Mr. Francis C. Foster, of Boston, impressed me as much as any that I have seen across the Atlantic. Mr. Foster has been interested in stamps probably longer than any other living collector in the United States, and his collection now comprises the United States, the possessions, and British North America. In the general issues of the Republic he has a superb set of the premières gravures, and all the early{296} issues are extensively shown, together with the beautiful proofs and essays associated with them. The Confederate States Postmasters' stamps include the 5c. Athens used on the envelope; the 5c. and 10c. Goliad; and the Livingston, Alabama. The late Mr. Thorne, an old New York collector, showed me his collection in 1906, which was of great proportions and was exclusively composed of blocks of four, a state in which he had the greatest difficulty in obtaining even many modern stamps. His collection, or some of it, has been disposed of by auction in America. The late Mr. J. F. Seybold, of Syracuse, had the credit of fostering the cult of collecting the used stamps on the entire envelope or letter, which from the historical point of view is extremely useful. His collection, however, was bought for about £5,000 by Mr. J. T. Coit, and subsequently realised nearly £7,000 at auction.

A PAGE OF THE 5 CENTS AND 13 CENTS HAWAIIAN "MISSIONARY" STAMPS.

(From the "Crocker" Collection.)

Of the great collections of the Continent, that of M. Philippe la Rénotière is the greatest ever brought together, but its owner has not been in the habit of exhibiting it, and the number of living philatelists who have seen even portions of it must be extremely few. He has certainly got together in the aggregate a collection greater than the Tapling one, and he has absorbed in the process the albums of Sir Daniel Cooper and Judge Philbrick, and has had the pick of all the greatest collections which have come on the market for many years. It was estimated years ago that he must have spent a quarter of a million of money on the collection,[20] and as he commenced{301} about 1864, the extent of his treasures has brought him to be regarded as a philatelic Comte de Monte Cristo. The unique British Guiana 1 cent stamp of 1856 is in this collection, together with five Post Office Mauritius, including one of the two known copies of the 1d. unused. Other great rarities are mostly represented by several copies.

HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 1851. THE 5 CENTS "MISSIONARY" STAMP ON ORIGINAL ENVELOPE.

(From the "Crocker" Collection.)

The collection of the late M. Paul Mirabaud, a wealthy Parisian banker, was exceptional for the beauty of the condition of the stamps it contained, and at the auction sale many of the stamps fetched prices much beyond the standard quotations of the catalogues. The Swiss portion, which formed the basis of a most sumptuously illustrated work written in collaboration by M. Mirabaud and the Baron A. de Reuterskiöld, was sold privately.

The following synopsis of the chief sales of collections (whether by auction or privately) covers only those which are known to have realised £1,000 and upwards; there are many more which have doubtless been sold for amounts well into four figures, but the transactions, or at any rate the amounts, have not been disclosed. The amounts given below must not in every case be taken as the exact purchase price; where not exact they are approximate.

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{303}

X

ROYAL AND
NATIONAL
COLLECTIONS

{305}

CHAPTER X

ROYAL AND NATIONAL COLLECTIONS

Royalties have been included amongst collectors almost from the beginning of Philately. The late Mr. Westoby, in describing[21] a number of rarities in private albums in Paris in 1869, includes a mysterious rarity of Mexico as being one of which three specimens only are known to exist, "one of them [i.e., one of the remaining two] in the possession of the Princess Clotilde, wife of the Prince Napoleon, and the other in that of the King of Portugal."

King George V. probably owes some of his early enthusiasm for stamps to his uncle, the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. As Duke of Edinburgh, the latter had long been a collector before the fact was made publicly known by his cordial support of{306} the London Philatelic Exhibition of 1890, which he formally opened. At the lunch which followed the ceremony he said:—

"To-day Prince George of Wales starts—nay, probably has started—from Chatham in the Thrush, to the command of which he has been appointed. I am sure you will join me in wishing him a prosperous and pleasant cruise. He also is a stamp collector, and I hope that he will return with a goodly number of additions from North America and the West Indies. I am a collector, too, and I have been only too glad to contribute specimens to this fine exhibition."

The newspaper reports of that Exhibition state that "The Duke of Edinburgh, before leaving, intimated his intention of again visiting this marvellous proof of civilization and progress." In the same year, H.R.H. became Hon. President of the London Philatelic Society.

A PAGE FROM THE KING'S HISTORIC COLLECTION OF THE STAMPS OF GREAT BRITAIN, SHOWING THE METHOD OF "WRITING UP."

The late Duke's collection was, I believe, on general lines, a large range of countries and colonies being included in his exhibits at the Portman Rooms in 1890. These included a fine lot of Uruguay, and displays of Cyprus, Gibraltar, Heligoland, Ionian Islands, and Malta; Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden; Greece, Servia, Bulgaria and Montenegro; Cuba, Porto Rico and Fernando Po. At the 1897 Exhibition, at the galleries of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Duke showed only a few specimens in the class for rare stamps, his exhibit including the 2 kreuzer, orange, of Austria unused; the 54 paras of Moldavia; the Half{311} Tornese Naples, cross, unused; several of the rare 2 reales stamps of Spain and the 3 cuartos "bear" stamp of Madrid; the Swedish 24 skill, bco., unused; the so-called "Neuchâtel" stamp of Switzerland, unused; the 18 kreuzer Wurtemburg, with silk thread, unused; Buenos Ayres 4 pesos, red; United States, 1856, 5c. red-brown and 90c. blue, perforated; and some other rarities. Of British and colonials he displayed two of the 1d. black V.R. stamps; a 12d. black of Canada; Hong Kong 96 cents, yellow-brown; a small show of rare Nevis, including the 6d. lithographed and the surface-printed 6d. green; St. Vincent 5s., watermarked star, unused; an unused 1d. Sydney View, Plate I., and an unused 6d. "laureated head."

THE THREE COPIES OF THE UNISSUED 2D. "TYRIAN-PLUM" STAMP OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE COLLECTION OF H.M. THE KING.

The one on the envelope is the only specimen known to have passed through the post.

It will be seen from the wide field covered by his exhibits that the philatelic inclinations of the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha were broadly catholic. His royal nephew, King George, has limited his collecting—though not his interest—to stamps of the British Empire. His Majesty's interest in stamp-collecting has been made popularly known by the newspapers, but it is not always realised, I think, that the interest is an appreciative personal one. Of this philatelists have had many gracious proofs. The King is understood to have been consistently collecting since his midshipman-days on the Bacchante, and his collections to some extent coincide with his travels, several of his finest albums being those which contain the stamps of West Indian colonies.

There is little collected information on the subject{312} of His Majesty's collections, so I will endeavour to outline a few of the salient points in those sections which have been most nearly completed.

Great Britain.—The collection contains the original sketch of W. Mulready, R.A., for the famous envelopes and letter sheets of 1840 to which reference has been made.[22]

A note accompanies it to the effect that, "From statements made by Mr. Mulready to his friends, it would appear that the original idea for the design was given to him by Queen Victoria and was carried out by the artist in accordance with Her Majesty's suggestions."

On this point of the origin of the design, Sir Rowland Hill's journal contains an entry which scarcely bears out the legend that the Queen devised the idea together with the Prince Consort. The entry, under April 3, 1840, is: "Mr. B[aring] has sent a proof impression of the cover stamp to the Queen, with a memorandum from Mulready and Thompson [the engraver] explanatory of the design."

Then there is the historic pair of sketches in water-colours, roughly executed by Sir Rowland Hill to show the approximate appearance of the penny stamp in black and the twopence stamp in blue. This was sent by Hill to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

DESIGN FOR THE KING EDWARD ONE PENNY STAMP APPROVED AND INITIALLED BY HIS LATE MAJESTY.

(From the collection of H.M. King George V.)

In the line-engraved series, His Majesty has shown two copies of the 1d. V.R., and a fine series of imperforates of the 1d. red, Die I. and Die II., in{317} a large range of shades; 1d. red with letters in all four corners (plates 132 and 225); 1d. red, in a pair, on Dickinson paper; ½d. rose-red (plate 9), 2d. blue with four letters (including plate 7), 1½d., plate 1 in bluish lake and plate 3 in brick-red.

THE COMPANION DESIGN TO THAT ON PAGE 313, AND SHOWING THE CORRECT POSE OF THE HEAD, BUT IN A DIFFERENT FRAME, WHICH WAS NOT ADOPTED.

(From the collection of H.M. the King.)

All the Victorian surface-printed series are shown imperforate, including the 3d. with reticulated background; 3d., plate 3 ("dot"); 4d. in lake, watermarked "small garter"; 6d., plate 1 on safety paper and plate 3 with hair-lines; 9d., plate 3 with hair-lines and plate 5; 10d., plate 2; 1s., plate 1 on safety paper, plate 3 with hair-lines, 4 in an unissued colour, lilac; 2s., plate 3; 10s., £1, and £5 on blue paper.

In addition to the scarce items in the Victorian series of official stamps, the King possesses the extremely rare I.R. Official 5s., 10s. and £1, of the Edwardian issues, in mint corner pairs; also the almost unique Sixpence of the same set, in similar condition. Of this last stamp, no other unused copy is known, and only three which have been through the post.

Of the ordinary stamps of King Edward's reign, the Royal collection contains several essays and proofs of great interest. A photograph of a stamp made up from Herr Füchs's original sketch of King Edward's head, enclosed in the newly designed frame and border, deservedly comes first, and bears the late King's written approval: from this, temporary copper-plates were engraved, so that the effect might be noted, and three proofs therefrom are included.

Unfortunately, the final result did not come up{318} to the anticipated standard, and there was some talk about having a fresh design prepared, after the style of the then new Transvaal stamps, but this fell through on the ground of expense; proofs of this also are in the collection, together with various colour-trials of the One Penny value, as adopted.

Of unissued stamps during the late reign, there are only three instances: the £5 value, which did not proceed so far as the completion of the plate; and a small printing of the Twopence Halfpenny, in the adopted design, but in mauve on blue paper, was destroyed, owing to a decision to print in blue on white paper. Both these stamps, the £5 and the Twopence Halfpenny mauve on blue, together with proofs of the lower value in shades and tones of blue, are in the King's collection.

The last of the unissued stamps is the Twopence "Tyrian-plum," which, owing to the lamented death of King Edward, the authorities decided not to issue; his present Majesty possesses an unused pair, and a unique used copy on the original envelope.

Beyond these, the collection contains proofs of the contractors' designs for three of the new stamps, the One Penny in four types of head and bust, in the old frame of the 1881 stamp, and the Twopence and Fivepence in frames similar to those of the 1887 issue; in all these King Edward is shown in military uniform, the best of these being, so far as the portrait is concerned, the Fivepence.

A PAGE OF THE ONE PENNY "POST PAID" STAMPS OF MAURITIUS.

(In the collection of H.M. the King.)

A curiosity, for it was not for issue except after severance, is the sheet of one penny stamps as prepared for the booklets on sale at the post-office—for{321} convenience in making-up and binding these small books, the stamps were specially printed in four panes of sixty each, in vertical rows of ten, each alternate three rows being inverted, and so producing a certain number of tête-bêche pairs. King George's sheet is, outside the printers' establishment and Somerset House, probably unique.

Mauritius.—In the stamps of this colony the royal collection is particularly strong. There is here the 1d. red Post Office used, which came from Mr. Peckitt out of the collection of the Earl of Kintore for £850, and the matchless unused copy of the 2d. blue which was purchased in Messrs. Puttick & Simpson's saleroom on January 14, 1904, for £1,450: it is admittedly the finest known copy of this stamp, and its romantic history has been alluded to in Chapter VII. These two raræ aves are followed by a grand display of the Post Paid series, including three fine 2d. unused, one with the error "PENOE" for "PENCE," and a wonderful mint block of five, containing the error se tenant with four of its neighbours in the sheet. This block is a comparatively recent acquisition, having been acquired from Mr. D. Field for £500 in 1910. There is a considerable number of used copies showing all states of the plates of the 1848 issue, the small head of 1849, and the "fillet" of October, 1859. The 4d. green of April, 1854, is represented unused and used, and there is also an unused copy of the perforated 1s. deep green of 1862. The collection of this colony is practically complete from beginning to date.

British Guiana presents probably the most difficult{322} set of stamps that any collector ever attempted to get together. The King's collection is representative, but is strongest in the issues of 1860-82: they formed the basis of a display before the Royal Philatelic Society on March 17, 1910, and included most of the stamps in a wide range of shades, all the rarities being present, unused, except the 24 cents perforated 12 of 1860 on thin paper, and the provisional series of 1862, and a few of the "officials." The used portion was practically complete, and in the case of the 1882 provisionals there were entire and also reconstructed sheets, showing all the varieties.

The Barbados collection, which was shown by His Majesty at the Imperial Stamp Exhibition held by the Junior Philatelic Society in London in 1908, was exceptionally rich in the scarce "1d." on 5s. provisional, of which there were no fewer than a pair and two single copies, four in all, in the unused condition, and five used pairs and a number of single used copies.

Hong Kong and Grenada, Bermuda, Trinidad and Turks' Islands have also been arranged and exhibited, as well as a small but choice collection of the stamps of Nevis, which contains, among other items, the beautiful card proofs of the first 1d. in green, 4d. in dull purple, 6d. in orange, and 1s. in lake. There are two reconstructed sheets of the 1d. perforated 13, and the 4d. rose, unused; the 6d. grey and 1s. green, used and unused. Of the 1867 set the 1d. is shown unused, the 4d. both used and unused and the 1s. used. Of the lithographs there are four mint sheets of the 1d., a mint sheet of the 4d. and another of{325} the 6d., the 1s. in light and dark green; and there are two entire sheets of the 1d. perforated 11¹/₂.

THE TWO PENCE "POST PAID" STAMP OF MAURITIUS.

Unique block showing the error (the first stamp in the illustration) lettered "PENOE" for "PENCE".

(In the collection of H.M. the King.)

Comparatively little is known of the stamp-collections of other monarchs, but both King Alfonso of Spain and King Manuel are known to have formed collections of the stamps of their respective realms. The Spanish King's expressed desire to add the stamps of Portugal to his collection led to the reprinting of certain of the obsolete stamps of which the dies were on hand at the Lisbon Mint; these are the stamps known as the "King of Spain Reprints," a complete set of which was presented by King Manuel to the Reference Collection of the Royal Philatelic Society.

His Imperial Highness the late Grand Duke Alexis Michaelovitch was a member of the Philatelic Society. His early death lost to Philately a collector with a keen sense of the beauty of condition. Although only nineteen at the time of his death, he had been engaged for some years on a semi-official work on the history of the postal issues of Russia, and his collection was strong in the stamps of his own country and in Russian proofs and essays. His collection covered a very broad field, and he acquired the Peru section of the Koster collection en bloc. When the first Castle collection of Australians came on the market, the young Grand Duke acquired a number of its choicest copies, including some plated items. Some of the rarities he showed in London on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Philatelic Society (1894) were brilliant used copies of the 2 reales Spain of 1851 and 1852; the Poste{326} Locale of Switzerland unused; the "1 Pranc", error for "1 Franc", on the 37¹/₂-centime bistre, Luxemburg; the Hanover 10 gr. used; Oldenburg ¹/₃ gr. black on green; Nevis 6d. lithographed (in two shades); Trinidad 1858 6d. and 1s. unused; Uruguay, Diligencias 60c. and 80c. unused; entire sheets of Bergedorf essays in green of all values; and a beautiful and much admired group of thirty-two Russian essays.

Prince Doria Pamphilj, of Italy, is another of the devotees of the "royal" hobby of stamp-collecting, and his British Empire collection contained an Archer roulette and many choice items in English and colonial stamps. Of the stamps of other countries he has also had a very comprehensive collection; and at the Manchester Exhibition of 1899 he displayed some rarities of these, including the United States 1861 30 cents with grille, and the 1869 15 cents with frame inverted; the 5 cents Confederate local of Petersburg; Spain, 1851 10 reales unused and 2 reales used, 1865 12c. with inverted frame; France, 1849 1 franc vermilion; the double Geneva, types of the Zurich, the 4c. Vaud and the Poste Locale 2¹/₂ rappen with cross unframed in used condition. The Prince has made a speciality of the Italian States. Although His Royal Highness sold his chief collection in 1904 for £2,000, he is, I understand, still to be numbered amongst the active philatelists.

A SPECIMEN PAGE FROM THE "TAPLING" COLLECTION AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

Probably the most valuable page, showing the Hawaiian "Missionaries." The two stamps at the top have been removed from the cases, and are now kept in a safe in the "Cracherode" Room.

Of National collections, Great Britain possesses the finest, in the bequest of the late Mr. T. K. Tapling, M.P. Mr. Tapling died in 1891, and since then the{329} great collection which he had formed of the postage-stamps and postal stationery of the world has been arranged for exhibition purposes, in specially constructed cases, in the King's Library of the British Museum. It is estimated to contain 100,000 specimens, the total market value of which would probably not be much short of £100,000. Since the complete collection has been available to the public for inspection, there has been no one feature at the Bloomsbury institution which has attracted more visitors; and it is good to know that philatelic students are freely using the magnificent opportunities the collection offers for study. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive official guide to this important collection, but by the courtesy and assistance of the officials I was able to compile a fairly detailed index[23] to its beauties, which was published, together with a history of the formation of the collection, by Messrs. Lawn & Barlow. To detail the gems is but to recount the Mauritius, the British Guianas, the Hawaiians (these are particularly fine), the Moldavias, Newfoundlands, Reunions, &c., to most of which frequent reference has already been made in these pages. There is here one of the copies of the famous Fourpence blue of Western Australia with the centre inverted. Unfortunately the copy is a damaged one, but the stamp is rarer than the Mauritius "Post Office," and a celebrated and fine copy fetched £400 at auction.

It is a very real misfortune to Philately that the{330} Trustees of the British Museum have taken no steps to continue the collection beyond 1890, or to add items which are lacking prior to that date. It is, I understand, simply a question of money, and the Trustees would not be unwilling to allow the necessary space for the growth of the collection if money were forthcoming for that purpose. It is now twenty years since Mr. Tapling died, and the loss of that period in the collection is almost irretrievable. Yet the collection as it stands is the most comprehensive treasure store of the first half century of stamp-issuing, and students in this country are fortunate indeed in having such a wealth of material at their disposal for comparison and for reference.

The collection which has been formed by the authorities of the Berlin Postal Museum has been attaining a high rank in recent years. The Museum, which is the finest repository of postal records and curios in the world, was founded by Dr. von Stephan, the first Director of the Posts of the German Empire, and the first to propose the use of post-cards. The stamp collection was based at first on the stamps received at the General Post Office in Berlin from the postal administrations of other countries. But the collection is being built up on philatelic lines, and is not to be compared with the fancy frames devised by decorative fiends for the postal museums of other countries. In Berlin the collection shows essays and proofs, those of the old German States being particularly fine, and most of the prominent rarities have been acquired, chiefly by exchange of duplicate stamps. There is the 1d. Post Office{331} Mauritius used, and the 2d. unused; the 2 cents circular British Guiana, the 2 cents, 5 cents, and both types of the 13 cents of the Hawaiian "Missionaries"; pairs of the 27 paras and 108 paras of Moldavia, and a set of the 27, 81, and two of the 108 paras all cut round, and all used together on one envelope; the woodblock errors of the Cape of Good Hope; the 15 cents and 30 cents Reunion; and a wonderful range of the stamps of all the German States.

The late Duke of Leinster left his valuable collection to the Irish National Museum; and there are several instances of bequests and gifts of lesser importance to local museums. In 1910 Mr. George H. Worthington, the owner of the finest collection in the United States, made the announcement that he was going to leave his great collection to the city of Cleveland, Ohio.

It is to be hoped that Mr. Worthington may be spared to continue his collection for many years to come, but on the ultimate fulfilment of the bequest the people of the United States will enjoy the public possession of what is now one of the three largest collections in the world. Mr. Worthington's gems include most of the well-known rarities. He has the Cape woodblock 4d. error in a block with three of the 1d. stamps all in red, and his entire collection of Capes is extremely fine. Like most of the larger collections in America, the Worthington one contains a strong showing of the Hawaiian stamps and of the United States and Confederate States "Postmasters'" stamps. There is, for example, the only known 2{332} cents Hawaiian "Missionary" on envelope. Mr. Warren H. Colson,[24] of Boston, records that Mr. Worthington prizes highly the only unused copy known of the United States 15 cents of 1869 with the inverted frame, and as a companion treasure he has the 30 cents in like condition, but of this three other unused copies are recorded.

The Confederate Postmasters' Provisionals, I gather from the same authority, include all the rare Baton Rouge; a 10 cent Beaumont, on pink paper; the Emory, Va.; Grove Hill, Alabama; the rare Macons and a particularly fine lot of the Texas locals, including several Goliads, the Helena, and two very rare Victorias.

The 1d. Post Office Mauritius is included in two copies used on the entire envelope; the Sydney Views are a splendid lot, and include a superb unused block of four of the 1d. plate 1 with original gum.

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A SHORT
BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF
PHILATELY

{335}

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PHILATELY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following short Bibliography is a handy practical guide to the standard reference works on the special subject, and includes the handbooks and monographs issued up to 1911.

GENERAL HANDBOOKS

GENERAL CATALOGUE (NOT PRICED)

GENERAL CATALOGUES (PRICED)

COLLECTIONS

SPECIAL HANDBOOKS