FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

Evening Star, Issue 22447, 18 September 1936, Page 2

FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

[By Philatelist.]

Have any readers of this column thought of forming a national costume collection? There are now quite a lot of stamps that could be included in such a collection, and what a splendid opportunity it would offer for writing up in the way of annotation. It is not so many months ago that Austria issued a long set depicting costumes as worn in nine districts of that country and in June of this year Rumania brought out a charity set illustrating the costumes of seven different districts Numerous stamp-issuing countrks have one or more stamps ou which the national costume is shown. Such a collection would prove interesting, and the research work in gathering information for the writing up would be very instructive and of great benefit, not only to the owner of the collection, but also to those to whom it might be shown. ! It would offer ample scope for acquiring knowledge The portrait collection is an old favourite, but so many stamps have been issued during recent years bearing the portraits of famous individuals that to gather together to-day anything like a complete collection is .to undertake a fairly formidable task. Collectors could, however, specialise - in this direction, and confine their attention to certain types of portraits, such as Royal, ties, navigators and explorers, musi. cians, poets, famous' scholars, soldiers and sailors, and so on. Here again, opportunity offers for research work. in connection with potraits, a contributor to * Gibbons’ Stamp Monthly ’ writes as follows in the June number of that journal:—“By no means ,tha least interesting thing in British, philately is the study of the adoption (or otherwise) of designs embodying the portrait of the ruling sovereign. Taking dominions first, Canada had a Victorian portrait in her first issue, years before attaining dominion status, and has consistently, but not exclusively, used the portrait of the ruling sovereign on her stamps. India, with the exception of the first (Scinde Dawk) issue, has had no stamp without the sovereign’s head. Australia, after confederation, had, and still has, King George’s portrait, concurrently with other designs. New Zealand is ‘ different, having started with Victorian portraits, then changing to pictorials from 1898 to 1909, then King Edward’s portrait and King George’s portrait, concurrently with other designs, until the present day, when she has gone over to an entirely pictorial (highly pictorial) set. South Africa started with a King George portrait, then a large-scale portrait until 1926, from which time pictorials have held sway. To go back to pre-confederation days, the stamps of the old Australian States are interesting. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania never had a portrait of King Edward, and Victoria had only a couple of highvalue stamps. The component parts of the Union of South Africa are 'rather remarkable, too. Cape of Good Hope and Orange River Colony have Edwardians. but no Victorians,; and Natal and Transvaal have both.. But the Crown colonies are still more interesting. Barbados, Nevis, Newfoundland, ■ Trinidad, and Virgin Islands started with' various other designs, and t 1 en adopted Victorian portraits. Nyassaland alone at first had pictorials and then. Edwardians. British Guiana, British Solomon Islands, and St. Kitts , ignored Royal portraits' -until -the -Georgian period. Fiji had two values- with Victorian portraits in 1881, but otherwise stuck to other designs until the Edwardians of 1 1 3. Barbados and Bermuda are uncommon in. having Victorians and Georgians, but no Edwardians. Perhaps the most remarkable is Jamaica, which had a solitary Kin" Edward 2d stamp in the standard “ Nyassaland ” type, actually issued almost a year after that monarch’s death and throughout whose entire reign pictorial and arms type stamps had been used, together with several values from old Victorian plates. This 2d stamp would seem to indicate a posthumous recognition of the existence of King Edward VII., but actually it is to be admitted. was, more probably due to the demand for'stamns and the existence of the plate to produce them. (As a matter of fact, the issue of the 2d King Edward. Jamaica, was the result of a petition to the Government by Jamaican philatelic societies in June, 1910.) An almost parallel instance is to be found in Straits Settlements. Although there had been crowds of Edwardians previously, still the 21 cents and 45 cents (new values) in type 47 (this same “ Nyassaland ” type) can only have been justified by urgent need of supplies. Of course, there are instances of some values of an E ’.. ardian set having been issued well into King George’s reign (e.g., Antigua 3d, 6d, and Is), but this was inevitable. Finally there are just a dozen Crown colonies (excluding those which are now philatelically dead) which have had throughout no stamp without the sovereign’s head. They are rather a strange assortment—British Honduras. British Somaliland, Ceylon, Gambia, Gibraltar, Gold Coast, Hongkong, Leeward Islands. Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia, Seychelles, _ and Straits Settlements. Basutoland is too young to make the “ baker’s dozen.”