VALUABLE STAMPS

Southland Times, Issue 18830, 25 May 1920, Page 7

VALUABLE STAMPS

WAR SPECIMENS WORTH £2OOO. NEW EUROPEAN ISSUES. Designs have been approved for a complete new series of postage stamps in Czechoslovakia, which, it is anticipated, will be in readiness for issue by the end of May or beginning of June. The special stamps authorised for use in the Spanish air post service some time ago are now in course of production at the National Stamp Printing Works, Madrid. They will comprise five stamps in all, of the denominations 5, 10, 25, and 50 centimes and 1 peseta. A stamp of the face value of 65 centimes, showing a view of the Hatel de Ville at Termonde, is about to be added to the current postage stamp series of Belgium. The postage stamps to be created in connection with the Olympiad at Antwerp will be 5 centimes green, 10 centimes red, and 25 centimes blue, and will be sold for double their nominal values in aid of the national fund for disabled soldiers. It is reported that the combined series of over-printed stamps recently introduced into the Kreise of Eupcn and Malmedy will shortly give place to separate issues for each district, and that these will in turn.be superseded by stumps of a distinctive type ranging in value from 1 centime to 10 francs* with a profile portrait of King Albert. There is some talk, also, of a permanent stamp issue by the French for the Saar Valley. The now 10 marka stomp of Esthonia, printed in red, black, and brown, is said to have been introduced primarily for the aerial post between Revol and Helsingfors during the period when the former port was ice-bound. Stamps commemorative of the conclusion of peace with Soviet Russia may be expected at no distant date.

Many notable stump collections have been entered for the important exhibition to be held at Newcastle in May, concurrently with the Seventh Philatelic Congress of Great Britain. Among them may be noted a display of no fewer than 609 copies of the famous "Sydney View” issue of New South Wales, a fine representation of the first type of New Zealand, South and Western Australia, and Tasmania, the “Pence” stamps of Canada in mint pairs and blocks, and the early issues of Chile, Argentina and Brazil. What is perhaps the finest collection of Swiss Cantonal stamps in the country will also be on view. Under the title of “War Stamps of the Allies, 1914-20,” an authoritative historical record has just been published of the many interesting stamp issues which marked the progress of the Allies on all the battle fronts. The authors, Messrs Douglas B. Armstrong and Chas. H. Greenwood, have done full justice to their subject. The values of many of these stamps run into hundreds of pounds apiece, two of the rarest being priced sSt £2,000, and nearly 50 others ranging from £IOO to £I,OOO. Twenty-five philatelists of international repute are the first recipients of the diploma of an Order of Philatelic Merit instituted by the London Stamp Club, in recognition of work done for the advancement of philately. The Order is intended to replace the German Lindenburg Medal for philatelic research, whose British holders renounced the honour as a protest against German methods of warfare.