A Minute With John from Philatelovely

1. I started stamp collecting at quite a young age, when my dad split his collection up between me and my brother. All I can really remember was that there were stock books and folders full of stamps. I am also fortunate to have family members dotted across the world, so when I was younger, the arrival of Birthday and Christmas cards would see the delivery of stamps on the envelopes.

2. I am a firm believer that every single stamp is a piece of physical history, and that they have the ability to teach us something. For a relatively small piece of paper, stamps can be full of information.  Also, I love how stamps are a real connection between us the collector, the person that first used the stamp, the postal office worker that cancelled it, the postie that delivered it and the person that received it.  It gives us the ability to time travel.

3. One of my favourite memories was again when I was younger. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s my parents used to care for an elderly lady called Sybil. At the weekends I would sometimes visit her too. One day we were talking about hobbies and I mentioned that I collected stamps. She said that she had kept all the stamps she had from years ago. A few moments later she appeared with a huge jar absolutely full of Penny Red’s, 2d blue’s and so on, it was an incredible sight, and I still have most of those stamps today.

4. Rather embarrassingly, although I have visited plenty of stamp shows, I have never attended a Stampex in London. This will change this year though, and I’m really looking forward to having a good look round.

 5. My main collection consists of British Commonwealth stamps up to 1970, and South American countries up to the 1940’s. I also have a good GB collection. I absolutely love King Edward VII stamps, and they are definitely my weakness. There are so many stamps I could say are my favourites, but if I had to choose, I would say my full set of mint KEVII stamps from Hong Kong are definitely up there. Also I have to mention KGV head stamps from Australia, they were the first stamps that ignited my philatelic flame.  

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