CLASSIC LATIN AMERICA

News, commentary and opinion on Central and South American philately

Events

Latin American Philately Zooms Forward

Mi Oficina logo

The COVID crisis is challenging the status quo in so many aspects of our lives: some for better, some for worse, many unknown.

Stamp collecting, though, has received an unprecedented boost and has been firmly propelled into the digital age (apologies, it now appears compulsory to use the word ‘unprecedented’ at least once in every article these days…).

As for Latin American philately…well, it has been given an extraordinary fillip recently with the introduction of the recently established Mi Oficina (My Office) Philatelic Society.

Every evening, a group of collectors, congregate around their screens to listen to a series of presentations on a diverse range of philatelic subjects.

All without charge, all hosted on Zoom and all of an exceptionally high standard.

Perhaps similar to the sort of presentations you might expect to hear at the Collector’s Club or the Royal Philatelic…except these are happening every night.

And it’s very popular, with over seventy participants attending a typical presentation.

Over 100 presentations to enjoy

Around forty presentations have already been given, including subjects such as Ecuadorian forgeries, early Chilean fiscals, Peru’s 1862 One Dinero, Honduran philately, the Escuditos of Uruguay, Mexican Postal districts…and much, much more.

A further sixty plus future presentations have been booked every night until mid-August with a number of dates booked out up until October. An incredible achievement by the organisers, Alfonso Molina and Henry Marquez, now with the backing of the Inter-Americana Philatelic Federation.

Whatever your interest in Latin American philately, you are sure to find something here that you will not want to miss.

Online forums have been with us for a number of years now but it seems philately is finally embracing the tools that allow collectors to talk, share and discuss without the constraints of a physical presence. This, in turn, increases our international ‘connectedness’ and gives greater exposure to the hobby.

Mi Oficina Philatelic Society You Tube
A selection of previous presentations, available to view on YouTube

Guidance for non-Spanish speakers

A couple of important points to bear in mind:

Firstly, the majority of the presentations are in Spanish only. Not all, but most.

Secondly, depending on where you are in the world, the live sessions may not be timed conveniently for you. All presentations commence at -5 GMT.

However, the presentations are all available on YouTube to be watched at your leisure and can be accessed via the Mi Oficina homepage.

And, if you want to follow along in English (or any other language), the YouTube subtitle feature does a reasonable job of translating the narrative.

Step 1. Choose the presentation you want to watch.

Step 2. Switch on subtitles. This is the first icon at the bottom left of the screen

Step 3. Change language to English or your preferred language. Click on the Settings icon, and navigate to Subtitles and then to Auto Translate where you can pick the language of your choice.

As I mentioned, there is a packed programme of presentations over the next few months with new topics being added on a frequent basis. You can view the full list here or by visiting the FIAF website.

The list of future presentations is in Spanish but viewing the links via Google Chrome will enable an easy translation.

If you’d like to know more or are interested in sharing your own knowledge, you can contact the organisers directly at mioficinaphilatelicsociety@gmail.com.

Exhibiting Latin America…from Denver to Stockholm (Part 2)

Stockholmia 2019

Back in Europe, the philatelic world was gearing up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Philatelic Society by hosting Stockholmia 2019 in the Swedish capital.

This was a somewhat unusual blend of regional Scandinavian stamp show combined with a truly world class philatelic event, attracting around 8000 participants from 51 countries.

Drawing on the RPSL’s august membership and with significant resource and preparation behind it, Stockholmia was a well organised, innovative celebration of the Royal’s status as the world’s pre-eminent philatelic Society.

With a decent marketing budget, the streets of Stockholm carried an array of promotional posters and banners to encourage an intrigued public to investigate further. This wasn’t a stamp show in the traditional sense though; dealers were thin on the ground and most stands were taken up by the international auction fraternity.

If you’d come to rifle through the dollar boxes, this was the wrong place.

Stockholmia advertising

Stockholmia advertising
Advertisements for the show in Stockholm

It was most certainly the right place for exhibiting though.

The quality of was of an expectedly high standard, with seventy Large Golds and nearly one-hundred Golds awarded for the international participants. Exceptional displays were the order of the day, with philatelic gems from the Queen’s Royal Collection getting a rare outing in a dimly-lit, designated display area.

No doubt the insurers breathed a sigh of relief when the thing was over.

Large Gold Latin American award winners in the Traditional Philately category were James Johnson for his ‘Colombia Classic Issues 1859-68’ and Roland Nordberg for ‘Classic Costa Rica to the 1889 Correos Overprint Issue’

You can view the full results on the Stockholmia website.

[Note: I see many Latin American exhibits that are written in English by a non-native speaker. This sometimes means that a superb display can be let down by incorrect grammar or misspellings. If you would like your exhibit proof-read and checked for accuracy and readability, I can help. Get in touch if you would like to discuss]

Probably the most valuable gathering of stamps on the planet…

The size of the stamp market

As with the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show, an essential part of this event were the presentations, held in side rooms throughout the five days.

Two of the Big Four catalogue publishers held court. Editor of the highly-regarded Scott Classic Specialised Catalogue, Jay Bigalke (a fellow Latin American collector), provided an overview of this important work whereas, Hans Hohenester, the Managing Director of Michel gave the European perspective.

Apparently Michel are now dealing with around 20,000-30,000 new stamps each year from approximately 200 postal administrations. Just who buys all this stuff? The fact that that 99% of these issues will never make it to a post office, let alone see the front of an envelope, makes you wonder how long they can continue to legitimately be called postage stamps.

‘Stickers’, perhaps?

Michel’s recent research concluded that there were somewhere between forty and fifty million collectors worldwide with around twenty million of those in China.

Now I’m always sceptical of those sorts of numbers.

You’ve probably got to have a very loose interpretation of the word ‘collector’ to get to fifty million but Christoph Gärtner’s presentation gave some more precise food for thought. Germany (not the US) is the largest stamp market in the world so the numbers it produces are a good bellwether for the state of the hobby.

Gärtner opined that collectors in the Far East were now starting to look beyond their own shores for their collecting interests and that  the Asian market was a key focus for their business. Over the past eighteen auctions, his company had attracted over 75,000 bidders, had sold over 170,000 collections and was now turning over just shy of €30 million.

That’s a lot of stamps.

A hobby in decline? Not from where I’m standing.

Exhibiting Latin America…from Denver to Stockholm (Part 1)

Rocky Mountain Stamp Show 2019
A sea of frames at the RMSS. Note Michael Bloom’s Guatemala and Enrique Trigueros’ Mexico in the foreground

A significant proportion of philatelic clubs and societies are inevitably based ‘in country’, supporting the local collector base and promoting the philately of the nation.

There are, however, numerous societies around the world that are based thousands of miles away from the focus country, many with members who have never reached the shores of the country to which they devote their collecting attention.

Although nearly every Latin American country has its own locally based society, some countries have supporting philatelic organisations based elsewhere. ‘Elsewhere’, in this instance, effectively means the US.

There are a few non-US based societies such as ArGe-Brasilien in Germany and the pan-Latin American ELASCA based in the Netherlands but, in general, the United States is the focal point for English speaking collectors of Central and South America.

The Rocky Mountain Stamp Show

Unusually, four of those societies congregated in one location over 23rd-26th May , cementing the Latin American theme of the 2019 Rocky Mountain Stamp Show.

I wouldn’t normally trek out to a regional US show but the RMSS was an exception. This annual event has, for the past few years, developed an innovative method of attracting a wider than average audience and bringing collectors together from beyond the shores of the United States.

Each event has a theme and this year’s theme was Latin America. With a specific focus behind the show, collectors who otherwise may not attend, dealers who may not otherwise take a stand and exhibitors who otherwise may not display, all have a reason for being there.

It also has the added attraction of a dedicated (and extensive) philatelic library that was open for business throughout much of the event. The largest library in the US after the APRL in Bellefonte, I’m led to believe, with over 14,000 books.

Five societies in attendance

Denver thus played host to the Mexico-Elmshurst Philatelic Society (MEPSI), the International Society of Guatemala Collectors, the Peru Philatelic Study Circle and The Nicaragua Study Group (not to mention representation from the Society for Costa Rica Collectors).

Rarely, do you get such a concentration of Latin American knowledge in one location outside the region itself.

The RMSS has hit upon the formula of devoting a full day before the show to a series of presentations from the invited society members, thus providing a good opportunity to share knowledge and network with like minded collectors. Eight talks covering a wide variety of geographical, historical and philatelic interest were well received to attending enthusiasts.

And to maximise the efforts made and share the subject matter more widely, the RMSS took the sensible step of recording each of the presentations. Expect to find them on You Tube within the next few weeks or so.

As to the exhibits: well, we were spoilt. Out of seventy-four exhibits, over thirty were from Latin America. It was a feast.

You can check out the award winners below.

2019 RMSS Palmares

El Salvador finally makes it to London

El Salvador proof
The presentation was primarily on the pre-stamp period but also included some very nice early proofs

After a mere 148 years, the RPSL finally got to put on a display of El Salvador on 9th November.

Guillermo Gallegos had come from over from Mexico to present “The Prestamp Period of El Salvador” with a twelve-frame display covering the colonial period through until the end of the pre-stamp Republican period.

Much of the collection is referenced in Guillermo’s eponymous book that was published by the Collector’s Club of Chicago in 2015.

The display was rounded off by the inclusion of a selection of 19th century American Bank Note and Hamilton Bank Note die proofs and colour trials. Perhaps outside the title of the exhibit but a rarely seen selection of early Salvadorian material (and a personal favourite).

Guillermo is also actively involved with AFISAL (Asociación Filatélica Salvadoreña www.elsalvadorphilately.org ) and is working on a second title to cover the early issues of Salvadorian philately. For those wishing to explore further, the society maintains a digital library of its in house journal El Faro and its successor The El Salvador Philatelist, all published in English.

Brasilia 2017 – is this the future for major stamp exhibitions?

Brasilia 2017 Stamp Exhibition logo

If I’ve read one article on “how do we attract more collectors to the hobby?”, I must have read it a hundred times. And no stamp exhibition escapes the post-event commentary on “how many visitors really attended?”, “how did it compare to last time?” and “what do we need to do better to encourage greater participation?”.

I think Brazil may have the answer.

Coleccionar 2017 (Collecting 2017) was a six day event that was designed to attract a wide spectrum of visitors in a single space, including:

  • An exhibition of museum quality classic cars
  • An exhibition of banknotes and coins
  • A rare orchid show
  • Artisan handicraft collections with porcelain, fabric, ceramic and wood
  • Concerts, performances and cultural activities

Oh, and it also included Brasilia 2017, a major international stamp show under the patronage of the FIP (Fédération Internationale de Philatélie). With 2800 exhibit frames, a further 400 organised by the Brazilian Federation of Philately and the usual blend of international and national auction houses and dealers, this was quite an event.

Latin American awards sweep the board

Naturally the show attracted a significant number of Latin American competitors with a good spread of fine material displayed from across the continent. The regional bias was reflected in the results www.f-i-p.ch/wp-content/uploads/BRASILIA-2017-Results-by-Medal.pdf with six of the nine FIP Championship Class medals going to South and Central American entries and in the Large Golds, half of the eighteen awards went to Latin American exhibits.

What this innovative show has done so well is to gather a diverse selection of interests under one roof, exposing visitors to events that they may not have made the effort to visit in isolation. By creating a ‘collecting event’ this then opens up the possibilities of cross-promotion and interest to a much wider audience.

Of course this needs far more organization and co-ordination than a single event but the rewards could be substantial, with the potential to vastly increase footfall and reduce costs through shared expenditure.

Let’s see if the idea catches on.

Royal puts on a Latin American show

RPSL Latin America booklet

Fifty-two frames of some exceptional Latin American material was the feast laid on by the RPSL yesterday. Exhibits were described as covering the canvas between “world class rarities” and “modest, but nonetheless interesting”.

Either way, it was a treat.

With so much to cover I can only give a flavour. For want of a theme, there are a handful of stock phrases that exhibitors often use that are always guaranteed to gain attention. Such as:

“the largest known block…”, “the unique…”, “the first…” and so on.

A few examples included:

  • Argentina (Frank Broad): 1864 Rivadavia – earliest recorded entire franked with a perforated value
  • Chile (Joseph Hackmey): 1854 10 Centavos Colon Desmadryl printing – largest known block (of twenty)
  • Colombia, Gobierno Provisionals (Alan Anyon): 1900 20 Centavos Tête-Bêche Pair – only known example
  • Ecuador (Guido Craveri): 1864 1 Real Green and 1866 4 Reales Red – earliest recorded usages on cover
  • Haiti (Brian Moorhouse): 1887-1890 Salomon Issues – the unique master dies
  • Peru (Christopher Harman): 1860 1 Dinero Blue – earliest dated cover
  • Uruguay (Gregory Todd): 1884 5c Deep Blue – unique die proof
  • Venezuela (Guido Craveri): 1862 ½ Real Red, used and unused – unique error of colour

I could go on.

All said, an excellent display.