In the first of a new series, Latin America collectors share an insight into their passion for Central and South American stamps. Here, John Shaw MBE FRPSL discusses – amongst […]
A visit to the Edificio Correos in San José
I visited Costa Rica last week and took some time out to take a look around the Edificio Correos in the heart of San José. In a country not known […]
Philatelic Societies – a review
I’ve recently updated the Resources pages. Part of this exercise was to revisit links to philatelic societies and investigate others that I wasn’t so familiar with. In reviewing so many […]
Tasty Brazil, Bolivia and Chile at Gartner
Watching the postman struggle to our door the other morning could only mean one thing: it was time for another Gartner auction. Of all the international auction houses, Gartner probably […]
Which country has the world’s worst postal service?
Which countries should you avoid shipping to? Let’s say you put a few items up for auction on eBay and one lucky winner has an address in Haiti. Would you […]
Collect Brazil? You probably need this…
Pre-internet, collectors tended to be far more reliant – dependent even – on the catalogue that was written in their own language. Buying and selling was limited to the relationships […]
Hackmey’s Chile to be sold
Conveniently following on from my plug for SOFICH a few weeks ago, comes the news that Joseph Hackmey is to part with his Chile collection. This is set to be […]
SOFICH, so good
I recently acquired a very nice collection of pre-1940 Chile that had been collected by SOFICH and cross-referenced by Scott. It clearly shows just how much room for expansion there […]
Part 20, Part 20, wherefore art thou Part 20…?
It is now ten years since Stanley Gibbons printed the fourth and current edition of their ‘Part 20’ South America stamp catalogue. And the separate ‘Part 15’ that covers Central […]
Bookshelf Essentials Part II – The Central American Newsletter
Although The Mainsheet covered all twenty republics, its focus was primarily on South America. In 1980, under the editorship of Bernard Davies, The Central American Newsletter was launched as a […]
Bookshelf Essentials – The Mainsheet
If there is one thing philatelists are not short of it is reading material. Decades of book publishing has produced a wealth of literature on every subject imaginable and each […]
Colombian air post rarities under the hammer
One of the most iconic and distinctive series of stamps in Latin American philately are the nine colourful labels used by CCNA (Compania Colombiana de Navegacion Aerea) in 1920. These […]