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 beautiful designs have an almost cartoon like appearance and were originally designed as promotional labels for the Curtiss Aeroplane Company. Used to supplement the regular […]
El Salvador finally makes it to London
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 […]
Brasilia 2017 – is this the future for major stamp exhibitions?
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 […]
Brian Moorhouse RIP
Brian Moorhouse, the renowned Latin America expert and dealer, died on 15th July. I last saw him at his September auction, seemingly as fit as a fiddle and with no indication that this was on the cards. This will come as a sizable shock to the philatelic community, not least to the thousands of collectors […]
South American stamps continue to appreciate in value
“While stamp prices of Europe and North American countries have shown significant weakness over the last five years, South American countries are showing continued appreciation with little or no price erosion during that time”. So says Richard Lehmann in this month’s ‘American Stamp Dealer and Collector’ magazine. Lehmann is the founder of StampFinder (www.stampfinder.com) and […]
And the second most expensive Latin American country to collect is…Honduras. And the least expensive? Guatemala. Debate!
Back in 2000, a Canadian Gentleman by the name of Michel Bégin compiled a database entitled “The Most Affordable Classic Stamps to Collect” and published his findings on the web. Clearly a man with time on his hands, he manually ploughed through the entire Scott 1840 – 1940 Specialized Catalogue and sorted each country’s listings […]
Book Review – Introducing Venezuela’s Escuelas Stamps by Williams Castillo
Before we get to the content, I should point out that the beauty of this book is the author’s skill for taking a complicated subject and making it very simple to understand. There are countless philatelic books and articles that undertake to enlighten the reader on less complex issues but end up making things far […]
Scott Specialized adds another 67 listings to Venezuela
It’s taken a while but Scott is now recognizing Venezuela’s postal fiscals (or postage and revenue stamps) in the 2017 edition of its Classic Specialized Catalogue. This bumps up the number of stamps listed during the classic period to a further 67 items, all of them now prefixed under an “AR” code. AR1 through to […]
Latin American Auctions – first event for eighteen months
Brian Moorhouse’s auctions tend to be somewhat infrequent affairs, the last being held in February last year. Peterborough is a rather incongruous location but for a single day it becomes the epicenter of Latin American philately. Brian had curated over 750 lots and attendance was good with a number of international collectors who had made […]
Royal puts on a Latin American show
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, […]
Extensive Venezuela – Peter Brack collection goes to auction
It isn’t often we see an auction catalogue focused on Venezuela. Strictly speaking, this Cavendish auction was billed as a ‘Collection of Central and South America’ but this was very much dominated by Brack’s superb holdings of Venezuela. Brack lived in Venezuela for a time and was an occasional contributor to The Mainsheet, back in […]
World Stamp Show – NY2016
The US holds an international stamp show every ten years but it was back in 1956 that New York took centre stage as the host of the world’s most important philatelic event. The cavernous Javits Centre in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan provided ample space for collectors and dealers to spend seven days meeting, buying, selling, exhibiting […]