if you wish to purchase anything from my shop, please email abbh [at] hotmail.com. I accept want lists as well. Dismiss
It has been a year since the noted philatelist and philatelic bibliophile, Yves Vertommen (30 July 1957 – 2 July 2024) of Luxembourg (Figure 1) left us; he was just 67. I first read of Yves in 2013 when I received the just-published Milestones of the Philatelic Literature of the 19th Century by Wolfgang Maassen…
Thomas Fletcher Waghorn (Figure 1) is remembered as the most important personality in the development of the ‘Overland Route’ between Great Britain and India in the 1830s. For almost 200 years, he has been hyped up as a paragon of virtue: someone with boundless energy and enterprise who toiled endlessly to realise his dream of…
This article was republished, with some modifications, as “The Young Postage Stamp Collector shows the Ephemerality of Early Journals” Philatelic Literature Review 72 no. 2 Whole no. 279 (Second Quarter 2023). Philatelic Literature Review is the journal of the American Philatelic Research Library. The first philatelic journal, The Monthly Advertiser, was published on 15 December…
A few weeks back I wrote a blog post on an 1834 entire from Calcutta taking the curricle from Morpeth to Edinburgh. In it, I discuss how one needs to know the distances between the various towns the letter passed through in order to figure out the inland rate markings in Great Britain. Further, I…
This article was republished, with some modifications, as “The Calumnies of Samuel Singer, Charles Phillips, and Stanley Gibbons” Philatelic Literature Review 71 no. 4 Whole no. 277 (Fourth Quarter 2022). Philatelic Literature Review is the journal of the American Philatelic Research Library. Some years ago, while leafing through the auction catalogue of the George T….
Webb’s (Figure 1) The Philatelic and Postal History of Hong Kong and the Treaty Ports of China and Japan (PPHK) has been on my purchase short-list for some time now. A few days back I saw a reprint of book on eBay but it looked, well, different. I bid and managed to bag it. Having…
I tried to learn German over many months last year, mainly from a philatelic perspective, but have not succeeded much. A few days back I wrote to Philip Robinson curious as to how he brought himself up to the level where he is translating long philatelic texts from German to English. Philip’s reply attached a…
This post was translated into German and published by Hans-Joachim Schwanke on his website on 23 March 202o. Read here: https://www.schwanke-philatelie.de/2020/03/albert-h-harris-ein-bedeutender-haendler-philatelistischer-literatur. It was then published in print as “Albert H. Harris: Philatelic Literature Dealer.” Phila Historica: Zeitschrift für Philateliegeschichte und Philatelistische Literatur. (=Phila Historia: Journal of the History of Philately and Philatelic Literature) No. 2…
This post was translated into German and published by Hans-Joachim Schwanke on his website on 23 March 2020. Read here: https://www.schwanke-philatelie.de/2020/03/frank-arthur-bellamy-und-seine-philatelistische-bibliothek. It was then published in print as “Frank Arthur Bellamy and his Philatelic Library.” Phila Historica: Zeitschrift für Philateliegeschichte und Philatelistische Literatur. (=Phila Historia: Journal of the History of Philately and Philatelic Literature) No….
In the last few years of the 19th and the first couple of decades of the 20th century, The Philatelic Society of India (PSI) was the premier society in the British Empire outside of the UK or even London. It members consisted of the top most Anglo-Indian philatelists of the day many of whom were…
After many suggestions and discussions (Figure 1), eight stalwarts (of the 49 invited) met exactly 150 years ago on 10 April 1869 (Figure 2) at 93, Great Russell Street and formed The Philatelic Society, London. These fore-bearers included: Sir Daniel Cooper, who was elected the President Frederick A. Philbrick, the Vice President W. Dudley Atlee,…
