Visiting Stamp Exhibition

Yesterday I visited the Exhibition of Stamps by by Philatelic Dealers Association of India. Naively I thought it would be an exhibition with mounted exhibits by specialized collectors. I was also expecting a few stamp dealers selling stamps at the exhibition. That's the image I had from the last exhibition I visited more than 30 years ago. Well, it wasn't actually an 'exhibition' per se. It was two rooms full of stamp and coin dealers selling their wares, like a stamp and coin market. While I was a little disappointed by my naive thoughts of expecting an exhibition, I wasn't disappointed actually going there. It was a great opportunity to get to know so many stamp dealers and buy stamps. I ended up spending a lot of money there and still be left wanting for more. Surely, I need to find a better way to collect stamps without spending my fortune on them. Anyway, more on that later.

There were some large dealers with multiple stalls and then many dealers who shared a single stall. Kolkatta seems to be the hub of philately dealers in India as I found most large dealers from Kolkatta.

I didn't get any bargains. The stamps were being sold on Indian catalogue prices with specific discount rates on them (I was primarily looking for Indian stamps). One seller lamented the philately was dead, that buyers just don't pay the prices, and some sellers have spoilt the market by giving deep discounts on the catalog prices. And some stamps I could find significantly cheaper on eBay. Anyway, it was still a great experience seeing so many dealers in one place from all over the country. I managed to get many visiting cards for dealers from different cities that I might visit in the future.

Treasure Hunt 2 - Shimla

My work requires me to travel across India. Having restarted my hobby of stamp collection, I now use the time on my hand for treasure hunting. I am not exactly sure what treasure I am expecting to find but I guess it is to find some scrap/junk dealer or an old antique shop where I can pick up old stamps and postal stationery at a bargain.

My very first treasure hunt took me to streets of old Hyderabad. This time around, it was Shimla. We traversed the roads of Shimla searching for antique shops. We found one somewhere in Lakkad Bazar, selling brass artefacts. He suggested we look for a shop called Maria Brothers on Mall Road. He told us that the shop doesn't open regularly and if we are lucky we might find the shop open. And so we began walking searching for Maria Brothers. We did find the shop but unfortunately it was closed.

Not completely disheartened as this time I had asked our local colleague to find out possibles places for us to check out. He took us further down to Lower Mall Road saying there is a place where dealers set up their temporary stalls. So we marched down searching for the place. Finally we reached the stairs opposite Nandan Shawls only to find it empty. We waited there for some time, sipping tea as we sat on the stairs.

We ran out of time as we had a train to catch.. On our way back we found that Maria Brothers shop was open now. Excited we entered the shop. There was a gentleman inside, who I assume was Maria. "Do you have old stamps or postal stationery?" we asked, only to hear a single word response "No". The gentleman continued to sit at the back of the shop not interested in making conversation. The shop had old magazines, books, paintings, and maps. I asked for prices of a few items and soon knew this wasn't a bargain shop. The gentleman in his soft voice told me prices that might get quoted by a museum or an upmarket art gallery. We quietly beat a hasty retreat after requesting to take a few pictures as memories of our trip there.

And so yet another unsuccessful treasure hunt came to an end. Until next time, in a different city....

Clean Postmarks

I am beginning to value clean post marks on my used stamps. Unfortunately I don't seem to have too many of these. Here are some beauties.

India Struggle for Freedom Series (1983 - 89)

India Struggle for Freedom series: Seven series of 44 stamps issued from 1983 to 1989. The stamps were designed within National Tricolor vertical border. I am missing quite a few stamps from my collection, including all of series 7 that I hope to complete over next few months.

	Series	Stamp	Date of Issue
1.	India's Struggle for Freedom - 1st Series – 1983	Quit India Resolution	09 August 1983
2.		Mahadev Desai	09 August 1983
3.		Madeleine Slade (Meera Behn)	09 August 1983
4.		Hemu Kalani (Revolutionary)	18 October 1983
5.		Acharya Vinoba Bhave (Social Reformer)	15 November 1983
6.		S.N.Banerjee (Patriot)	28 December 1983
7.	India's Struggle for Freedom - 2nd Series – 1984	V.B. Phadke (Revolutionary)	21 February 1984
8.		Baba Kanshi Ram (Freedom Fighter)	23 April 1984
9.		Tatya Tope (Freedom Fighter)	10 May 1984
10.		Nana Sahib (Freedom Fighter)	10 May 1984
11.		Begum Hazrat Mahal (Freedom Fighter)	10 May 1984
12.		Mangal Pandey (Freedom Fighter)	10 May 1984
13.	India's Struggle for Freedom - 3rd Series – 1985	Narhar Vishnu Gadgil (Politician)	10 January 1985
14.		Jairamdas Doulatram (Journalist)	21 July 1985
15.		Nellie & Jatindra Mohan Sengupta (Patriots)	22 July 1985
16.		Kakasaheb Kalelkar (Freedom Fighter, Author)	02 December 1985
17.		Master Tara Singh (Freedom Fighter, Social Reformer)	23 December 1985
18.		Ravishankar Maharaj (Freedom Fighter, Social Worker)	24 December 1985
19.	India's Struggle for Freedom - 4th Series – 1986	B.S. Sachar (Statesman)	14 August 1986
20.		A.S.R. Raju (Revolutionary)	26 December 1986
21.		Sagarmal Gopa (Martyr)	29 December 1986
22.		Veer Surendra Sai (Revolutionary)	30 December 1986
23.	India's Struggle for Freedom - 5th Series – 1987	Hakim Ajmal Khan (Humanitarian)	13 February 1987
24.		Lala Har Dayal (Founder of Gadar Movement)	18 March 1987
25.		Manabendra Nath Roy (Revolutionary)	21 March 1987
26.		T.R. Chowdary (Poet)	25 April 1987
27.		Dr. K.N.Katju (Statesman)	17 June 1987
28.		S. Satyamurti (Martyr)	22 August 1987
29.		H.N. Kunzuru (Freedom Fighter)	31 December 1987
30.	India's Struggle for Freedom - 6th Series – 1988	Mohan Lal Sukhadia (Politician)	02 February 1988
31.		Dr. S.K. Sinha (Freedom Fighter)	04 February 1988
32.		Chandra Shekhar Azad (Martyr)	27 February 1988
33.		G.B. Pant (Politician)	07 March 1988
34.		Dr. A.N. Singh (Politician)	18 June 1988
35.		K. Chaliha (Patriot)	19 June 1988
36.		Shivprasad Gupta (Educationist)	28 June 1988
37.		Sarat Chandra Bose (Statesman)	06 September 1988
38.		Baba Kharak Singh (Patriot)	06 October 1988
39.		Sheikh Mohd.Abdullah (Statesman)	05 December 1988
40.	India's Struggle for Freedom - 7th Series – 1989	Hare Krushna Mahtab (Writer)	02 January 1989
41.		B.G. Kher (Politician)	08 March 1989
42.		Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (Social Worker)	13 April 1989
43.		S. Kitchlew (Freedom Fighter)	13 April 1989
44.		Asaf Ali (Statesman)	11 May 1989

'My Stamp' from Govt. of India

After recently restarting my philately hobby I discovered that the govt has introduced the concept of 'My Stamp'. Personally I don't feel very enthused by the fact that anyone can get a stamp printed on anyone or anything. It takes formal postal stationery commercialization to another level which doesn't gel with my idea of philately.

The Dept of Posts website, http://postagestamps.gov.in/MyStamp.aspx, explains My Stamp as

‘My Stamp’ is the brand name for personalized sheets of Postage Stamps of India Post. The personalization is achieved by printing a thumb nail photograph of the customer images and logos of institutions, or images of artwork, heritage buildings, famous tourist places, historical cities, wildlife, other animals and birds etc., alongside the selected Commemorative Postage Stamp. 

‘My Stamp’ was first introduced in India during the World Philatelic Exhibition, ‘INDIPEX-2011’. There was considerable demand for it during the exhibition and many requests to resume its printing have since been received. This enthusiasm from stamp lovers prompted India Post to extend the ‘My Stamp’ scheme to cover all Postal Circles. This scheme is available in selected Philatelic Bureaux and counters /Important Post offices/Post Offices situated at tourist places. Selected themes are available at selected My Stamp Counters.

I asked for thoughts from experienced philatelists about what they feel about it. Would you collect these stamps? Are these considered proper stamps or do they come under the category of Cinderella stamps?

Peter Leevers, Secretary at The India Study Circle for Philately, writes

Commercialisation of postal stationery has been around for over a century and gives the collector insight into social issues and fashions. What's really changed the game, in my view, is the ease by which modern digital printing methods make litho colour so cheap. Design for the old methods of intaglio, embossing and letterpress (typo. In the catalog) needed careful preparation. But stamps were produced with, quite literally, a depth that, by its very nature, offset litho never can.

19 Jun 2016 update: Ravinder Kumar commented:

My stamp is purely a commercial venture to make more money for the postal department.
When I went to a PO at Chennai the clerk said that they have some cricket stickers for sale. She showed me the sheet of New Zealand cricket stamps. Honestly she never knew they were stamps. All so called reputed commonwealth nations have also started commercialising their philately by printing in bulk and offering it at much below postal value! Will Australia or New Zealand sell their $1 or other currencies to other governments for 40 cents or 50 cents? But the stamps with denomination of upto $2 are just printed in quantities in sheets like children's stickers sold in a stationery shop and sold to 'Big' reputed dealers and governments to fool and slay the ' innocent goat( the novice collector who buys these excessively printed stamps at lower than their postal value from dealers and think that they had a deal by buying it).
Is it possible for the collectors who had spent a few Lakhs in st. Vincent and other islets exotically called manamagua etc who have printed Diana, cricketers, sports cars in quantities to even recover their hard earned money after even 10 years?
Unfortunately many philatelists in India and rest of the world are being taken for a costly ride by Stamp Printers and Big Stamp Dealers and their distributors and retail dealers throughout the world !
😢 come when we think about these innocent philatelic Goats!🐐🐐🐐

Dipok Dey

A few weeks ago Shri Dipok Dey commented on one of my Facebook posts in a Philatelic group. I didn't realize the importance of that comment until I came across more about him.

Dipok Dey, born in 1938 in Bangladesh, graduated from Art College in 1965, is a renowned artist, philatelist and journalist from Kolkata. He started collecting stamps since late 50s. He has designed number of stamps, special covers, booklets and greeting cards issued by India Post. He is the first Indian to design UN Stamp in 1985. He has edited ‘Stamp World’ and ‘Indian Revenuer’ philatelic journals and has written several articles on Philately. He is an author of Philatelic Geography, The Bridge and A Hand Book of Unfamiliar Stamps and Rabindranath Tagore and the Post Office a Philatelic Tribute. His knowledge about printing technology of stamps is marvellous. His collections on cinema, printing technology of stamps, women and Second World War etc. have been exhibited in many philatelic exhibitions.

In 2014 Shri Dipok Dey was honoured with ‘Life time achievement award’ by North Bengal Postal Circle of India Post for promoting philately in North Bengal. During ‘Depex-2014’ district level philatelic exhibition held at Darjeeling the Life Time Achievement Award’ was conferred to Shri Dipok Dey but he could not attend the function held on 30th November 2014 at Darjeeling as he was attending Assampex-2014, state level philatelic exhibition held at Guwahati as a member of Jury. On 28th February 2015, Shri Suvash Darnal, Superintendent of Post Offices, Darjeeling Division presented the award to Shri Dipok Dey at his residence in Kolkata.

It is wonderful to know about him. Some articles about him:
http://rainbowstampclub.blogspot.in/2011/12/day-of-dipok-dey.html
http://sapost.blogspot.in/2014/05/philatelic-tribute-edited-by-dipok-dey.html
http://indianphilately.net/news0215.html

Treasure Hunt

What do you do when your business meeting finishes early and flight is late in the city of Hyderabad, and you discover that your colleague also has a keen interest in philately and numismatics? Well, you go on a treasure hunt. My colleague and I had some time to kill while in Hyderabad and we decided that we should try to find some treasures in the old city of Hyderabad. We got into a cab and headed to Chaar Minar in the old city of Hyderabad.

We approached a shop to ask him if we could find some stamp dealer in the market. "Stamps?, Oh like philately stamps?" he said. Our eyes lit up. Yes, those. "You can get them on eBay now" he said looking at us strangely. We were amused but not disheartened. "You could try Chatta Bazar" he said pointing us vaguely in direction down the lane. So with laptop bags in tow we walked in our Oxford shoes, looking out of place in the crowded streets towards Chatta Bazar with the mission to find some dealers who might still be selling stamps and coins.

After a good 20 minute walk in the hot afternoon, we found a lane marked Chatta Bazar. We turned into it hopefully, but no such luck. The bazaar had lots of marriage card printing shops and a notary shop selling current revenue stamp papers. Finally we found an old 'kabbadi' shop (junk/scrap dealer). It was the dustiest shop around with old clocks and other artefacts. We asked him about stamps. "What kinds do you want?" Wow, we thought, we have finally found our treasure. Any kinds that you have, we said eagerly. "Come next week and I will arrange for you" the young guy at the counter said. Next week? No no, we are here only the next hour or so. "Well you are about 10 years too late trying to find something like this. All traders have moved on to other things" he said. 10 years too late for our treasure hunt. Humpphhhh...... "Ok, give me your number and I will whatsapp you what I can arrange" he said. Talk about technology being used well, I thought as I gave him my number. So now we wait to see if we hit a treasure or not.