BOOM IN STAMPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 106, 6 May 1943, Page 4

BOOM IN STAMPS

BRITAIN'S EXPORT FORTUNES FLY ATLANTIC Fortunes in stamps are flying the Atlantic. Collections of rare, and also new, issues are being sent from Britain to the United States almost every day of the week, and the value of the business is amounting to about £250,000 a year, writes F. G. PrinceWhite in the Daily Mail. Stamps, in fact, have become a considerable item on Britain's list of wartime exports. A French colonial collection flown to New York early this year was expected to fetch £5000.

Allied Governments In London have made special issues which are tokens of their enslaved countries' spirit of resistance, and of their faith in ultimate victory. The Fighting French, for instance, now have their own stamps for use in most of the territories of the French Empire under their control— the Cameroons, Equatorial Africa, the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland, and so on. A new issue is due for Madagascar. Previously they had overprinted the old stamps with the words, "France Libre." Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Czecho-slovakia —all have set the imprint of their national dignity and independence of soul on postage stamps, printed for them in London. Export Precautions Britain's export trade in stamps is extremely well organised—and controlled. A voluntary panel of leading experts sits daily in London, under the auspices of the British Philatelic Association and acting on behalf of the Board of Trade, and examines all stamps to be exported. The chief aim of this supervision is to ensure that not a single stamp sent out of Britain is under-valued. But for this watch, constantly kept, the Treasury might easily be defrauded of many thousands of muchneeded America dollars by "stampsmugglers." It would be—but for the panel of experts—a simple matter for an unscrupulous person to send to a confederate in the United States stamps worth, say, £500, having declared their value to be only £50. This would mean that the Treasury would get merely £50 worth of dollars—while the smuggler would have £450 safely locked up in a hidden dollar account.

No Smuggling No one leaving Great Britain is permitted to take away valuable stamps, for they are rightly regarded as a national asset. The rule is relaxed, in certain circumstances, in favour of refugees passing through the country. Some months ago a Lithuanian philatelist turned up in London with a collection worth £1200. He was on his way to the Pacific Coast, and was at first greatly perturbed to find that his beloved stamps would have to be examined, for he was in a hurry. He continued his journey without them, accepting the British official word that they would be sent on to him. Later there was a cable from him: "Thank you for stamps. I knew they would come."