THE ROMANCE OF MY STAMPS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3130, 14 August 1922, Page 7

THE ROMANCE OF MY STAMPS.

(By a Collector). The King’s visit to the Royal Philatelic Society, where he is exhibiting two very ' rare Western Australia stamps, ought to convince people that the hobby of stamp collecting is not without its fascination. For my part I contend its chief appeal is to the romance in one’s nature. This is an unromantic age. My daily newspaper, concerned with the material consequences of the world war, tells me as much, and my friends, preoccupied with the struggle for a livelihood, confirm the judgment. Yet, for me, romance is as real as in the days when troubadours sang their lays, and knights, armed cap-a-pie, sallied forth to slay dragons and rescue maidens in distress. For why? I collect stamps. Looking through my album my eye is caught on every page by some philatelic treasure of which the l acquisition was in itself an adventure. That early 6Jd scarlet Newfoundland, now catalogued at some £2O, passed into my possession as the result of a business visit many years ago to an obscure Lancashire town where, happening to see a quantity of common or garden stamps displayed for sale in a small newsagent’s shop, I inquired of the proprietor whether he had any piore. Offered a box of assorted specimens for half a crown, I risked my money, and was rewarded by the aforementioned rarity, and a score of others of which the price has risen fourfold since that memorable day. On another occasion, to while away a tedious wait at a. wayside station for the 1 .ondon train, I sauntered into an auction of the contents of a private house', and, making a casual bid for a battered stamp-album that the auctioneer described as “just the thing for a schoolboy,” had it promptly knocked down to me. Judge of my feelings when I found in it, pasted down, it is true, but otherwise immaculate, a Is 9d green Ceylon, unperforated, of the '1857 issue, worth a ten-pound note today; two Sydney Views, and a variety of "early West Indian stamps to rejoice the heart of the most phlegmatic philatelist. It is possibilities like these that constitute romance for the _stamp-collector. and bring a spice of excitement into the most humdrum existence. Walking down the Strand, I glue my nose against the window** of the dealers who abound in that delectable thoroughfare, and gloat over the specimens displayed, to “see visions and dream dreams” that they are mine, neatly mounted, and occupying the vacant spaces that, alas! still mar the symmetry of ray loose-leaf album. Romance ! What romance can compare with that of the black and carmine 1 cent of British Guiana, the only known copy of which brought at the Ferrary ><aie in Paris the other d'ay £7,000'. In 1856 its value was one halfpenny. In 1922, after who knows what vicissitudes threatening it with destruction, it realises a moderate fortune. The Philosopher’s Stone able to transmute all metals into gold, search for which monopolised the energies of the mediaeval sages, was nothing to alchemy such as this. No, for the stamp-collector romance in this year of grace is still alive.