Australia’s Biggest Stamp Collection

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22941, 9 May 1949, Page 2

Australia’s Biggest Stamp Collection

One of the most valuable stamp collections in the world is housed in 14 fat albums in an unpretentious little room in the west end of Melbourne.

Few people have seen it; it cost little or nothing to form; it will never be sold, and its value can be only vaguely guessed at because it has never been examined and valued by experts.

This unusual stamp collection belongs to the" Postmaster-General’s Department, which means the people of Australia.

The department has been quietly adding the world’s stamps to its albums since Federation: Before there was a PMG, the Victorian postal authorities had been collecting postage stamps for 50 years. This collection was absorbed by the PMG when he took over the postal affairs of the nation.

The collection, which lies in strong safes in a small room at the G.P.O. in Spencer street, contains a specimen of every stamp issued in the world since the formation of the Postal Union in 1875. Possible exceptions are wartime issues of stamps of enemy nations. Thousands of stamps issued before the Postal Union began are also in the PMG collection.

It doesn’t cost anything to buy these stamps, because every time, a new stamp is issued copies are sent by the issuing nation to Switerland, which in turn distributes them to all members of. the Postal Union. Thus a priceless collection has been built up by the postal authorities. There are a few gaps. Some of the stamps issued by Victoria and other States before Federation are missing, but most of the old ones are filed away in the Spencer street roomThe collection, if sold on behalf of its owners, Mr. and Mrs. Australia, would realise a huge sum at present market values.

But it will never sold. The stamps, which would give a philatelist heart-seizure from excitement, will remain in their fat albums, guarded and filed by the Distributor of Stamps, and growing more and more valuable with every year that passes.