KING GEORGE'S STAMPS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 29 (Supplement)

KING GEORGE'S STAMPS

COLLECTION WORTH £400,000 There is considerable speculation in philatelist circles in England regarding the future of the late King's wonderful stamp collection. Experts agree that his collection of United Kingdom and British Empire stamps—he did not collect the stamps of foreign countries —is by far the finest in the world. It is housed at Buckingham Palace, in a special ground-floor room overlooking the great quadrangle, and is estimated, unofficially, to bo worth about £400,000. The collection is kept in upwards of 600 60-page volumes, bound in Royal red half Morocco covers. The number of stamps in each volume varies considerably, but the average is somewhere between 750 and 1200. The total number in the collection is probably between 500,000 and 750,000. Though the collection has never been exhibited to the general public, portions of it have been shown annually to the members of the Royal Philatelic Society, of which King George was patron and formerly president. A few distinguished British and foreign collector's have been privileged to see it at Buckingham Palace, but since it would take at least a week to inspect it thoroughly, they have only been able to examine sections of it.

Many of the rarest and most valuable stamps in the collection wero filmed in colour last year by the Post Office. The film, which is entitled "The King's Stamps," takes 22 minutes to show, and is to be exhibited hourly at the big international philatelic exhibition in New York, which President Roosevelt, himself a keen philatelist, is to open on May 9. Mr. Frank Godden, the London stamp expert, takes the part of the philatelist in this film.