PHILATELY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 53

PHILATELY.

By Old Stamp

FEDERAL STAMPS FOR AUSTRALIA.

The Australian Philatelist for March has a very readable article on this subject, from which I take the following :—

"During the past month the federation movement has advanced rapidly, as the conference now bitting in Adelaide testifies. Should the constitution to be drawn up by the delegates meet with the acceptance of the people, the Federated Suites of Australia will, in the course of a year or so, become one stamp-issuing body, instead of five as at present. So far Queensland has stood out from the movement, bat there is no reason to doubt that, if the constitution be adopted by the five States now engaged in its preparation, the last of the mainland States will join the federation. One of the first matters to be taken into consideration under the new state of affairs will naturally be the postal and telegraph system, and with uniformity of tariff and one administration guiding the operations of the systtm, there must necessarily be but one series of postage (stamps for all the states of the , federation. The history of the postal systems I of the world is full of precedents for the adop- I tion oi a federal postal issue. The North German Confederation, which in 1868 absorbed the stamp-issuing states and towns of Prussia, Hanover, Hamburg, Lubeck, Bergedorf, Bremen, Saxony, Brunswick, Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg - Schwerin, and Strelitz ; the Dominion of Canada, into which were merged the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward liland, British Columbia, and Vancouver ; and the Swiss Confederation, which caused the tupercession of the various cantonal emissions, are the chief instances, while there j are others of lees importance.

"From a philatelic point of view, any movement which tends to consolidate a number of different st&inp-isßuicg countries into one, and thus lessen the number of emissions, can only be hailed with satisfaction, while from the standpoint of public convenience the benefits to accrue are too obvious to require enumeration. The saving of cost in the production of the stamps alone will be no inconsiderable economy to be taken into account. At present New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia

separately maintain a large number of workmen aud extensive plant for the purpose. With very slight additions oue of these establishments would be C3pnble of producing all the stamps required, aud although the separate institutions would be still maintained for the production of revenue stamps required for local use, the federal postal establishment would be relieved of a large item of expense now charged to each admiuisfc-ation. "The occasion will be a very fitting one for an exhaustive inquiry into all the debatable questions with regard to the relative advantages of plate or surface printing, fugitive or fast colours, chemically prepared or ordinary paper, and simple or complex designs. No doubt the capabilities of our local artists will be tested when the design is under consideration, and it is devoutly to be hoped that the growing taste for natural designs of photographic flatness and the meretricious baldness of the De la Rue types will be abandoned in favour of something akin to those ever-beautiful and ttuly artistic designs of the early Perkins and Bacon print " ' . • A cable from Sydney informs us that the New South Wales Postmaster- general is limiting the new issue of stamps to the J.d, Id, and 2£i values. The Monthly Journal says : — " It is only to be expected that there will be, in the course of this year, some commemoration of her Majesty's long and prosperous reign of a more or less philatelic nature ; and so loDg as they are not too evidently speculative our loyalty will hardly permit us to condemn them" Canada, we are told, proposes to issue a new permanent series iv honour of the occasion, probably with the portrait that now appears ou the 20^ au<l 500 stamps." ■ . • The latest fad for preserving old postage stamps is by using them as a decoration for Jnrniture. The stamps are secured to the different articles with the aid of glue, aud are then covered with heavy varnish. When the Y»rDish is dry the articles thus adorned can be washed **sthout injury. Besides preserving the stamps the varnish serves to heighten the colours, and gives the wood an appearance of having b«u inlaid. A vtsll-kaown London barrister has a houseful of furniture decorated in this way, fche articL-s havjeg a very pretfcy r-ffect, besides being of considerable value, ou account of the rare nature of sqme of thfl adhesive bits of paper gummed on. Among the collection is a light rosewood chair covered with some of the rarest; stamps in existence, and estimated at five times ita weight in gold. This article, which is covered all over except one leg, bears a collection tbat has taken 20 years to accumulate, and when finished will be *s valuable as if ib were studded with gems. • . " There is no such thing in the United Kingdom as an obsolete postage stamp. None of the various descriptions ot pottage stanays ever issued by the postal authorities of this country have ever been called in or cancelled, though many sorts are scarce, since fresh ones have cuased to bo issued. Any persons having in their pos'ession any unusid postage stamps, whether blacks or reds, or Mulready envelopes, ran if they wich use them for postage, though it is not probable they will do bo, seeing that they ars worth much more to collectors than their face value, which is all the postal authorities recognise. A Muiready Id envelope is worth hvm 81)8 1 ) to £1. . -A stamo "dealer tested this point by sending one of the old Mulready t nvelopes through the post addressed to himself in order to see what would happen. At first the local postal authorities refused to recognise it, and made a. charge of 2d ou delivery. The then appealed to the chifff office, and his 2d was returned to him, and his letter was officially stamped with the words ' ' Charged in error, the stamped envelope being genuine." " . ' Mr E. D. Bicon, who has charge of aud is arranging the Tapling colleciion in the British Museum, thinks he would be well within the mark if he placed the value of that collection between £75,000 and £100,000.