PHILATELY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2728, 27 June 1906, Page 66

PHILATELY.

I Br Pelcex.

Philatelists owe a deep debt of gratitude I to Mr Hamilton., director oi the Colonial Museum, Wellington, for instituting a col- ( kction of our New Zealand stamps at tht^ museum. Most of the European museums have very fine collections in their possession, notably tile British, with its unique "Tapling" bequest, valued at over £100,000 "The Germans also have a very fine national collection at Berlin, and have been spending very heavy sums to improve same during the last few years. Mr Hamilton is a keen and enthusiastic collectoY himself, so the newly-instituted philatelic departure of our national museum is in first-class hands. Are we to lose King Peter's portrait from the stamps of Servia? If wo are to believe the Vienna correspondent of the Daily Mail, a new revolution :s: s being planned to replace Jling Peter with a German prince, with 'a preference for Prince Francis Joseph of Battonberg. The Servians, it is said, are tired of being boycotted by the rest of Europe. All the Courts of Europe, says <he correspondent, have -efused to receive a visit from King Peter or to havo any direct dealinss -with him, for the opinion prevails that he knew of the plan for the murder of King Alexander. This new revolution is credited with the intention of driving King Peter and his family out of Servia before another year is o^*r. Alas, poor Peter! There has been a run on Danish stamps in consequence of the death of the King, but wo should doubt if the stamps will be changed before Christmas. In the caee of Great Britain, almost a year elapsed before the Edwardian stamps appeared. The King's Head stamps of Denmark will thus not have so ehort a life as might at first be supposed. The stamps of Iceland and Danish West Indies also bear the head of the dead king and are worth putting by, although not likely to. be ohsoltte for come. time to -come. Altogether, Scandinavia — one of the most popular groups of European stamps — promises to provide many interesting changes before long. I Of late years ice have had many changes ia the names of countries. First, Niger 1 Coast Protectorate was split up, and we got Northern and Southern Nigeria in the reconstruction-. Then, on the East Coast of Africa, British East Africa and Uganda vreTe merged into one and renamed on the i postage stamps East Africa and Uganda, and British Somalilaud became simply Somaliland. Canada, always to the fore with portraits of our late Queen Victoria, likewise enjoj-s the unique distinction of having given to the world two stamp portraits of Prince Albert the Good. These appear on the . 6d purple of 1851, and the 10c brown of ' 1859. I have seen it stated emphatically 1 that those portraits are those of Lord Elgin, bat as my information dates from i tho year 1865, and :s borne out by the leading catalogues, it eeeras probable that the flat contradiction ie due to some mistake. From the history of Stanley Gibbons (Ltd.) it would appear that Mr Gibbons started selling stamps when he was 16 years of age, which was in 1856. Mr Gibbons was born in Plymouth, he went to London in 1874, and in 1890 the business was converted into a limited company, Mr Phillips, the present general manager, taking the whole of the ordinary share capital. That gentleman was born in Birmingham in 1863. and according to his own acoouni began dealing in stamps while employed in the Assay office there. He moved to Londou on the 30th June, 1890, and, as already 6tated, purchased the business of Stanley Gibbons and Co. The above will serve to show tha-fc philately has something more than a- mushroom existence. We have received a finely-printed volume bearing the title of "The Stamps of the Duchy of Modena and the Provinces." It is an English translation of i the remarkable work by Dr E. Dicna, I thoroughly'T.-evised and broucht up to dale.

The work is a marvel of thoroughness and coinpleten-ess, and deservise to be in the hands of everyone who possesses any 2J.0ilena stamps. Those collectors too, who do not possess any Modena stamps would gam a useful lesson from the work in i I»ow to specialise. j We ehall be none the worse for a little ! bievity in some of our stamp nomencla- J ture. We have got tired of such mouth- •' fills as we have been accustomed to, but they are all on the wane. Van Dieman's Land has become Tasmania ; Vancouver and British Columbia and Prince Edward Island have been merged into Canada; O'ape of Good Hope for ordinary purposes, lias given place to Cape Colony, though th^" old and more or less obsolete design aiy?n i? still retained on the postage Fi^inps. Some day British South Africa wiiir become Rhodesia, and so on. The stamps of the Straits Settlements I are all of a jumble. Some low values arc of the iarge Head of King design and others with the small head, and there socms to be no move in the direction of completing the* series in the larger head type. I suspect the colonial authorities have found the plan they inaugurated of having a separate framework for each stamp a little too costly, and have had to play their hand »vith their projected variety of designs. .Some of the varieties of our New Zea--'and stamrs are fetching long prices, and ih-cre is a keen though quiet competition for many of the scarcer kinds. Just now they are being written up in an excellent series of articles in the Stamp Collectors' Fortnightly by Mr W. B. Edwards, •i shrewd specialist in recent New Zealands. British Somaliland has no eounection, political or geographical, with India, notwithstanding that the Indian stamps were surcharged for the first two issues of British Somalilarwl. The philatelic connection between India and British Somalilaud is explained on -;he score that India was aaked to help the Britieh Somaliland Protectorate Government by belling it some quantity of its stamps at cost price and surcharging them. It did to. It made no profit out of the transaction, and it kept 1 no copies for itself. "We were asked recently what countries constitute "Australasia " The term means Australia (New South Wales. Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and West Australia), Tasmania (federated with the five previous States under the title of tho Commonwealth of Australia), New Zealand and adjareni- Islands — viz.. Aitutaki. British New Guinea, Cook Islands, Fiji. New Cale- : donia, German New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Somoa, Niue, Penrhyn Island, and Tonga. I The wood-block triangular Cape of Good j Hope one penny, blue instead of red, and 1 four pence, red instead of blue, are the j be/t-known examples of curious eolour3. ' Here is the story. In 1861 the stock of one penny and four pence stamps became exhausted. Th© plates from which these j stamps were printed were in En(?l*nd. A Capetown firm was therefore commissioned to prepare a provisional issue for use until a fresh supply could be received from England. A steel die for each value was engraved, and 64 impressions of each of ; tliese engraved dies were taken and { cemented on to- a wood block to form the printing plate for each value. By some means one of the impressions of the penny stamp was placed among those of the fourpenny,' and vice versa. After about 200 sheets of the penny valu-es were printed off in red ie was discovered that a fourpenny stamp in xed figured amongst them. Some 380 sheets of the fourpenny stamp ( also showed on each uheet. These "'errors ' are very rare. NEW ISSUES. Italy has issued a fine 15c stamp. The type consists of a rectangle 19 by 25 millimetres, with tlie bust of King Victor Emmanuel 111 ia tlie undress uniform of ■'. geneial, and wkh his face looking to tiie right ou the ground representing the sea. and show hi;* etormv waters behind the face, while those in front of the forehead are calm and lighted up by the sun. On the upper right-hand side there is a dieo of tho sun. \vi* a the royal crowu in ils centre. A label on top bears the inscription "Poste Italiane" in r»o lines, on the left is "Cent," and on the right is **15." This inscription is in white letters. The colour chosen is slate-blt'e. The stamps will be- printed on white paper witEout watermark. The firm which is preparing these stamps has been established recently iv Rome under ihe uame of "Officina, C'aligrafica Italian*." Siam. — I have received six new values for this eastern country — latt to 24a±t. The King is porlmycd in profile within a email medallion in the upper portion of tho stamp, this being supported by two native children.