WEIRD? SOMETIMES. WONDERFUL? ALWAYS!

The in-depth guide to weird and wonderful stamps in this issue proves just how fascinating our hobby can be. What might appear like a simple pastime is as diverse and challenging as we want it to be, and there’s a long list of stories to be told and many more still waiting to be discovered. It’s such fun to share these chapters in history and explore how we can add these intriguing pieces to our collection.

Afghanistan’s early stamps are perhaps my favourite story from the article. The idea of ripping a piece of the stamp off the envelope to show that it had been used will have made perfect sense at the time, but years later it will have left many stamp collectors baffled. Imagine if we’d have used this simple method to cancel Penny Blacks!

The article was inspired by our recent webinar on the subject, with the Museum of Philately’s experts Devlan Kruck and Marcus Orsi revealing these quirks of philately.the ‘Adventures in Philately’ webinar series was so much fun and we’re currently working on a new series of online talks, so stay tuned for more information, and be sure to let me know if you have ideas or subjects in mind.

We’ll continue the ‘off the beaten track’ theme in next month’s issue with an examination of ‘back of the book’ material, and whilst we’re looking forward to March’s issue, it’s worth mentioning there’s still time to guarantee your copy of the ‘bumper’ issue, which will include the official London 2022 exhibition catalogue. You can find details of how to subscribe to Stamp Collector on page 54.