A Letter From 1842 Brought To Life

A Property Dispute Involving an Earl, an Admiral and a Mystery Claimant

This entire (meaning a folded letter-sheet) was sent in April 1842 from solicitor James Burn of Edinburgh to solicitors Russel & Aitken of Falkirk.

The address reads Messrs Russel & Aitken, Writers, Falkirk. “Writers” is an abbreviation for “Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet”, a private society of Scottish solicitors formed in 1594 that still exists. The abbreviation “WS” can be seen after solicitor’s names in the letter, and members of the Society still use the letters today.

The stamp is SG8, 1d red-brown imperforate, issued in late 1841. It is cancelled with an Edinburgh Maltese Cross (this stamp was illustrated in my Marcophily blog)

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The German South Polar Expedition of 1911

Brave Men in a Very Small Boat

In early May 1911, the bark "Deutschland" set sail from Bremerhaven en route to Antarctica.

The goal of the second German South Polar Expedition was to map the continent via an overland route from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, and confirm that it was one piece of land.

The leader, and organiser, of the expedition was Wilhelm Filchner (1877-1957) who, at the age of 34, had already been involved in expeditions to Russia, Central Asia and Tibet.

Wilhelm Filchner

By any measure, the expedition was a failure. After visiting South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, they were beset by pack ice for nine months. The only real success of the expedition was disproving the existence of South Greenland, which had been included in maps since 1823.

During their visit to Grytviken in South Georgia, the crew were busy posting postcards home.

Although many cards have been on the market in recent years, and have achieved five-figure sums, this may be the ultimate postcard from the expedition.

The picture side, showing the "Deutschland", is autographed by ten members of the expedition. A total of thirty-five crew and scientists were on board. 

Specialised Catalogues

Every Home Should Have One (at least!)

My primary collecting area is the King George V period, so my preferred catalogue is the Stanley Gibbons British Empire & Commonwealth 1840-1970 catalogue. Widely respected, and considered the best resource for Commonwealth issues, the SG is, however, not the only catalogue required if you want to delve even further into a particular country or period.

This is not news, but it did come into focus for me when browsing The Gibbons Stamp Monthly archive on CD (available at  www.stanleygibbons.com) . The archive includes every article from the Gibbons Monthly Journal, Gibbons Stamp Weekly and Gibbons Stamp Monthly from 1890 to 2009, and it’s a mind-boggling resource that I heartily recommend.

My favourite column in the archive is “Under the Magnifying Glass”, where reader-submitted errors and varieties are scrutinised and discussed. What I noticed was that many varieties, including naked-eye varieties, are identified with sheet positions, confirmed as constant, yet they have never seen the light of day in the catalogue.

This intrigues me, but I assume that the catalogue would need to become a multi-volume tome if all of the accepted, recognised varieties were to be included.

So how do you become aware of what other varieties exist that should sit side-by-side with the SG-listed varieties in your collection? There’s really only one answer. Specialised catalogues, especially those issued in the relevant country, should be your next port of call.