Chats on Postage Stamps

by Frederick John Melville

In the following year (1856) he was exchanging stamps with another collector.

The late editor of Le Timbre-Poste (Brussels), M. J. B. Moëns, started collecting about 1855, and produced the earliest of the continental periodicals devoted exclusively to philately from 1863-1900. His earliest English rival of any pretensions, The Stamp Collector's Magazine, was edited by Dr. C. W. Viner, whose interest in the subject began about 1855 by assisting a lady friend to form a chart representative of the postage-stamps of the world. This simple form of collecting was evidently much in vogue in the later 'fifties and remained during the next decade, and a photograph of one of these taken in the 'sixties will be found among the illustrations. It was not until 1860 that Dr. Viner took up the pursuit on his own behalf. And with 1860 and the next few years we have evidences of the spread of the newer form of stamp-collecting, which was to give the pursuit the scientific interest and value which were to ensure its permanence and to make it in the present year of grace the most widely popular of all collecting hobbies. In those days collections were limited by the comparatively small number of stamps that had been issued, but even then the phantom of completeness was not within reach. "I remember counting my stamps with much glee when they reached a hundred," wrote Dr. Viner in 1889. "I saw some collections with two or three hundred, and heard of one with five hundred. Cancelled specimens were principally seen; but I can recall one collection rich in unused Naples, Sicily, Tuscany, and other Italian States purchased at their several post-offices by a young traveller."

A POSTAGE STAMP "CHART"—ONE OF THE EARLY FORMS OF STAMP-COLLECTING.

It is very significant that the collectors of this early period of whom any records are preserved were mostly men of culture and of position. The boy was still the main influence and in a majority, but he was in stamp-collecting the father to the man. The historic and scientific possibilities of the pursuit were still but dimly recognised by the mass of collectors. An active exchange of stamps had been carried on from about 1860 in Birchin Lane, London, where crowds of youngsters used to meet and exchange stamps. They were frequently joined by their elders. Fifty to a hundred barterers of all ages and ranks and of both sexes were there in the evenings of the spring of 1862. "We have seen one of Her Majesty's Ministry there," says The Stamp Collector's Magazine of 1863. Characteristic examples of the conversation at these gatherings were given in the same magazine: "Have you a yellow Saxon?"—"I want a Russian"—"I'll give a red Prussian for a blue Brunswicker"—"Will you exchange a Russian for a black English?"—"I wouldn't give a Russian for twenty English." The date attributed to these overheard remarks is 1861. The police intervened later and the exchanging had to be done more or less surreptitiously. But still the group formed in the neighbouring alleys, and still included the Cabinet Minister and "ladies, album in hand," and it is recorded that one of the ladies "contrived to effect a highly advantageous exchange of a very so-so specimen for a rarity, with a young friend of ours, who salvoed his greenness with the apologetic remark that he could not drive a hard bargain with a lady."

Similar scenes went on in the gardens of the Tuilleries at Paris, and in other cities they centred around establishments set up by the earliest dealers in postage stamps. Birchin Lane contained the business premises of at least one dealer—a lady—and there was in Paris, in the rue Taitbout, Mme. Nicholas, a little person, "rather lean, very active, lively and intelligent," of whom M. Mahé tells in his reminiscences. For a long period she held "le sceptre dans le royaume des timbres, royaume où la loi salique n'exerce pas ses injustes rigueurs." A woman with considerable talent for business, she and her husband kept a modest little reading-room in a small shop in the rue Taitbout. To this business she added, possibly at the suggestion of one of the Paris amateurs of the period, the business in stamps. Her shop became the regular meeting-place of the dilettanti, and these were men of substance and intelligence who were not to be charged with following "fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle for girls of nine."

In London, too, there was a coterie of amateurs among whom were men of distinction. We might trace the birth of the higher ideals in stamp collecting in London to the rectory adjoining All Hallows Staining. Charles Dickens described the church, all of which save the tower is now demolished, as "a stuffy little place." The perpetual curate in charge of this old City living at the time of which I write was the Rev. F. J. Stainforth, one of the most zealous promoters of the hobby, "assisting the movement by his well-known readiness to bid high for any real or supposed rarity." Mr. Stainforth gathered around him the chief of the serious collectors of the period, and his influence on the beginnings of the study is probably greater than most collectors of the present day are aware. Cultured, amiable, and generous, his rectory was a rendezvous for all seeking information on the subject of stamps and for those who had information to impart. Perhaps a too abundant good-nature occasionally resulted in the host being imposed upon, for it is said that, "utterly devoid of guile himself, he frequently became the prey of much younger, but more worldly-wise, heads."

But if there were those who abused the welcome of the rectory, there were others who imparted a lustre to the little gatherings in the upper room. Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., the first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, was one of these. He returned from Australia about 1860-61, and formed an important collection of stamps. He was elected first President of the Philatelic Society when that body was formed in 1869. The legal profession was frequently represented at the rectory by Mr. Philbrick, afterwards his Honour Judge Philbrick, K.C., and Mr. Hughes-Hughes, who had been called to the Bar in 1842. There was also a physician in Dr. Viner, a young merchant in Mr. Mount Brown, and a youngster in his 'teens, who occasionally travelled to town to attend the Saturday afternoon gatherings and who quickly displayed an intuition for the scientific in philately which few have surpassed, and made the name of E. L. Pemberton one of the most distinguished in the annals of philately.

The cult was not confined to the metropolis. Most of the early dealers began operations in the country. The first published list of stamps for collectors came from a young artist residing in Brighton. Mr. Frederick Booty was aged twenty when he issued his "Aids to Stamp Collectors" in April, 1862. Mr. Mount Brown was twenty-five when his "Catalogue of British, Colonial, and Foreign Stamps" appeared in May of the same year. The wide difference of years among the enthusiasts of this time is notable in the third of the early English chroniclers, Dr. Gray, the eminent naturalist and all-round scientist of the British Museum, who published his first "Hand Catalogue of Postage Stamps" towards the end of 1862, the author being then sixty-two years of age.