Stamp Dealing as Work ...

Friday 4th September

04.30. 

Get up, shower, tea and biscuits

05.00.

Leave home, drive into Central London, a 60 mile / 100 km journey which this morning takes one hour and fifty minutes (which is good: this is England. We don't do fast roads).

06.50

Unload car, park car, set up my table at Central London's monthly stamp fair  at Russell Square (near both Euston and Kings Cross / St Pancras Stations). Officially, it's called the Strand Stamp Fair but it is many years since it was held in The Strand. Some people call it The Bourse. Go to www.stampshows.net to find the details

07.05

Start trading. At this small but busy fair I sell cheap material, most of it at £2 and spread over my 2m x 2m table. I guess there are 5000 items on the table, lots of it Great Britain but also Russia and Eastern Europe. The prices are good value - Gunstig! - and I sell to both dealers and collectors. Most people here are "Regulars" which is a challenge: every month  I have to find something new. Today I have a new stock of covers from Turkey (bought in Switzerland and delayed for two weeks by our Soviet-style Customs), German pre-philatelic (also Switzerland, also delayed), Third Reich (covers to Finland bought in Finland and not delayed, thanks to the EU), and new Great Britain (bought in Germany and not delayed)

08.00

Eat the breakfast sandwich I have bought with me

11.00

The room gets busier as people arrive after travelling free or more cheaply on off-peak trains  and buses. No one wants to pay the huge fares which apply early in the morning. We dealers who drive in arrive by 07.00 to avoid the heavy traffic of the 07.00 - 10.00 period.

13.00  

I close my shop. Yep. If I stay later, the journey home in the Friday traffic is just horrible and at 68 years old I have lost my youthful enthusiasm for traffic nightmares.

13.35

 After a very quick lunch on the premises, I load up my car and set off home

16.15

Home. Two hours 40 minutes after leaving London, which is good - on a really bad Friday, it can take three hours.

A cup of tea, read my emails and then unload my car, put my boxes away, sit down with my red Accounts Book and do the Income and Expenditure columns for the day.

*

My next drive to London will be for LONDON STAMPEX at the Business Design Centre in Islington from 16 to 19 September. I have a Stand in the Gallery, near the cafe. I will have with me my Russian and related areas stock and also my new Latin America stock. There will be a one - price (£7.50) All World range too!

Where You Can Meet Me in 2013

Click on Image to Magnify

My London Shop - The Strand Stamp Fair

This is where you can meet me in London - just click on the image to read the dates easily. I hope to have a table at all the Strand Stamp Fairs in 2013, except in March. I open my shop at about 08.00 and close about 15.00

I take a different selection of stock every month - I really do - so if you are going to visit send me an email a week or so in advance and I will make sure to bring things likely to be of interest to you. For example, at yesterday's Strand Fair, four collectors sent advance emails and for all four of them I found something they wanted - in a couple of cases, very much wanted!

You will find other dealers at The Strand who have Russia and East Europe in their stock. The Fair takes place right in the centre of London, close to Euston, St Pancras International, the British Museum and Covent Garden. Make a visit in 2013!

Visitez Londres! But not just yet ....

As from November 2012, London's monthly philatelic Bourse, The Strand Stamp Fair, will be held on Fridays - not Wednesdays. It will still be held in the Royal National Hotel which is just a short taxi ride (or 15 minute walk)from St Pancras International station (OK: I know the unnecessary Border Controls make it less convenient than it could be. Sorry!) and 3 minutes walk from Russell Square underground station.

The first Friday Bourse will be held on 23 November and the next on 14 December. The dates for 2013 are shown above.

So now you can attend London's leading stamp fair (where many dealers will accept €uros) AND spend the weekend in London!

See you soon!

Farewell, London Philatex!

London's Philatex stamp and cover show closed its doors yesterday for the last time. The Royal Horticultural Society has sold the Hall in which, for many years, it has been held. The organisers (Helen Davis, Kate Pulleston, Chris Rainey) have no immediate plans to re-open it elsewhere.

Held twice a year over three days each time, it was the first show at which I took a Stand, sometime back in the 1990s. At one point, I had two Stands: my regular booth and an adjoining booth, flying the name easystamps where everything was sold at £5 an item. It didn't last long: I couldn't get the volume of trade required to make it profitable.

London's second pair of stamp shows, Stampex, held in north London will obviously benefit from Philatex's closure - dealers who only traded at Philatex will no doubt try migrating to Stampex.

Others will investigate joining London's Strand Stamp Fair, held just a kilometre or so away from London St Pancras International terminal and less than that from London Euston.

This is where you can find me most months - it is my only London shop.

For details of dates and location, go to www.stampshows.net

The Strand Stamp Fair: A Show I like

I just came home from London's monthly "Strand Stamp Fair" held at the Royal National Hotel, near Russell Square Underground and close to Euston and St Pancras stations.

I like this show, even though I have to get up very early for it, or else stay in a London hotel the night before.

To avoid London's traffic congestion, dealers arrive very early for the show from all over the UK (and sometimes from France, Belgium and the Netherlands). They are setting up shop between 07.00 and 08.00 and most start the journey home around 14.00 - 15.00 to avoid the London evening traffic.

It's a lively little show with 30 or so dealers including top names like Cover Story. Though there are plenty of GB and Commonwealth specialists, there are also dealers specialising in foreign material and also general all world dealers with big stocks.

If you are going to be in London during 2013 make anote of teh Show dates: 11 Jan, 15 Feb, 22 March [ I will not be there], 12 April, 10 May, 7 June, 12 July, 16 August, 13 September, 11 October, 15 November, 13 December.

 Go to www.stampshows.net for more information

London, a city with 26 days of stamp shows every year

I just came back from London STAMPEX where I had a Stand. It's a four day show in North London (nearest rail stations: Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross) and happens twice a year.

London also hosts London PHILATEX, a three day show held twice a year in South London (nearest station Victoria)

Once a month, the mis-named Strand Stamp Fair takes place in a Central London hotel off Russell Square (nearest stations: Euston, St Pancras, Kings Cross)

The first two shows are held in very pleasant exhibition halls but with poor access for dealers to unload their stock. Neither exhibition hall has its own dedicated parking and the available local parking is expensive, as - of course - are London hotels.

The Strand Fair, held in the Royal National Hotel, has easy access for unloading and (by London standards) relatively cheap on site parking. The room in which it is held is acceptable and there is a good and cheap on-site restaurant.

The big problem is this: for all but a very few specialist GB and Commonwealth dealers and a very few dedicated and well-off collectors, 26 days of London shows is just too much. Dealers are stretched to find new stock at the rate demanded by the exhibition schedule and all but a few collectors are stretched to fund buying trips to London for more than one or two of the shows. Smaller dealers atttending these big shows are probably now often going away having made a loss, as I did at Stampex last week. The number of visitors coming through the door is pitifully small.

As someone who is going to get older every year and beginning to reduce my level of activity, especially unprofitable activity, it's a no-brainer: I am saying Good Bye to STAMPEX and PHILATEX, at least until such time as the four shows reduce to two - or, alternatively, until such time as one or two of the four shows relocates to Birmingham or Manchester or Cheltenham or Warwick.

I will stick with the Strand Stamp Fair, which is a cheaper day out. Even then, it involves getting up before 5 in the morning in order to get into Central London before the rush hour. But maybe with the elimination of unprofitable STAMPEX and PHILATEX, I can now afford to travel up to London the night before and stay in a hotel :)