Stamp Exhibitions: Could these be the new FIP Rules for Judging Exhibits ...

Recently, I bought some material from the estate of a collector who had won Gold Medals in international stamp exhibitions. It surprised me that much of the postal history I had acquired was of below average quality. It was obvious that some of this was the fault of the collector: he had opened out envelopes, re-folded entire letters, trimmed roughly opened envelopes, scribbled on his material as if it was scrap paper. How do you get to win Gold Medals if you do that, I wondered?

I took a look at the FIP (Federation Internationale de Philatelie) rules for exhibits in the Traditional Philately and Postal History classes. They say that exhibits should aim to show material of the “highest available quality”. But when it comes to the allocation of Points by juries, only 10 points out of 100 are awarded for “Condition”.

I therefore propose a very simple rule change:

FIP wishes to encourage recognition of the  fact that stamps and covers are autonomous, historically interesting artefacts which deserve careful treatment, handling and conservation in a state as close as possible to that in which they originally existed. In order to discourage dealer, expert and collector damage to items, FIP will increase the points allocated to the category “Condition” from 10 to 30, reducing other categories as indicated in the revised schedule.

Specifically, FIP Juries will regard all of the following as things which reduce the Condition of a particular item and make it ineligible for the award of Maximum points:

Stamps: hinges on mint stamps; absence of gum on stamps which were originally gummed; ownership, dealer or expert handstamps; ink and pencilled notes of any kind. Exhibits should be mounted in such a way as to enable Jurors to examine the backs of stamps.

Postal History: opening out of covers, trimming, re-folding; owner, dealer or expert handstamps; all ink and pencil markings including dealer prices and expert signatures (especially when in close proximity to stamps); evidence of the use of an eraser to remove pencilled markings. Exhibits should be mounted in such a way as to enable Jurors to examine the backs of covers and cards.

Where a photographic Expert certificate is held, it should be mounted on the back of the relevant page of the exhibit. No other form of Expertising (handstamps, signatures) will be accepted.

Exhibitors are advised that in some cases it may cause further damage to an item to erase a pencilled note and they should use their judgment in deciding whether or not to erase. In some instances, they may wish to indicate on their Exhibit why they have decided not to erase such graffiti.

Er, that’s it. 

Philately and Creative Destruction

Economists talk about “creative destruction”. By this they mean that over time whole industries disappear and get replaced by new ones, generally more productive and generally improving the quality of life. Candle-making factories disappear and are replaced with electricity generating stations. And so on.

And most industries thrive on the fact that their products get used up or wear out: agriculture only exists because food gets eaten; shoe factories because shoes wear out.

Philately is very unusual. Every year, the available world supply of stamps and stamp products (“produits philatéliques” they call them in France) increases. It increases very many times faster than the world’s population and has done so for most of the time since stamps were invented. As a result, since demand cannot keep up with supply, there is a long-term tendency for stamp prices to fall. (Marx, however, didn’t notice it – he was writing too close to the invention of the postage stamp).

Some destruction goes on: most stamps don’t survive for more than a few hours or days after the envelope to which they are stuck arrives. The same is true of the envelope. Those which do get preserved are then sometimes destroyed by fire, floods, insects, dealers and collectors. But not enough of them!

There are just too many stamps. Some are thankfully locked away in attics and bank vaults where they deteriorate and do no harm. Others are constantly churned through small collections and small auctions, their quality deteriorating with each churn. A very, very few are in large, serious collections and change hands – with remarkable frequency – in large, serious auctions.

I sometimes think that philately would benefit from creative destruction. A world-wide bacterial plague which eats up stamps, a Pandemic plague which spares very little but very definitely eats up all those terrible “schoolboy” collections and shoebox “hoards” and definitely all the Produits Philatéliques of all those countries which produce horrible looking stamps (you choose the ones).

Then the Plague would come to an end and  we could start again with a worldwide stock of stamps more proportionate to the number of collectors, their capacities and their budgets.

But like most collectors, I find it very difficult to destroy stamps or covers. This week, my new stock included a few thousand cheap covers bought in a few big Lots, cheap at auction. Cheap and in some cases, nasty.

I threw away the ones with fungus or lots of water damage but not the ones with creases or tears or sellotape stains from tears which had been “repaired” or notes written in biro …  in other words, the ones which had passed through too many careless hands. 

But I hope a day will come when I do throw them in the bin because they are things of no interest to a sensible collector and their destruction would be a creative act. If everyone did it, then it would reduce the amount of time we waste having to look at rubbish to find something which isn't rubbish.