Featured The Stamp Magazine and Monthly Review

This was/is a British publication, similar to the U.S. Stamps Weekly but, obviously, published monthly.

I have a not quite complete run from 1946-1957. In 1946 it began incorporating the World Stamp Digest magazine. The November 1957 issue in front of me here is Volume 24, No. 274. An archive shows listing up to 1963, but there is a current Brit publication, Stamp Magazine which appears to be the successor of this periodical.

The magazine itself is slightly oversized. It is printed on newspaper stock, similar to Stamps Weekly. The length of issues varies quite a bit, unlike Stamps Weekly. November 1957 is a tasty 46 pages, with the inside covers also utilized.

The first twelve pages are advertisements. Then we get to columns and articles. Topics, of course, lean towards GB and territories, but there is worldwide coverage. The first difference I noticed from Stamps Weekly is the articles tend to be longer and quite a bit more specialized and ‘meaty.’ There is not as much two-column inch filler. Many, many articles for the specialist probably with information available nowhere else!

I will browse a handful of issues and note of interest, beginning with a cruise through November 1957 back when I was watching the Howdy Doody show with Buffalo Bob:

The cover of Nov 1957 features a Seychelles Provisional. Seychelles seemed to be at that time a hot area for British collectors. A full-page ad for Dublin Stamp Auctions. Prices ranged from £2 to £30 ‘valuation’ – for £30 was a collection of South Africa 1910-52 with ‘most issues well represented. For £3 Roumania 1862-39.

The first article in the November 1957 issue is a regular feature at the time, Front Page News, events and new issues. Next Canada’s Registration Stamps, The Royal Visits of Queen Elizabeth II, Great Britain Stand-Ins on early date stamps. Foreign Informant is about stamps and philatelic happenings in other countries. Follows, a short article on The Private Locals of Shuna. There are many articles on such interesting specialities. New Issue Guide is well illustrated, runs several pages and appears complete.

Another seven pages of advertisements then ‘Sagesse’ the stamp investment critic – not dissimilar to a feature in Stamps Weekly, then Latest Colonial & Dominion Releases, more pages of advertisements, Brunswick a well-written two-pages on their stamps. The issue concludes with several more pages of advertisements.

Cruising through 1957 for more specialty articles: Luxemburg’s Child Welfare Stamps, Turkish Libya, a multipart series on the Albanian Tangle (what a tortured philatelic history that country has!), The 1/2d Springbok of South Africa, Provisionals of British Honduras, How Jean de Sperati came to reproduce stamps with several pictures of him, including a baby picture! Also, Van Diemen’s Land ‘Natives’, The Story of ‘Dr. Magnus’ inventor of the perforation gauge, Czechoslovakia: The 1926-1926 Pictorial Issues, Definitive Stamps of St. Christopher, Stamps of Salonika, 1916 and so on and on.

Somewhere out there are collectors who would love to have the information in these old and mostly forgotten articles.

I very much enjoy reading such articles although it is frustrating in the sense I cannot dig deeper. So many paths in philately.

 

Molokai:

Thanks for the overview.

How those periodicals of the 20s thru the 60s got their news items is amazing. It had to come via telephone, the mails, and some personal travel. It would have been somewhat easier in the large metro areas, NYC, Chicago, St. Louis, London, Paris, etc., but where and how did the Weekly Philatelic Gossip in Holton, Kansas or the Western Stamp Collector in Albany, Oregon get their news?

Did The Stamp Magazine use the same stamp montage cover background each issue? Did it use staff writers for its articles, or mostly free lancers?

I note that the cost was in cents, not pence. Was it not published in the UK?

Don

 

Indeed, real work and coordination to gather all that information. I think we tend to forget things worked fairly well back-in-the-days without the Internet, 'Smart'phones, facebook, twitter and the like. Somehow it seems to make it more valuable, important... Quick story: During the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match, while the newspapers carried some of the games the next day, my Russian professor, Eugene Salome, called his friend in St. Petersburg and quickly transcribed the games over the telephone soon after they ended...thank goodness the university paid for the calls. We actually published the first book on the Match, on the streets of Boulder and Denver the day after the final game!

The Stamp Monthly address is Link House, 24 Store Street, London, W.C.I. Yes, odd the price is in cents. As you can see, November 1946 is 3D. Perhaps those headed to the States were printed with the cents price?

Most of the writers seem to be staff; many of them appear over the course of the ten-year run. Montage always the same, just the featured stamp and headline changes:

 

Very informative and very interesting.Whenever I go back to England,I always buy a copy of Stamp Magazine,stated on the top to be the world,s best philatelic magazine.Nowadays it costs 4.50UKL.
It has the usual features each month...GB New issues...auction highlights...world news...and a different feature highlight each month.The last issue I purchased was October 2017 and it had a very interesting feature about British stamps with design disasters.This issue had over 150 pages....unfortunately a lot of them relating to a big UK auction company.

 

It is a very slick publication! The Barnes & Nobles here used to carry it, but no longer. The newsstand price was $10.00. I wonder if it is the same magazine? Do you see a Volume # on your copies?

 

Molokai....yes,very slick indeed.!!
It is Volume 83,number 10

Bob

 

Hmmm... 1946 is Volume 13 on mine, so must be the same magazine?

 

I think it must be the same magazine,only now under different ownership
They also have a website www.stampmagazine.co.uk and you can subscribe and receive a digital copy each month....a bit too complicated for me !!

 

I'm not much for digital if there is a hardcopy alternative. I may ask at B & N see if they'll get a couple copies a month. Thanks!