Bringing order out of chaos

Over the weekend we watched Freaks & Errors: A Rare Collection, a fantastic documentary on stamp collecting.  Directed by Mark Cwiakala, this film explores the world of philately through interviews with dealers and collectors. 

The film showcased a few famous stamps: 

British Guiana 1c magenta

                                                                Benjamin Franklin Z Grill

                                                                                            Inverted Jenny 

These stamps are valuable, famous, and have interesting stories centered around their provenance.  However, what resonated with me in this film were the explanations on why the collectors became and remain interested in stamp collecting. One collector explained it as a desire and ability to bring order out of chaos.  

That's what librarians do! Bring order out of the information chaos. We do it by cataloging materials using MARC and other standards. We do it by creating research guides using LibGuides. We do it by creating user-friendly web pages that enable our patrons to easily find what they need.  

There are not any established standards for organizing philatelic materials into collections or albums (there are standards for exhibiting, but that's a post for another day). Philatelists are able to organize how they desire - by country, topic, release date, acquired date, etc.  

I would like nothing better than to have a meet-up with the folks in the overlapping bit of the above Venn diagram.  

Postal films : GPO Unit

In researching the Snowdrop stamp for an earlier entry, I discovered that the UK General Post Office at one time had its own film unit. GPO Film Unit was set up in 1933 and was primarily (but not exclusively) responsible for making documenting GPO-related activities. This unit was run by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson.  More on Grierson can be found at the University of Stirling's Special Collections in the John Grierson Collection.  

Rolls of cine 35mm film & cans. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Accessed Oct 27, 2021.

The unit was under the auspices of the GPO until 1940 when it was moved under the Ministry of Information and renamed the Crown Film Unit. 

The British Film Institute has some of the films available to watch for free. They also released a collection of the GPO films in 2008 under the title Addressing the Nation.  Some of the films are also available on YouTube. One of my favorites is Rainbow Dance (1936) directed by Len Lye. It's a film ahead of its time mixing positive and negative images, animation, color, along with modern dance and music. The film actually was an advertisement for the GPO Savings Bank!

Additional reading on the GPO Unit and its films: The projection of Britain: a history of the GPO Film Unit / edited by Scott Anthony and James G. Mansell.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.  9781844573745

Final Fun fact: Grierson is credited with coining the term "documentary" in his anonymous New York Sun review of the film Moana directed by Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North fame).  Grierson signed his review as "The Moviegoer."  You can read the review in its entirety in the second edition of Lewis Jacob's The Documentary Tradition, New York: W.W. Norton, 1979. 

Jerry Pinkney (1939-2021)

As many of you may be aware, acclaimed children's literature writer and illustrator, Jerry Pinkney, passed away at age 81 on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. 

Perhaps you are familiar with his Caldecott Medal-winning book, The Lion and the Mouse?  

My favorite Pinkney work is his illustrations for Rudyard Kipling's classic Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. The length and breadth of his work are amazing, and in 2016, he received the Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement award. 

Do you know about the work he did with the United States Postal Service?  Jerry Pinkney illustrated a number of postal stamps for the USPS's Black Heritage series.  

I am sharing a few that we have in our collection. 

Whitney Moore Young: Black Heritage Series.  Scott's 1875  Issued January 30, 1981

Harriet Tubman: Black Heritage Series. Scott's 1744 Issued February 1, 1978 

Benjamin Banneker: Black Heritage Series. Scott's 1804. Issued February 15, 1980

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Black Heritage Series. Scott's 1771. Issued January 13, 1979

         

Running rum during Prohibition: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

Off the coast of Newfoundland is the Territorial Collectivity of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, a self-governing French overseas collectivity.  These two islands are more simply called Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.  You can see where they are located on the map below. 

These two islands played a fascinating role during the period of Prohibition in the United States. They essentially were warehouses of liquor for U.S. bootleggers. Ships from these French islands also supplied Prince Edward Island during its Prohibition period (1901-1948).  

During this period fishermen converted their trawlers and stopped hauling cod off of the Grand Banks to haul more profitable bottles and barrels of booze to its dry neighbor.  

In 1988 the collectivity issued the following commemorative postage stamp (Stanley Gibbons PM 604; Yvert et Tellier PM 492; Scott's PM 511) 

This stamp (part of my personal collection) was issued on August 7, 1988, features the fishing schooner, the Nellie J. Banks, and cases of liquor. It commemorates the 50th anniversary of the vessel being seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police cutter, the Ulna in August 1938. This seizure finally ended the Nellie J. Banks' rum-running activities.  She had been captured in 1927 by the United States Coast Guard ship, the Bayfield. 

While searching for postal stamps depicting liquor or related images, I came across this 1988 Saint-Pierre and Miquelon stamp. Investigating the stamp led to learning about the history of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon and their Prohibition activities. We are in the process of purchasing a number of books recounting the islands' history and role during Prohibition for our Distilling, Fermenting, and Brewing Collection.  I'll have to find a copy of the stamp for the collection as well! 

If you are interested in learning more about Saint-Pierre and Miquelon's past, check out these articles. 

Smithsonian Magazine (January 2018) 

Spirits Selection (January 2021) 

International Food and Wine Society (February 2015) 

Philately - it's academic!

Philately. Stamp collecting. A hobby.  However, philately is more than just a hobby. Philately is a way of examining history, society, art, and culture.  

A recent meeting at work about the ProQuest and the dissertation submission process got me wondering if there are dissertations about stamps and other philatelic materials and history. 

Turns out there are! 

I did a very broad search in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global 

The search yielded 1,235 entries with publication dates ranging from 1902 to 2021. I sorted them by relevance. Looking at the topics, the keywords appeared mainly in the title or abstract but were not assigned as a subject. 

Some of the relevant selections within the first 20 citations include: 

Herndon, M. E. (1991). The sporting spirit: Perceptions in philatelic art iconography and sports philately, 1896-1974. (volumes I-IV)  The Ohio State University.

Xue, Y. Y. (2011). Opinion on china philatelic marketing theory under the experience economy. Renmin University of China 

Jin, H. J. (. (2008). Strategic ponderation on development of china philatelic service. Renmin University of China 

Lemiski, K. J. (1999). The political significance of philately: Imperial and national postal systems in Ukraine. 

Arizona State University

Luff, D. J. (1998). The utility of philately in comparative education and the analysis of higher education systems. University of the Pacific

Baixauli Comes, V. (1989). The Spanish pharmaceutical laboratories and industry in the 19th and 20th centuries: Historical postal and philatelic study. Universitat de Valencia

However, there were some within that first block of 20 that did not focus on philately, but only casually mentioned it.  

For my second search, I used the same terms with the boolean "or" but selected to search within all subjects and indexing. I hoped to yield a strong list of results, but without the citations that were not truly about philately. 

This search yielded only 4 citations. Three of the citations appeared in my first search within the initial 20.  The fourth one was in my first set of results, just not within the first 20 citations.  

As a librarian, I find looking at these indexing and metadata issues fascinating. But, the point of this post is to share that philately is not just a hobby. It is a way of viewing history - socially, culturally, politically, and economically.  It is worthy of serious academic study. My quick search of doctoral dissertations and master's theses illustrates this.  

Snow Drops : 1979 UK commemorative

This beautiful stamp was on my recent Philatelovely blanket order. 

This stamp of Snow Drop flowers is one of four released on March 21, 1979, commemorating British flowers. Stamps were issued for the primrose, the daffodil, the bluebell, as well as the snow drop. In addition to the stamps, corresponding postcards were also issued.  Designed by Peter Newcombe, this stamp measures 30x41mm and was printed by Harrison & Sons, Ltd using a photogravure process. 

Full information about this stamp, including photos of the other three flowers and postcards, travel to this site here. 

Peter Newcombe, the designer, created a documentary film for the Post Office entitled "Spring Quarter."  The film won a gold medal at the 1979 New York Film Festival. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a copy of the film.  But, my research into it will (hopefully) yield a future post on postal films. 

Blanket order with Philatelovely

 Stamp vendors, like many library book vendors, have a couple ways to purchase: firm order, approval, or standing order.  These acquisitions methods are similar to those in the library world. 

Over the years my husband has had various approval plans with various companies, and of course, has made many firm order purchases. He has not had a standing order yet. 

Recently, I bought a lovely set of pre-decimal stamps on Etsy from John Simper who does business as Philatelovely. I was very pleased with the purchase. Not only did I get the pre-decimal stamps, but I also received a postcard and additional stamps! This is in addition to the lovely packaging it all came in with a terrific amount of stamps affixed for postage. 

Philatelovely has a very extensive social media presence (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter @Philatelovely). He also participates over at Patreon. For those who are unfamiliar with Patreon, it's a platform that provides the tools content creators need to run a subscription service. You can learn more here. We decided to become a Magenta tier patron (named after the British Guiana 1 cent magenta stamp)  For our monthly support, we will receive a lovely package of stamps, a first-day cover, mini-sheets, and other goodies. In library acquisitions terms - a blanket order. 

We received our first "blanket order" of materials on Tuesday. 

The package has lovely UK stamps and an air mail "cinderella"

The contents did not disappoint. Below is a small selection of the stamps. 

I was excited to see several from Finland. 

And we also got a postcard commemorating H.G. Wells and a sticker! 

Edited to add in this wonderful story Stanley Gibbons did about Philatelovely.