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General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : Stamps in Fiction

 

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Guthrum
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09 Aug 2016
01:35:03pm
I think we've had a thread similar to this before (it may have been 'Stamps on Film'), but here is an extract from a book I've just read that may cause some amusement.

We are in Paris, and the year (though not specified in the text) is clearly 1940. A Jewish man is scraping a living by trading collectibles, and he takes his son, the narrator, to an open-air stamp market. Now read on...

______________________

...Finally, one Thursday afternoon, he invited me to go with him. He was going to sell a ‘very rare’ stamp, and the prospect made him agitated. We walked along the Avenue de la Grande-Armée. Then down the Champs- Elysées. Several times he showed me the stamp (which he kept wrapped in cellophane). It was, according to him, a ‘unique’ example from Kuwait, depicting ‘the Emir Rachid and divers views’. We arrived at the Carré Marigny. The stamp market was held in the space between the théâtre de Marigny and the Avenue Gabriel. (Does it still exist today?) People huddled in little groups, speaking in low voices, opening cases, poring over their contents, leafing through catalogues, brandishing magnifying glasses and tweezers. This furtive flurry of activity, these men who looked like surgeons or conspirators made me feel anxious. My father quickly found himself surrounded by a dense crowd. A dozen men were haranguing him. Arguing over whether the stamp was authentic. My father, taken aback by the questions fired from all sides, could not get a word in edgeways. How was it that his ‘Emir Rachid’ was olive-coloured and not carmine? Was it really thirteen and one quarter perforation? Did it have an ‘overprint’? Fragments of silk thread? Did it not belong to a series known as ‘assorted views’? Had he checked for a ‘thin’? Their tone grew acrimonious. My father was called a ‘swindler’ and ‘crook’. He was accused of trying to ‘flog some piece of rubbish that wasn’t even documented in the Champion catalogue’. One of the lunatics grabbed him by the collar and slapped him hard across the face. Another punched him. They seemed about to lynch him for the sake of a stamp (which speaks volumes about the human soul), and so, unable to bear it any longer, I stepped in. Luckily, I had an umbrella. I distributed several blows at random, and making the most of the element of surprise, dragged father from this baying mob of philatelists. We ran as far as the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

In the days which followed, my father, believing I had saved his life, explained in detail the kind of work he did... The philatelists had bitterly disappointed him. He realized he couldn’t use them. As collectors, they were cold-blooded, cunning, cynical, ruthless (it is hard to imagine the Machiavellianism, the viciousness of these apparently fastidious creatures). What crimes have been committed for a ‘Sierra Leone, yellow-brown with overprint’ or a ‘Japan, horizontal perforations’. He was not about to repeat his unfortunate expedition to the Carré Marigny, an episode that had left his pride deeply wounded.

Patrick Modiano, Ring Roads (1972), translated from the French, 63-65
_______________________

The interesting thing here is whether you feel Modiano has done his research well enough to convince us (especially!) of the truth of his tale. Kuwait didn't issue stamps under that name until long after the war, but were there postal administrations which produced stamps which would satisfy Modiano's description? Is or was there a 'Champion' catalogue? And even if we don't believe a word he says, how much does that matter in a work of fiction?

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londonbus1
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09 Aug 2016
02:55:07pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

Well, the Market and Champion are real, the market is quite unique as Stamp venues go.

Nice piece.

Edited because I did not finish my post. Until the 1950's the Yvert & Tellier Catalogue was Yvert & Tellier-Champion after Theodore Champion. Champion was to France what Gibbons was to the UK or Scott to the USA. His premises were on the Rue Drouot which is still the philatelic heart of Paris today.
And the writer described the Marche aux Timbres perfectly. Like going back in time.

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Ningpo
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09 Aug 2016
03:08:08pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

Well, the stamp and/or its origin may be fantasy but stating the Emir to be Rachid, seems rather off beam.

As far as I can tell, the Emirs are from the Al-Sabah dynasty. As for the name Rachid; this is unclear. There are references to 'Rashid or Rasheed', one of which refers to Dubai; others to the Emirate of Jabal Shammar.

I wonder if this 1966 stamp has some tenuous link:


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sheepshanks
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09 Aug 2016
05:03:31pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

Maybe some of the French got mistranslated when converted to English and if in 1940 was presumably before the German invasion of Paris on June 14th.

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Bobstamp
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09 Aug 2016
11:34:32pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

I've seen a bit of rancour develop in stamp club meetings and stamp exhibitions. We once had a couple of dealers engage in a shoving match with threats of worse if one wished to step outside with the other. But the novel that Guthrum quotes seems a bit over the top, and all over a Kuwait stamp? Now if it were a stamp I really wanted and didn't have... Surprise

Bob

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Guthrum
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10 Aug 2016
01:58:21pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

Good to see Modiano knew his stuff, even if the stamp itself is a fantasy creation. He sets the story in 1940, just before the occupation, when Parisians were fearing the worst. The father is Jewish but doesn't quite realise the trouble ahead. Modiano namechecks the Vel d'Hiver at one point.

Three of Modiano's novellas, all set at around the same time and concerned with collaboration or resistance, are published in the UK by Bloomsbury - they are pretty unusual but worth a look (French writers are often 'over the top' to Anglo-Saxon sensibilities!). He himself was born in 1945.

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Jansimon
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collector, seller, MT member

11 Aug 2016
07:33:00am

Approvals
re: Stamps in Fiction

Here is a fragment from "Kees de Jongen" (Kees the boy), a famous Dutch book by Theo Thijssen about a young boy growing up in lower middle class conditions in late 19th century Amsterdam. It is one of the best loved Dutch books, first published in 1923. A rather large section deals with Kees' stamp collecting hobby and is very recognizable to anyone who started collecting as a small boy (or girl). For some strange reason, despite being very famous in the Netherlands, it has never been translated in English. It has been turned into a film, a rock opera, a play, a graphic novel etc. though, just to show how influential and well-liked it is over here. Someone recently made a translation and published it on the Internet. I lifted the first part of the section on stamps from it to share with you. If you want to read more, go the www.keestheboy.nl and check out the chapters about "the great Persian"

When was it that Kees had started collecting stamps? As far back as he could remember it seemed that he had always had them. In a little tin box he had kept Dutch stamps, and foreign ones that weren’t worth anything anyway, such as other boys would throw away. And later he had stuck these in an old notebook, separated by country. He remembered that well: Spain and Portugal had been on one page, and that page had for a long time contained just a single Spanish one, that was damaged to boot. In the tin box he had then kept his “doubles,” altogether next to nothing of course.
When at school they asked: ‘Do you collect stamps too?’ he had used to say ‘Oh no,’ but in the meantime he did, and one day he had no less than a hundred of them, all different and undamaged. Then the old notebook hadn’t been good anymore, and also rather childish, and he had managed to get an exercise book, which he had organised very handsomely. Each European country had its own page, and the remaining countries half a page each. He had drawn squares, and at the front he had made a table of contents. Even though he didn’t really need that: he could very well find all his countries without it.
There were all kinds of secret facts in stamp lore, and he already knew several of them. For example, no one was going to catch him disregarding the difference between pfennig and pfennige on German ones. And some boys were still dumb enough to bother about the difference in lettering on English ones. He had laughed his head off once at one boy who purportedly had over forty from England, and when he showed them about twenty of them were one and the same: this boy had stuck them neatly next to one another because the letters in the corners differed! The silly ass wouldn’t even believe him that those letters were of no concern.
Then there were these packets of stamps that hung for sale in some shops. Nice ones showing on the outside, but on the inside noting but trash. Kees knew some boys who had at one time or another bought a packet like that – terrible swindle… Half of the stamps on the inside were Dutch five cents ones, and the rest ordinary German and English ones. Those shops also had suspended sheets of stamps, with the price marked under each stamp. Those prices were always ridiculous: two or three cents for the most ordinary stamps. He had had a mind, at times, to enter a shop like that and say: ‘That French one of ten that you’ve got hanging there for two cents, would you like me to procure you twenty five of them for one cent in all? My pleasure!’
Some boys again didn’t know about overprint. Took it for some kind of postmark, the simpletons. When it was overprint, mark you, overprint always tripled a stamp’s value. And then there were the fake stamps. One always had to be wary of them. It had happened to him once that he had for a long time kept a fake Spanish one in his book. It was a queer smooth one, with this funny light-blueish hue, and he had often sat looking at it with some misgivings. But then he had seen this self-same stamp at another boy’s place, and immediately known, unquestionably known that his one was a fake. He had torn the nasty rotter up into little snippets, for swapping fake stamps was a vile thing to do.
And so, by fits and starts, his collection had swollen to over a hundred and fifty. His stamp book was such, in any case, that some boys were jealous of it. The sparkler of the book was a stamp from Orange Free State, with a little tree on it. Beautiful stamp, a joy to the eye. Even if he had lived there himself, in Orange Free State, when of course he would see these stamps on letters any old day, he’d still meticulously keep them, Kees thought. Because they were so pretty and looked so charming, with that little tree. The stamps here, on ordinary letters, who took a second look at them?
Every boy liked that Orange Free State stamp. When Kees at school showed them his book, they’d sit turning leaves. ‘Got that one too, got that one too,’ they’d go.
But then came Asia. Four from British India. Already they’d dry up. And then Africa, the cute one with the little tree. ‘Hey, what’s this? Is that a stamp? A real one?’
‘Just about as real as you are,’ Kees would say, with glorious confidence.
The sticking on of stamps was another thing some of the boys did foolishly. Simply with gum. All wrong. It should be done with strips of gummed paper, so you could always unstick and move them into your album without damaging them. The gummed paper was to be had at the post office for practically nothing. Whole strips of them that had lined the sheets of stamps were lying there, sometimes on the ground, sometimes on the desks, and you were free to take them with you. There was one nice guy at the post office, when he was at the counter you waited till he was idle for a moment, then you took off your cap and asked for some gummed paper, and he’d give you a whole bunch of strips. It was said that he kept them on purpose for the boys. But you had to chance on just this nice guy, for the others told you to go to the devil.
And then he had got his album. For his birthday. An album in an impressive luxury binding: “Briefmarken,” it said. All the names were in German, but that didn’t matter; he learned them soon enough, and they weren’t all that different from Dutch. Only “Schweiz” for Switzerland was a bit funny; they’d better have called Sweden Schweiz, he thought.
Oh, how pitifully few his hundred and fifty stamps seemed when he had transferred them to that album! Now and again he had to count the whole lot of them, to see how far away he was from two hundred, but then he could skip scores of pages because there was nothing on them anyway but printed replicas. He often sat looking at them, in the wistful realization that such rare stamps would probably remain forever outside his reach.
The one from Orange Free State remained a fine one of course. But on the page next to it was Cape of Good Hope. And of all the rare stamps the most unattainable seemed to Kees the triangular one that was printed there. “A slanting one from the Cape” Kees called it. And there were moments when he could fleetingly imagine himself to be the possessor of such a singular stamp. Fancy that it would be sitting in his album just like that!
He sometimes talked about it with a school friend. Then he found it gratifying to speak with a certain familiarity of “a slanting Capey”.
One day he brought the subject up with a boy called De Veer, and the latter said calmly: ‘Well, so what, me dad got loads of slanting Capeys on letters at times.’
Kees laughed at him and called other boys, and they all shouted loud, of course. De Veer’s father again hey, De Veer’s father had got everything…
‘Well, don’t believe it then,’ De Veer said. But all the boys chuckled teasingly, and Kees said: ‘You mean these bread tickets, of this cheap water-bread you guzzle.’
That definitely made De Veer a sucker, because his baldness was a thing he was always being taunted with.
‘Come crowing to me again about your slanting Capeys,’ Kees concluded.
But not long afterwards he happened to walk along Voorburgwal past De Veer’s house, and on the windows he saw the painted text “Cape and Californian Wines.” And next thing De Veer came to school with a lot of Cape stamps to swap, not slanting ones to be sure, but real Cape ones nonetheless. And one boy related how he had been at De Veer’s place and seen the slanting stamps with his own eyes. And Kees began to see De Veer in a different light. He was a bald bear with little spunk, he was dumb and didn’t read any real book. In short, a real drear of course. But that precisely a drear like that should have such easy access to these fine stamps… A touch of veneration for De Veer began to grow inside him. ‘Why don’t you ever take a slanting one from Cape with you,’ he finally asked the drear with calculated indifference. And the answer was: ‘Me dad won’t let me, eh.’



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auldstampguy
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Tim
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04 Jul 2017
06:37:57pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

For those of you who enjoy a good murder mystery with a philatelic theme, I have just finished reading "The Chalon Heads" by Barry Maitland, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a fairly old book so should be available in your local library if you are interested.

Here is a write up on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/150082.The_Chalon_Heads

Regards ... Tim.

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Stampme

21 Jul 2017
05:46:59pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

I recall the area of an outdoor stamp bourse in Orleans, France in 1965. For an American boy looking on, the dealers had an intimidating air about them which could easily mirror the one in the fictional narrative located in Paris. I recall shaking of fists, voices raised and so forth. Of course, it could have been good old fashioned horse trading in French. At that point I only had a smattering of the language. Unfortunately, I think, I was too timid to buy anything and went to a tiny stamp shop in the center of the city, buying my stamps from the friendly dealer.

Stamp collectors and dealers are a breed apart in many instances and represent all that is good in our species but unfortunately, all that is bad, too. There are proud individuals and plenty of herd followers, mirroring what we see in society but on a stamp level of appreciation or disdain.

I must do an Amazon search for the author's works. Sounds interesting.*

Bruce

* I just purchased The Occupation Trilogy: La Place de l'Étoile – The Night Watch – Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano. I recall the other occupation trilogy Jean-Paul Satre which proved to be a great read.

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TuskenRaider
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31 Jul 2017
08:35:15am
re: Stamps in Fiction

Hi Bobstamp & Everyone;

I consider reality shows to be more contrived melodrama and downright fiction than factual, however recently on "Pawn Stars" via Dish TV, this was interesting tho...

A customer came into the pawn shop with a crash cover with a Hawaii CDS postmark. It was in a rather famous crash.

What made the crash famous was that a large number of important scientists working for the government were all killed in this crash. The US government stated that new policy would not allow that many important scientists to travel on the same flight in the future.

The cover featured one of the 1938 presidential series stamps. I believe it was a pair of 3¢ violet Jefferson stamps and had a par avion label on the front. The upper left corner was burned away as was the contents in that area.

So Bobstamp, what can you tell us about this interesting piece? Did you by chance see this episode?

Just couch potatoin' out....
TuskenRaider

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Stampme

31 Jul 2017
12:53:20pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

I'm wondering since it appears you watched this episode: Did they buy the cover? If so, how much? One of their philatelic purchases proved to be a burn for them, meaning they overpaid and they have been reluctant to buy other philatelic items that have popped up on there.

Bruce

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Benque

12 Feb 2020
12:00:43am
re: Stamps in Fiction

From a movie I stumbled across on youtube:

Berlin Correspondent (1942)
"American correspondent Bill Roberts is a thorn in the side of the Nazis, as his paper always scoops the world with the truth about Germany.
Gestapo Captain Carl Von Rau means to plug the leak and assigns Karen Hauen, who he attends to wed, to the case. Roberts is obtaining his information for his stories and broadcasts from an elderly stamp collector who, defiantly opposed to the Nazis, sells the "proper" stamps to Roberts, giving him the information. Attracted to Karen, Roberts invites her to his apartment where she learns his secret. The old philatelist is sent to a concentration camp, and then Karen learns that he is her father. She appeals to Roberts for help and he, in loyalty to the old man and now in love with Karen, agrees to help."

Just enter the title and year into the youtube search field, and you'll find it right away.

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londonbus1
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12 Feb 2020
03:13:59am
re: Stamps in Fiction

Nice to re-read this topic with posts from passed members and personal friends.

In their honour and to re-live the atmosphere of the story from the initial post, here is a Poster Stamp from 1942 of 'La Bourse aux Timbres', now the 'Marche aux Timbres'. (The Paris Stamp Market). The stamp was to help support the Artists of Paris.
A Postcard also exists of the same scene.

Just an aside. The Market continued to run during the German Occupation in WWII as normal, just as it did during WWI.

Londonbus1

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StampWrangler
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12 Feb 2020
04:00:03pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

"For those of you who enjoy a good murder mystery with a philatelic theme, I have just finished reading "The Chalon Heads" by Barry Maitland, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a fairly old book so should be available in your local library if you are interested."



Just placed it on hold at my local library. Thanks for the suggestion!
I love reading mystery books about my hobbies, and ones about philately are harder to find.

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Harvey
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!

12 Feb 2020
04:44:30pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

I've mentioned this in another thread somewhere. The John Keller series by Laurence Block deals with a stamp collecting hit man, a great series of murder mystery books that are very accurate stamp wise. He starts collecting stamps part way through the series when he has to murder a person at a stamp auction. A line in the story I really like has to do with the hit who is a collector of Germany and German States. His comment concerns the fact that one of the things we can be sure of in life is "Thurn and Taxis". I actually bought a few stamps from Thurn and Taxis because pf the story. Check them out, they are very good!

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""We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years." George Carlin"
StampWrangler
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12 Feb 2020
10:23:50pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

Another available in my local library, and just placed on hold. Thanks Harvey!

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cougar
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13 Feb 2020
02:51:27am
re: Stamps in Fiction

Treasure Island makes no mention of stamps but one can easily become a coin collector after reading it.

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Charlie2009
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13 Feb 2020
03:21:28am
re: Stamps in Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/series/49488-john-keller

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londonbus1
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13 Feb 2020
06:27:28am
re: Stamps in Fiction

Here's one about man's obsession for one of Philately's 'Holy Grail' !!
Lots about stamps and other stuff too.....including a bit of sex and violence !!

David Benedictus is also a Stamp Collector himself as well as Writer and Producer for TV.
i met him a few times at the Charing Cross Collectors market.
You'll see him below selling his wares !

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ikeyPikey
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15 Feb 2020
05:27:50am
re: Stamps in Fiction

'
A Million Dollars an Ounce
by M John Lubetkin

As Hitler's empire crumbles in 1945, an American paratrooper seizes ten million dollars in rare stamps looted by Nazi's during the war. However, once back in New York he soon discovers that he has opened a Pandora's box of troubles for himself because, to sell the stamps, he must put his trust in Meyer Lansky, the brains behind "Lucky" Luciano's New York mob. Then, as he settles into post-war life, he discovers that the SS General who masterminded the plundering will stop at nothing to get "his" stamps back.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

16 Feb 2020
05:57:49pm
re: Stamps in Fiction

".... he must put his trust in Meyer Lansky, ,...."

I'd love to red the rational behind that decision.
A short trip downtown to Nassau Street would allow him to
sell just abut any part and parcel on a collection to one
of the dealers on the five floors of that building and a
stroll along either side would open him to fifteen or
twenty more stamp dealers.
I suppose if he walked in and emended n immediate sale,
cash in small unmarked bills, or the pages bore an identifying
mark, might have presented a problem.
But I have related here that my father often took me with
him a he unloaded stamps and sometimes albums as well as
matched sets of US plate blocks. He even took an album from
one dealer down the street to another where it was sold
in a quiet cash transaction.
I think I'll buy a copy just to see the rationale behind the
author's plot to dump the stamps.

That reminds me that one of my father's cousins was in the
Army in Europe, and stayed there a year or two after the end
Of hostilities, stationed in Berlin as an MP.
When he came home he bought a home just East of Levittown
and His basement was full of "memorabilia" he had shipped home.
I wish I had been a year or two older and could have made better
sense of things like Lugers, Mausers, fancy knives with some
skull emblem on the handle, and some very fancy silverware
no one ate from. After all these years his name, thought forgotten
at first, just popped into my head. "Uncle" Russ had a chess
set that he let me handle. ( Touch lightly but not play with,
pieces were intricately carved (???) Ivory. If he mentioned
where he got them, it was out of my hearing or ken.
But it seemed obvious even to a ten or eleven year old, they
were from his stay in Europe, and had once belonged to some
one else. I do not recall anything philatelic, but people
from Brooklyn, where I was born, always knew a guy who knew
a guy who could do things for a price.
Just talking (writing) about these kinds of things unleash
so many memories, long left behind.
I hope the story as written is as good as I am now
imagining it.
.

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Guthrum

09 Aug 2016
01:35:03pm

I think we've had a thread similar to this before (it may have been 'Stamps on Film'), but here is an extract from a book I've just read that may cause some amusement.

We are in Paris, and the year (though not specified in the text) is clearly 1940. A Jewish man is scraping a living by trading collectibles, and he takes his son, the narrator, to an open-air stamp market. Now read on...

______________________

...Finally, one Thursday afternoon, he invited me to go with him. He was going to sell a ‘very rare’ stamp, and the prospect made him agitated. We walked along the Avenue de la Grande-Armée. Then down the Champs- Elysées. Several times he showed me the stamp (which he kept wrapped in cellophane). It was, according to him, a ‘unique’ example from Kuwait, depicting ‘the Emir Rachid and divers views’. We arrived at the Carré Marigny. The stamp market was held in the space between the théâtre de Marigny and the Avenue Gabriel. (Does it still exist today?) People huddled in little groups, speaking in low voices, opening cases, poring over their contents, leafing through catalogues, brandishing magnifying glasses and tweezers. This furtive flurry of activity, these men who looked like surgeons or conspirators made me feel anxious. My father quickly found himself surrounded by a dense crowd. A dozen men were haranguing him. Arguing over whether the stamp was authentic. My father, taken aback by the questions fired from all sides, could not get a word in edgeways. How was it that his ‘Emir Rachid’ was olive-coloured and not carmine? Was it really thirteen and one quarter perforation? Did it have an ‘overprint’? Fragments of silk thread? Did it not belong to a series known as ‘assorted views’? Had he checked for a ‘thin’? Their tone grew acrimonious. My father was called a ‘swindler’ and ‘crook’. He was accused of trying to ‘flog some piece of rubbish that wasn’t even documented in the Champion catalogue’. One of the lunatics grabbed him by the collar and slapped him hard across the face. Another punched him. They seemed about to lynch him for the sake of a stamp (which speaks volumes about the human soul), and so, unable to bear it any longer, I stepped in. Luckily, I had an umbrella. I distributed several blows at random, and making the most of the element of surprise, dragged father from this baying mob of philatelists. We ran as far as the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

In the days which followed, my father, believing I had saved his life, explained in detail the kind of work he did... The philatelists had bitterly disappointed him. He realized he couldn’t use them. As collectors, they were cold-blooded, cunning, cynical, ruthless (it is hard to imagine the Machiavellianism, the viciousness of these apparently fastidious creatures). What crimes have been committed for a ‘Sierra Leone, yellow-brown with overprint’ or a ‘Japan, horizontal perforations’. He was not about to repeat his unfortunate expedition to the Carré Marigny, an episode that had left his pride deeply wounded.

Patrick Modiano, Ring Roads (1972), translated from the French, 63-65
_______________________

The interesting thing here is whether you feel Modiano has done his research well enough to convince us (especially!) of the truth of his tale. Kuwait didn't issue stamps under that name until long after the war, but were there postal administrations which produced stamps which would satisfy Modiano's description? Is or was there a 'Champion' catalogue? And even if we don't believe a word he says, how much does that matter in a work of fiction?

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londonbus1

09 Aug 2016
02:55:07pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

Well, the Market and Champion are real, the market is quite unique as Stamp venues go.

Nice piece.

Edited because I did not finish my post. Until the 1950's the Yvert & Tellier Catalogue was Yvert & Tellier-Champion after Theodore Champion. Champion was to France what Gibbons was to the UK or Scott to the USA. His premises were on the Rue Drouot which is still the philatelic heart of Paris today.
And the writer described the Marche aux Timbres perfectly. Like going back in time.

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Ningpo

09 Aug 2016
03:08:08pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

Well, the stamp and/or its origin may be fantasy but stating the Emir to be Rachid, seems rather off beam.

As far as I can tell, the Emirs are from the Al-Sabah dynasty. As for the name Rachid; this is unclear. There are references to 'Rashid or Rasheed', one of which refers to Dubai; others to the Emirate of Jabal Shammar.

I wonder if this 1966 stamp has some tenuous link:


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sheepshanks

09 Aug 2016
05:03:31pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

Maybe some of the French got mistranslated when converted to English and if in 1940 was presumably before the German invasion of Paris on June 14th.

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Bobstamp

09 Aug 2016
11:34:32pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

I've seen a bit of rancour develop in stamp club meetings and stamp exhibitions. We once had a couple of dealers engage in a shoving match with threats of worse if one wished to step outside with the other. But the novel that Guthrum quotes seems a bit over the top, and all over a Kuwait stamp? Now if it were a stamp I really wanted and didn't have... Surprise

Bob

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Guthrum

10 Aug 2016
01:58:21pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

Good to see Modiano knew his stuff, even if the stamp itself is a fantasy creation. He sets the story in 1940, just before the occupation, when Parisians were fearing the worst. The father is Jewish but doesn't quite realise the trouble ahead. Modiano namechecks the Vel d'Hiver at one point.

Three of Modiano's novellas, all set at around the same time and concerned with collaboration or resistance, are published in the UK by Bloomsbury - they are pretty unusual but worth a look (French writers are often 'over the top' to Anglo-Saxon sensibilities!). He himself was born in 1945.

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Jansimon

collector, seller, MT member
11 Aug 2016
07:33:00am

Approvals

re: Stamps in Fiction

Here is a fragment from "Kees de Jongen" (Kees the boy), a famous Dutch book by Theo Thijssen about a young boy growing up in lower middle class conditions in late 19th century Amsterdam. It is one of the best loved Dutch books, first published in 1923. A rather large section deals with Kees' stamp collecting hobby and is very recognizable to anyone who started collecting as a small boy (or girl). For some strange reason, despite being very famous in the Netherlands, it has never been translated in English. It has been turned into a film, a rock opera, a play, a graphic novel etc. though, just to show how influential and well-liked it is over here. Someone recently made a translation and published it on the Internet. I lifted the first part of the section on stamps from it to share with you. If you want to read more, go the www.keestheboy.nl and check out the chapters about "the great Persian"

When was it that Kees had started collecting stamps? As far back as he could remember it seemed that he had always had them. In a little tin box he had kept Dutch stamps, and foreign ones that weren’t worth anything anyway, such as other boys would throw away. And later he had stuck these in an old notebook, separated by country. He remembered that well: Spain and Portugal had been on one page, and that page had for a long time contained just a single Spanish one, that was damaged to boot. In the tin box he had then kept his “doubles,” altogether next to nothing of course.
When at school they asked: ‘Do you collect stamps too?’ he had used to say ‘Oh no,’ but in the meantime he did, and one day he had no less than a hundred of them, all different and undamaged. Then the old notebook hadn’t been good anymore, and also rather childish, and he had managed to get an exercise book, which he had organised very handsomely. Each European country had its own page, and the remaining countries half a page each. He had drawn squares, and at the front he had made a table of contents. Even though he didn’t really need that: he could very well find all his countries without it.
There were all kinds of secret facts in stamp lore, and he already knew several of them. For example, no one was going to catch him disregarding the difference between pfennig and pfennige on German ones. And some boys were still dumb enough to bother about the difference in lettering on English ones. He had laughed his head off once at one boy who purportedly had over forty from England, and when he showed them about twenty of them were one and the same: this boy had stuck them neatly next to one another because the letters in the corners differed! The silly ass wouldn’t even believe him that those letters were of no concern.
Then there were these packets of stamps that hung for sale in some shops. Nice ones showing on the outside, but on the inside noting but trash. Kees knew some boys who had at one time or another bought a packet like that – terrible swindle… Half of the stamps on the inside were Dutch five cents ones, and the rest ordinary German and English ones. Those shops also had suspended sheets of stamps, with the price marked under each stamp. Those prices were always ridiculous: two or three cents for the most ordinary stamps. He had had a mind, at times, to enter a shop like that and say: ‘That French one of ten that you’ve got hanging there for two cents, would you like me to procure you twenty five of them for one cent in all? My pleasure!’
Some boys again didn’t know about overprint. Took it for some kind of postmark, the simpletons. When it was overprint, mark you, overprint always tripled a stamp’s value. And then there were the fake stamps. One always had to be wary of them. It had happened to him once that he had for a long time kept a fake Spanish one in his book. It was a queer smooth one, with this funny light-blueish hue, and he had often sat looking at it with some misgivings. But then he had seen this self-same stamp at another boy’s place, and immediately known, unquestionably known that his one was a fake. He had torn the nasty rotter up into little snippets, for swapping fake stamps was a vile thing to do.
And so, by fits and starts, his collection had swollen to over a hundred and fifty. His stamp book was such, in any case, that some boys were jealous of it. The sparkler of the book was a stamp from Orange Free State, with a little tree on it. Beautiful stamp, a joy to the eye. Even if he had lived there himself, in Orange Free State, when of course he would see these stamps on letters any old day, he’d still meticulously keep them, Kees thought. Because they were so pretty and looked so charming, with that little tree. The stamps here, on ordinary letters, who took a second look at them?
Every boy liked that Orange Free State stamp. When Kees at school showed them his book, they’d sit turning leaves. ‘Got that one too, got that one too,’ they’d go.
But then came Asia. Four from British India. Already they’d dry up. And then Africa, the cute one with the little tree. ‘Hey, what’s this? Is that a stamp? A real one?’
‘Just about as real as you are,’ Kees would say, with glorious confidence.
The sticking on of stamps was another thing some of the boys did foolishly. Simply with gum. All wrong. It should be done with strips of gummed paper, so you could always unstick and move them into your album without damaging them. The gummed paper was to be had at the post office for practically nothing. Whole strips of them that had lined the sheets of stamps were lying there, sometimes on the ground, sometimes on the desks, and you were free to take them with you. There was one nice guy at the post office, when he was at the counter you waited till he was idle for a moment, then you took off your cap and asked for some gummed paper, and he’d give you a whole bunch of strips. It was said that he kept them on purpose for the boys. But you had to chance on just this nice guy, for the others told you to go to the devil.
And then he had got his album. For his birthday. An album in an impressive luxury binding: “Briefmarken,” it said. All the names were in German, but that didn’t matter; he learned them soon enough, and they weren’t all that different from Dutch. Only “Schweiz” for Switzerland was a bit funny; they’d better have called Sweden Schweiz, he thought.
Oh, how pitifully few his hundred and fifty stamps seemed when he had transferred them to that album! Now and again he had to count the whole lot of them, to see how far away he was from two hundred, but then he could skip scores of pages because there was nothing on them anyway but printed replicas. He often sat looking at them, in the wistful realization that such rare stamps would probably remain forever outside his reach.
The one from Orange Free State remained a fine one of course. But on the page next to it was Cape of Good Hope. And of all the rare stamps the most unattainable seemed to Kees the triangular one that was printed there. “A slanting one from the Cape” Kees called it. And there were moments when he could fleetingly imagine himself to be the possessor of such a singular stamp. Fancy that it would be sitting in his album just like that!
He sometimes talked about it with a school friend. Then he found it gratifying to speak with a certain familiarity of “a slanting Capey”.
One day he brought the subject up with a boy called De Veer, and the latter said calmly: ‘Well, so what, me dad got loads of slanting Capeys on letters at times.’
Kees laughed at him and called other boys, and they all shouted loud, of course. De Veer’s father again hey, De Veer’s father had got everything…
‘Well, don’t believe it then,’ De Veer said. But all the boys chuckled teasingly, and Kees said: ‘You mean these bread tickets, of this cheap water-bread you guzzle.’
That definitely made De Veer a sucker, because his baldness was a thing he was always being taunted with.
‘Come crowing to me again about your slanting Capeys,’ Kees concluded.
But not long afterwards he happened to walk along Voorburgwal past De Veer’s house, and on the windows he saw the painted text “Cape and Californian Wines.” And next thing De Veer came to school with a lot of Cape stamps to swap, not slanting ones to be sure, but real Cape ones nonetheless. And one boy related how he had been at De Veer’s place and seen the slanting stamps with his own eyes. And Kees began to see De Veer in a different light. He was a bald bear with little spunk, he was dumb and didn’t read any real book. In short, a real drear of course. But that precisely a drear like that should have such easy access to these fine stamps… A touch of veneration for De Veer began to grow inside him. ‘Why don’t you ever take a slanting one from Cape with you,’ he finally asked the drear with calculated indifference. And the answer was: ‘Me dad won’t let me, eh.’



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auldstampguy

Tim
Collector, Webmaster
04 Jul 2017
06:37:57pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

For those of you who enjoy a good murder mystery with a philatelic theme, I have just finished reading "The Chalon Heads" by Barry Maitland, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a fairly old book so should be available in your local library if you are interested.

Here is a write up on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/150082.The_Chalon_Heads

Regards ... Tim.

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Stampme

21 Jul 2017
05:46:59pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

I recall the area of an outdoor stamp bourse in Orleans, France in 1965. For an American boy looking on, the dealers had an intimidating air about them which could easily mirror the one in the fictional narrative located in Paris. I recall shaking of fists, voices raised and so forth. Of course, it could have been good old fashioned horse trading in French. At that point I only had a smattering of the language. Unfortunately, I think, I was too timid to buy anything and went to a tiny stamp shop in the center of the city, buying my stamps from the friendly dealer.

Stamp collectors and dealers are a breed apart in many instances and represent all that is good in our species but unfortunately, all that is bad, too. There are proud individuals and plenty of herd followers, mirroring what we see in society but on a stamp level of appreciation or disdain.

I must do an Amazon search for the author's works. Sounds interesting.*

Bruce

* I just purchased The Occupation Trilogy: La Place de l'Étoile – The Night Watch – Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano. I recall the other occupation trilogy Jean-Paul Satre which proved to be a great read.

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TuskenRaider

31 Jul 2017
08:35:15am

re: Stamps in Fiction

Hi Bobstamp & Everyone;

I consider reality shows to be more contrived melodrama and downright fiction than factual, however recently on "Pawn Stars" via Dish TV, this was interesting tho...

A customer came into the pawn shop with a crash cover with a Hawaii CDS postmark. It was in a rather famous crash.

What made the crash famous was that a large number of important scientists working for the government were all killed in this crash. The US government stated that new policy would not allow that many important scientists to travel on the same flight in the future.

The cover featured one of the 1938 presidential series stamps. I believe it was a pair of 3¢ violet Jefferson stamps and had a par avion label on the front. The upper left corner was burned away as was the contents in that area.

So Bobstamp, what can you tell us about this interesting piece? Did you by chance see this episode?

Just couch potatoin' out....
TuskenRaider

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Stampme

31 Jul 2017
12:53:20pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

I'm wondering since it appears you watched this episode: Did they buy the cover? If so, how much? One of their philatelic purchases proved to be a burn for them, meaning they overpaid and they have been reluctant to buy other philatelic items that have popped up on there.

Bruce

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Benque

12 Feb 2020
12:00:43am

re: Stamps in Fiction

From a movie I stumbled across on youtube:

Berlin Correspondent (1942)
"American correspondent Bill Roberts is a thorn in the side of the Nazis, as his paper always scoops the world with the truth about Germany.
Gestapo Captain Carl Von Rau means to plug the leak and assigns Karen Hauen, who he attends to wed, to the case. Roberts is obtaining his information for his stories and broadcasts from an elderly stamp collector who, defiantly opposed to the Nazis, sells the "proper" stamps to Roberts, giving him the information. Attracted to Karen, Roberts invites her to his apartment where she learns his secret. The old philatelist is sent to a concentration camp, and then Karen learns that he is her father. She appeals to Roberts for help and he, in loyalty to the old man and now in love with Karen, agrees to help."

Just enter the title and year into the youtube search field, and you'll find it right away.

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londonbus1

12 Feb 2020
03:13:59am

re: Stamps in Fiction

Nice to re-read this topic with posts from passed members and personal friends.

In their honour and to re-live the atmosphere of the story from the initial post, here is a Poster Stamp from 1942 of 'La Bourse aux Timbres', now the 'Marche aux Timbres'. (The Paris Stamp Market). The stamp was to help support the Artists of Paris.
A Postcard also exists of the same scene.

Just an aside. The Market continued to run during the German Occupation in WWII as normal, just as it did during WWI.

Londonbus1

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StampWrangler

12 Feb 2020
04:00:03pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

"For those of you who enjoy a good murder mystery with a philatelic theme, I have just finished reading "The Chalon Heads" by Barry Maitland, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a fairly old book so should be available in your local library if you are interested."



Just placed it on hold at my local library. Thanks for the suggestion!
I love reading mystery books about my hobbies, and ones about philately are harder to find.

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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
12 Feb 2020
04:44:30pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

I've mentioned this in another thread somewhere. The John Keller series by Laurence Block deals with a stamp collecting hit man, a great series of murder mystery books that are very accurate stamp wise. He starts collecting stamps part way through the series when he has to murder a person at a stamp auction. A line in the story I really like has to do with the hit who is a collector of Germany and German States. His comment concerns the fact that one of the things we can be sure of in life is "Thurn and Taxis". I actually bought a few stamps from Thurn and Taxis because pf the story. Check them out, they are very good!

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StampWrangler

12 Feb 2020
10:23:50pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

Another available in my local library, and just placed on hold. Thanks Harvey!

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cougar

13 Feb 2020
02:51:27am

re: Stamps in Fiction

Treasure Island makes no mention of stamps but one can easily become a coin collector after reading it.

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Charlie2009

13 Feb 2020
03:21:28am

re: Stamps in Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/series/49488-john-keller

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londonbus1

13 Feb 2020
06:27:28am

re: Stamps in Fiction

Here's one about man's obsession for one of Philately's 'Holy Grail' !!
Lots about stamps and other stuff too.....including a bit of sex and violence !!

David Benedictus is also a Stamp Collector himself as well as Writer and Producer for TV.
i met him a few times at the Charing Cross Collectors market.
You'll see him below selling his wares !

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ikeyPikey

15 Feb 2020
05:27:50am

re: Stamps in Fiction

'
A Million Dollars an Ounce
by M John Lubetkin

As Hitler's empire crumbles in 1945, an American paratrooper seizes ten million dollars in rare stamps looted by Nazi's during the war. However, once back in New York he soon discovers that he has opened a Pandora's box of troubles for himself because, to sell the stamps, he must put his trust in Meyer Lansky, the brains behind "Lucky" Luciano's New York mob. Then, as he settles into post-war life, he discovers that the SS General who masterminded the plundering will stop at nothing to get "his" stamps back.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
16 Feb 2020
05:57:49pm

re: Stamps in Fiction

".... he must put his trust in Meyer Lansky, ,...."

I'd love to red the rational behind that decision.
A short trip downtown to Nassau Street would allow him to
sell just abut any part and parcel on a collection to one
of the dealers on the five floors of that building and a
stroll along either side would open him to fifteen or
twenty more stamp dealers.
I suppose if he walked in and emended n immediate sale,
cash in small unmarked bills, or the pages bore an identifying
mark, might have presented a problem.
But I have related here that my father often took me with
him a he unloaded stamps and sometimes albums as well as
matched sets of US plate blocks. He even took an album from
one dealer down the street to another where it was sold
in a quiet cash transaction.
I think I'll buy a copy just to see the rationale behind the
author's plot to dump the stamps.

That reminds me that one of my father's cousins was in the
Army in Europe, and stayed there a year or two after the end
Of hostilities, stationed in Berlin as an MP.
When he came home he bought a home just East of Levittown
and His basement was full of "memorabilia" he had shipped home.
I wish I had been a year or two older and could have made better
sense of things like Lugers, Mausers, fancy knives with some
skull emblem on the handle, and some very fancy silverware
no one ate from. After all these years his name, thought forgotten
at first, just popped into my head. "Uncle" Russ had a chess
set that he let me handle. ( Touch lightly but not play with,
pieces were intricately carved (???) Ivory. If he mentioned
where he got them, it was out of my hearing or ken.
But it seemed obvious even to a ten or eleven year old, they
were from his stay in Europe, and had once belonged to some
one else. I do not recall anything philatelic, but people
from Brooklyn, where I was born, always knew a guy who knew
a guy who could do things for a price.
Just talking (writing) about these kinds of things unleash
so many memories, long left behind.
I hope the story as written is as good as I am now
imagining it.
.

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