History of stamp collecting 2, the first collectors

In the late 1970s, a fascinating series of articles written by Mr. K. Kouwenberg on the history of stamp collecting appeared in the monthly magazine Philatelie. This series served as the source of inspiration for Rob Smit to re-describe the history of stamp collecting in biweekly installments. This is Part 2: The First Collectors. To collect something, there must be some variety. For collecting to become a craze where multiple people collect the same thing, you also need a more or less large number of identical items, so that a trading market emerges. To make it widespread, the items to be collected must be available in various geographical locations. Postage stamps possessed all of this; moreover, they were easy to carry and captured the imagination because they sometimes came from a distant land. Much like coins, which had been collected long before the first postage stamp appeared. The first, or actually the first two, postage stamps therefore appeared in 1840. Within ten years, many other countries followed with postage stamps, so that by the 1850s a collection of stamps could already consist of dozens of different ones, and new, previously unknown stamps kept surfacing, which naturally made it exciting. Although there must have been some collectors before 1850, collecting only really took off in the 1850s. Initially, it was mainly schoolboys, but gradually more adults turned out to be involved in stamp collecting as well. The very first documented collector can be found in the London Times. In 1841, a woman placed an advertisement there requesting stamps to wallpaper a wall in her bedroom. I myself have not yet been able to locate the original advertisement. It was certainly challenging in the beginning. No one knew which stamps existed. The only way to gain any insight was by comparing collections. In 1860, schoolmaster SF Creswell wrote about a stamp collection belonging to one of his pupils in the journal 'Notes and Queries'. Below are images from this journal, where the article begins at the very bottom of page 482 and continues on page 483.

from the University of Toronto collection

For the first time, it is clearly indicated here that there is at least a collection of more than 300 stamps. I find it fantastic to read that the boy in question apparently had contact with none other than Sir Rowland Hill himself, who told him that he could at least continue collecting for a while longer. From the remark, one could deduce that Sir Rowland Hill was also a collector himself, or at least had some other insight into the total number of stamps issued. Furthermore, the submitted piece indicates that there are already quite a few enthusiasts, that collecting is educational, and that a stamp collection is essentially a portable museum. Moreover, the article calls for the publication of a catalogue, for more writing about stamps in the media, and asks for a shop where stamps are sold. I do not think there is another article in which the entire philatelic world is summarized so well, even before such a thing existed! His wishes would soon come true. In 1857, the Brussels bookseller JB Moens appeared to already be busy purchasing stamps, and the first catalogue was not long in coming either.

More on that in the next episode on Thursday, May 14.