Jeff Woolgar and Joan Matthews
Jeff Woolgar and Joan Matthews published an article ‘Stamp Dealers (8) – Howard Davis' during 2013.1
Open any philatelic magazine during the first decade of the twentieth century, and you will generally find at least one page of advertisements from collectors and dealers who wish to exchange stamps or post 'approval books'. The following advert is an example which first appeared in the London published magazine, Stamp Collectors’ Fortnightly on Saturday 16th December, 1905.
A reply to an earlier and similar advertisement is illustrated below. The half-penny Transvaal postal stationery card has been up-rated with a half-penny adhesive stamp. It was sent from a philatelist and committee member of ‘The Philatelic Society’, Johannesburg, W.P. Cohen
C/O Box 68
Johannesburg,
Jan 15 – l906
Sir - Please send me some of your N.Z. stamps to look through, (as advertised in Stamp Coll.[ectors’] Fortnightly) of which I specialise in. I was one of the early members of the Wellington Society, when I lived in N.Z. for some time. I notice that you are a member of the Birmingham Society which is my native town. Yours TrulyW.P. Cohen,
Hon - Treasurer, Librarian and
Exchange Superintendent of
[the following handstamp is applied in purple ink]
THE PHILATELIC SOCIETY
P.O. Box 4967
Johannesburg
S.A.
The readdressed Edwardian and up-rated ˝d Transvaal postal stationery card, is addressed to Howard Davis of Melbourne, Victoria. It was posted on the 15th of January 1906 from Johannesburg, and was signed by W.P. Cohen, the Honorary Treasurer, Librarian and Exchange Superintendent of The Philatelic Society, Johannesburg, who used an oval buckled handstamp of that society.
No doubt Cohen used ‘The Philatelic Society’ handstamp as a reference, which Davis had asked for in his advertisement.2 That these two men had much in common and took the same British philatelic magazine is an example of how the early twentieth century Empire worked. The fine postal communications aimed and succeeded in bringing together business and people from around the world under the same sphere of influence. It was not unusual to find reports in British philatelic magazines, of meetings in South Africa recording what a member of a Johannesburg society had shown at a venue like the Masonic Temple, Plein Street. Collectors around the Empire were able to read philatelic news from other countries and correspond, thus strengthening social ties and unity in the years that led up to the First World War.
References
1 Matthews, J., and Woolgar, J., (2016), The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.51, No.1 (184), March 2013, pp.20-21. 2 The Philatelic Almanac 1907, 9th Edition, Chas. J. Endle & Co., England, p.20, [The British Library Shelfmark: Crawford 812(4)]records: Johannesburg Philatelic Society, P.O. Box 4967 Johannesburg, Transvaal and that Cohen W.P. Librarian, Treasurer and Exchange Superintendent.
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