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Friday, April 2, 2010

The Birdman of Seville


When someone who calls himself 'John Smith' contacts you from out of the blue, you don'tat first know whether to trust him. It's almost too common a name. This man, though, is definitely not ordinary. He and his wife are English, but they retired to sunny Spain, a land where the people take their holidays seriously. John managed to send me a dual selection of Italian and British stamps before Easter, but it may be that he has to wait until after then before mine reach him.

'D' stands for Dodo. The creature no longer exists, but if there are stamps of it then John is your man. He collects stamps that feature birds from at least two countries: New Zealand and Japan. Originally, John emailed me asking if I'd mind looking at his 'wants lists' to see if I had what he needed. I agreed, but John's needs are quite specific, and it's often only booklets or minisheets that fit his bill. As it turned out, I could only help him with 3 stamps (an official kiwi, a Japanese cormorant and one other) so I had to supply the balance as NZ commemoratives.

Italy and Great Britain produce stamps with quite a different feel to them. The UK ones were quite happy to line up and pose, but the Italian ones were all over the place!
 

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