Happy New Year!

A New Year and what a great start for cover collectors! The Design Classics stamps and celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Mini and 40th anniversary of Concorde.

Our signed editions really get the year off to a flier (no pun intended!). It took lots of detective work to track down the key engineer on the very first Concorde flight, Michel Retif. I have never seen him sign before. And who better than

Paddy Hopkirk for the Mini cover? The man who raced the Mini Cooper S through icy, twisty mountain passes of the Alps and into the record books, winning the Monte Carlo Rally. The cover illustration shows him doing it!

What’s Next?
I have mentioned before how it gets harder to find the autographs I want. For the Darwin stamps next month though, I have two more fabulous signatures. We are working with the HMS Beagle project. The project is to build a full size replica of Darwin’s ship and sail it round the original route doing scientific work. You can find out more about it at www.thebeagleproject.com. We will be carrying covers but this won’t be until later in 2009 or even 2010. Click here to see our HMS Beagle cover.

Our autographs for the Darwin issue are:
Sir Robin Knox Johnson who is a Patron of the Beagle Project and of course, the first person to sail single handed and non-stop around the world
Dame Ellen McCarthy, our most famous yachtswomen

That’s the good news. The bad news is that covers signed by Dame Ellen will be late as I have agreed she can sign them as and when but I think it’s well worth the wait.

I hope I will soon have a second autograph for our Robert Burns cover. Our main signature
for the Burns cover, Alexandra McCall Smith, is certainly one of Scotland’s most famous authors so I am delighted to include him in the series.

Club members will get covers reserved for them as usual and Emma will be in touch to check if you want them this time.

If you are not in the club, it is worth placing an order sooner rather than later if you want any of the signed covers.

Tony’s Chat
I have further evidence of the state of the economy. A vulture (well, heron) has adopted us, having eaten all of our fish. These fish had been getting bigger and bigger for years. They were more like pets, coming to the trough up to five times a day. You’d be amazed how demanded fish can be. Once they surfaced, ogling and goggling and splashing, I really didn’t dare not put in some more fish food.

A visitor once told us that our monster fish were worth around £100-£150 each. I just hope the greedy heron realized he just ate £1000!!! Why he stays, I don’t know. Perhaps he hopes we will feed him up to five times a day?

On a similar note, I had to pay my tax in advance. I always dutifully send a cheque for Cath and myself before I fly south for my winter holiday.

It suddenly occurred to me that, as Mr. Brown had removed a great chunk of my income, then I probably won't owe them anything. My accountant advised appealing so the Government gets peanuts. I imagine this will be repeated throughout the country. Less income for Mr Brown that usual? Even worse for him, I reckon he will owe me for this year!

Am I the only one who finds it extraordinary that he gives 1% stamp duty and then urges first time buyers to grab the chance to be ruined as prices fall by 20%? He abolishes boom and bust, saves the World, and robs our pension funds to set the framework for the collapse. Did he not think 125 % mortgages meant 30% negative equity straight away? I could go on and on but yet apparently, he is the man to save us! Is it just me who is not convinced?

How does 0% bank rate help? Mortgage rates will not go below 5% for most and the banks will be starved of capital so will lend less. As for the savers, well, “don’t bother” is the message he’s sending.

But it’s always swings and roundabouts. Just seems we are always on the swings when the roundabouts are doing well!

At least I didn’t invest in a $50 billion fund that had its accounts in Rockwell, in a 13ft by 8ft office. There were 3 in the practice it turns out - a 78 year old retiree living in Florida plus one other and a secretary. Didn’t some of the clever ones notice before investing billions?

I saw one clever advertisement: if you are keeping your money under the mattress, make sure it’s a good one: buy a luxury bed from us!”

Tony

Fun and Games with the QE2

I do not know who writes my scripts as you couldn’t make them up!

We had, as most of you know, covers on board QE2 as she sailed off to retirement to Dubai. Getting them back was always going to be a nightmare. Our Production Manager, Tracey, worked miracles. We found an agent and freight forwarders, they were sent and we managed to get them through customs. So far, so good.

Our next problem is that we oversold on the signed editions but the Master of QE2, Captain Ian McNaught, was our saviour. When he returned to the UK, he happily signed our earlier covers carried on the last transatlantic crossing.

All was going fantastically well when the three boxes of covers arrived from Dubai. Have you noticed life has an irritating habit of setting you up then just when you think all is well, smacking you round the face with a wet fish? The third box was virtually empty! The box containing covers signed by the Captain was missing.

Oh, the joys of carrying covers. We started an investigation. I had had a strange message from the ship via the UK that some of the boxes might have been mixed up with covers returned to Isle of Man Post Office. So I phoned them, only to find out that our box was floating around in Dubai.

With luck they will be returned to us eventually but will we get them in time for Christmas? That’s another story.

2008 has been a hectic year. We seem to have been waiting for various things to happen. The Vulcan bomber to fly. The Tornado to steam. Hundreds of my stamped addressed letters to potential signatories to be returned.

I always send a stamped addressed envelope to every celebrity when asking to sign for us. I send 100s of these every month and get back perhaps 5! Where do they all go? I have a vision that there is a black market for them and somewhere, a stall exists selling my stamped envelopes: “only 15p each! Comes with a label to cover up the address!” I’ve sent over 30,000 of these blasted envelopes, all with stamps, since we started in 2000! I find it hard to understand why just returning my letters, with “no, sorry” scribbled on them in the envelope I send is so hard.

But enough moaning! It is Christmas and I’m not feeling at all bah humbuggy this year. I’m looking forward to seeing my granddaughter, Caitlin, properly enjoy Christmas for the first time this year. Now she is 2 years old, it is magical.

At some point, I must write up my diary of the Collectors' Show we did at Peterborough last month. I still can't think of it without wanting to slit my wrists yet but watch this space ...

Best wishes,

Tony

P.S. It’s a shame that Father Christmas and the tooth fairy only exist for us in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. I think his Hogfather joins White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life and Holiday Inn as great Christmas films to watch. The brilliant Marc Warren plays one of the best baddies ever.

My Life this Month

Ellie is trying to get me to update my blog each week but I'm not so good at it. So instead, I'm going to give you my life this month. I think I'll be able to keep up a monthly update!

But if I have any deep and meaningful thoughts in between, I'll post them up here!

This post covers (ho ho, no pun intended):

• My Olympic Gold Medal collection
• The future of Folkestone Stamp Shop
• Family Business
• Our new Concorde 2009 covers
• Flying Brands and Benham
  

OLYMPICS NIGHTMARE
Some days I wonder if I am a glutton for punishment. Other days, I know I am.

It seemed a good idea on Sunday 24th August when gold medals were raining down on Team GB. A cover collection of gold winners, I thought, would be a gold winner. I was right there. We wrote to our collectors on the Monday and by the time James de Galle had thumped his Cuban opponent to win gold number 17, we had just about sold out of my collection.

They were the good days. From then onwards, it was downhill all the way. Now, last time I did such a collection, I worked with the British Olympic Association (BOA) and I naively thought I’d do the same this time, raising some money for them and the athletes. WRONG. Things had changed since 1996 (was it really that long since I was at Benham?).
The British Olympic Association no longer had any rights. I had to talk to London 2012. This proved difficult because they all were out in Beijing, launching 2012. When I finally made contact I fell flat on my face again. I was using British and Chinese stamps issued under the guidance of . . . the International Olympic Commission (IOC). This meant I technically need three lots of permission.

I immediately applied for a license for 2012.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t got a year or so to negotiate for this year, so the world “Olympic” was obviously banned. We called the collection the “Best in the World” instead.
I then wrote to all 27 gold medal winners via the BOA offering them a total of over £20,000 to sign not very many covers. WRONG. Unfortunately, as it was “commercial” they couldn’t help so returned all my 27 letters in a big box.
So let the fun begin. All I had to do was find 27 people, simple for Sherlock Buckingham, after all I have tracked down people for years. WRONG. It has proved one of the most difficult and time consuming exercises I have ever done. At the time of writing, I have 21 autographs confirmed. 1 will talk next year. I am still tracking 5. I reckon 150 letters, 40 plus emails and hundreds of phone calls.

That was my problem. Alas, I gave Cath an even bigger one. None of the Olympic pictures or photos were available to us so Cath had to research elsewhere. Getting photos of some teams were almost impossible. She even had to create a single picture of a team out of three separate pictures! That’s not only difficult but expensive: three fees. Luckily neither of us could afford a divorce.

I have to say it has been a roller coaster of a ride. We sent 4 covers to be signed at a wedding. I thought it was above the call of duty at the time but it was agreed. Alas, of course with all the excitement and thought of the honeymoon, they were forgotten. We managed to get them back from Royal Mail.

I always thought film stars were difficult but try Ocean racers. It’s Bermuda, Valencia, New Zealand, New York, Hong Kong, Malaysia and that was just up to December. It all comes down to a window of opportunity.

We managed to get the first two signed ones out to collectors on the 31st October. I reckon the last ones will be summer 2009. But if you're buying the collection, Tracey and I hope to send your next 2 covers out in a couple of weeks: Ben Ainslie who is one of our greatest Olympians and Nicole Cooke, a fantastic athlete who took the pressure off (or on?) the others by getting gold on the first day.

Our multisigned editions are all over the place at the moment. They obviously involves a lot of organisation. Tracey, who is in charge of logistics as well as many, many other things, has been superb. She deals with arranging over 150 autographs a year and it does involve a lot of juggling.

END OF AN ERA – FOLKESTONE STAMP SHOP
With the sad loss of Brian Uden, we decided to de-merge the stamp division of Internetstamps Group Ltd: the Folkestone Stamp Shop (FSS). Richard Kennedy, the director in charge, is buying it and moving it to Hythe. This is of course ironic as it started in Hythe in 1973, 35 years ago when I opened it in the Malt House, later moving to 53a High Street in 1975 with the late Bill King managing it.

Brian Uden joined in 1977 and opened the Folkestone shop for me in 1978. At that time, I had three shops in Hythe, Canterbury and Folkestone. Richard joined Brian in 1982 and has been involved ever since so it’s great that he will own it outright. I am sure Richard will do well. Obviously we will help him as much as possible.

FAMILY BUSINESS
After buying Richard’s shares, Internetstamps Group Ltd is now 98% owned by the family. My son-in-law, Tom Hopkins has joined us from a senior management position from South East Trains. He is a senior engineer so we should have no more problems with the pencil sharpeners. Seriously, he has brought that valuable commodity: energy. He is moving us rapidly into the 21st century with major improvements to all of our technology and bringing a very fresh approach to looking at everything we do. The rail industry’s loss is certainly our gain.

40 YEARS SINCE CONCORDE MADE HER MAIDEN FLIGHT
I have been sleuthing as usual, trying to find new Concorde autographs. With both Brian Trubshaw and John Cochrane dead, it’s difficult. Like most of us, I believed that Brian and John flew Concorde on March 2nd 1969 alone.

Actually, it was April 9th and there were 6 aboard. 1 of those has departed on another flight but 3 are still alive and I have tracked them all down. All 3 are signing for me - both on our our 40th anniversary cover and our new Concorde sheet.

So what happened on March 2nd 1969? Andre Turcat and his crew flew from Toulouse. I have been trying to locate them but alas, Andre is, as Gilbert Defer says, preparing for his last flight and despite my best efforts has not responded. Henri Perrier has been charged with manslaughter re the Air France Concorde crash (how he did it sitting in an office in Paris I’m not sure but he was the boss so as they say “the buck stops here”). Funnily enough, he is not keen on signing.

But I have found another key player who was on the flight so am feeling very pleased. 4 new great autographs, all relevant to 1969. Concorde goes on being popular as there is just the tiniest chance she may fly again.

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
I like to keep an eye on Flying Brands, the company who bought Benham from me back in 1995. If you read my articles in the Philatelic Exporter, you'll remember I mentioned their amazing share price fall compared with Stanley Gibbons.

As I write this, Sinking Brands' (as I like to call them) shares have dropped to 33.5p. They have been down as low as 30p. At 33.5p, the company was valued at £8.5 million. That’s about an 85% drop this year and a staggering 95% drop since they peaked around £160 million. Meanwhile, Stanley Gibbons shares, which were around 10p a share at de-merger, have steadied and the company is now valued at £32 million. I find this fascinating because when Flying Brands (Flying Flowers as they were then) bought Benham for roughly £3 million, the company was worth £32 million. Why they changed to Flying Brands, I don’t know but the way it’s going, it could be Dying Brands, unless they are taken over by Sir Tom Hunter who is already nursing a big loss on his 29% stake. Whatever happens, if I was still at Benham I would be afraid. Very afraid.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Do let me know if you like my blog or if I'm telling you what you want to know. Ellie just told me I should have a blog but being a dinosaur about these things, it is all news to me. Comments are most welcome, although Ian, who certainly put me in my place last time, you have to bear with me. Spell check on Microsoft Word is not my friend and insisted on changed Riflemind to Rifleman and Cait to Kate ..... I'll take responsibility for other factual errors though!
I think you can comment on my blog by clicking on "0 comments" at the end and then having your say. Otherwise, give us an email at betty@buckinghamcovers.com and let me know what you think.

And if you have any questions for me, I'll happily answer them here!

Until next time, all best wishes

Plans for stamp sheets in 2009

I've been asked by a few people

Why are we doing so many sheets now?

It's a good question.

I hadn’t intended to produce so many stamp sheets when we started. But they are proving very popular with charities and organisations. And because we work so often with organisations, we find we are being asked to produce more and more official stamp sheets.

So we do produce more sheets than I would like at the moment but if we didn’t help, the organisation would only ask one of our competitors to produce their sheet instead!

And as we are working with them on cover projects anyway, it seems more sensible to produce a special sheet for them too.

HOT NEWS! HOT NEWS! HOT NEWS! HOT NEWS! HOT NEWS!

50^th Anniversary of the Mini

Next year sees some fantastic Buckingham stamp sheets. We are working with the Heritage Motor Museum at Gaydon who own Mini 1, which is rather applicable for the fiftieth anniversary. It’s the old BMC museum so it’s got lots of minis of all sorts. The illustration on our Mini stamp sheet is of Paddy Hopkirk winning 1964 Monte Carlo Rally and the sheet will be signed by him. There will be no multisigned editions.

40^th Anniversary of Concorde – AMAZING autograph!

Design work on our 40th anniversary of Concorde sheet is now finished. This will have a VERY unusual signature. It’s being signed by an engineer who flew on the very first British Concorde flight. There will also be an outstanding multisigned edition with loads of NEW great 1969 Concorde autographs. More details soon.

Great Little Trains of Wales

We are working with 10 little railways in Wales. We’re producing a stamp sheet for them and over the next 2 years, there will also be a set of 10 covers. As you can see, the sheet is superb. Again, there will be no multisigned edition.

60^th Anniversary of the Comet

Finally, the comet celebrates 60 years in 2009 and our striking stamp sheet will be signed by John Wilson, the 1949 Test pilot. It was John Wilson, along with Cats Eyes Cunningham, who got commercial jet travel going.

And more! Next year also sees:

· 40^th Anniversary of the first man on the moon

We are officially working with the Science Museum who asked us for this sheet.

· 100 years since Bleriot flew the channel

We are working locally in Dover to celebrate this landmark.

· 500^th Anniversary of the Tudor warship, the Mary Rose

We are officially working with the Mary Rose, who asked us for a sheet.

As you can see a great 2009 programme and as even more people find out about our sheets, they seem to disappear rather quickly.

I'll get images up here as soon as I can.

I'm pretty down in the dumps at the moment, lots of things are going wrong so bear with me .....

50th Anniversary of the Regionals Stamps

This is a big anniversary. It’s 50 years since a very young Tony Buckingham went to London to buy the 1958 regional stamps!

In the early days, these stamps were not available from the Post Office. There was no central Philatelic Bureau either so they were difficult to get. When I first started in 1966, I had everything to learn and the regional first day covers were a nightmare.

I knew a dealer in Wales who postmarked my covers at Bethlehem. I found friendly dealers to help in Scotland and Northern Ireland too - then I was on my own. Believe it or not, I phoned hotels in the three Islands asking for help! My 1968 and 1969 covers were done by amateurs. Even worse, the peelable labels didn’t peel. No, that’s not strictly true. They came off and were replaced by what looked like coal dust. We did have a coal fire so that might well have been what was – horrifying! That horrible dust was in the air all the time.

I got my first big break due to those stamps. A far more established dealer than me advertised for agents to produce his covers - but there was a strike so the advertisement came out after the day of issue.

I cunningly wrote to him commiserating and of course offering him some of my covers. He immediately transferred all his order to me which was a massive bonus. He gave up in 1973 and gave me his customers (he was getting married and forgot about them) I sent them an EEC Calais paquebot cds and they loved me forever.

For those who actually read my newsletters (yes, you Mrs Jones in Wick), you will be glad to know I have been to the Old Vic three times since I tried to go to Australia via my face the quick way …. and didn’t fall over. But ironically my Kiwi friend fell backwards on the escalator on the London Underground, breaking two ribs in his back. He always has to out do me!

While mentioning the Old Vic, if you get a chance, go and see the “Norman Conquests”. It’s brilliant. They got 5 stars from The Times which was well deserved, unlike “Rifleman”. That’s another story. My advice: avoid “Rifleman”! Our only regret was we didn’t leave when the actress said “this is rubbish”. It would have been nice to say, “I agree. Goodnight!” But I was too British and instead, suffered 60 hours (well 1 hour 10 minutes) before the first act ended. To get so many expletives in that time must have been a record. At least 400. Kate Blanchet (the first director and spouse of the so called playwright) and John Hannah should be ashamed. Shock is one thing, rubbish another. Pity the good old days are over, they would all be in prison.

Anyway, I'm especially pleased with our set of 3 regional covers, each bearing the 50 year old stamps and the new 2008 stamps. We could only do limited numbers because it was hard to get my hands on the 1958 stamps so if you've got one, you've done well! The signed versions are very special. They all have a fabulous football connection ...

Our signature on the miniature sheet cover has been delayed. It will be Hayley Mills, who, 50 years ago, was filming Tiger Bay in Cardiff (Welsh connection!). She won a special Oscar for her performance.

Next month, I will tell you about my Olympic Collection nightmares. I am up to about 20 out of the 27 autographs now (that’s being optimistic. It might be only 18 but I have promises for 2 at sea ) It’s been a dreadful job trying to find the 27! Hopefully by next time I will almost be there.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Very shortly, a complete Buckingham Covers catalogue will be live on our site www.buckinghamcovers.com. Everything we’ve got at the moment will be there.

If you are not already subscribed to Ellie’s email newsletter, I’d recommend signing up so you’ll be the first to know when it is live.

It’s worth joining anyway so Ellie can tell you about her special website offers each week. She makes such generous offers that most of the time, I can’t bear to look.

And I know a lot of collectors enjoy her little anecdotes about her 2 year old daughter (my granddaughter!), Caitlin.

To join Ellie’s email family, go to www.buckinghamcovers.com/family or give us a call on 01303 278 137.

Going back to the Buckingham Covers catalogue, I hope you will find it useful and my bank manager (the Borneo, Rutland, Oceana, Kakistan and Egypt)* would be grateful if you order from it.

Hope your mattress isn’t too lumpy . . .

All best wishes

Tony Buckingham

*BROKE!

I live in a thief’s paradise. On Sunday, I was about to drive my car out of the garage when I noticed a suspicious squirrel. It shares that guilty look with our cat. You know they have done something wrong but you are not sure what. The offending rodent stopped suddenly. It had dropped its prize - our one and only large ripe strawberry.

It’s the same everywhere. The rabbits eat everything and there are 100000s of them. They breed like, well, rabbits. Foxes leave us presents everywhere and the black backed gulls, carrion crows, magpies, jays, and pigeons (in strict pecking order) fight for anything worthwhile. You have never seen such sleek, well-fed birds. I feel sorry for the young sparrow hawk trying to learn its craft. The one thing we haven’t got is deer. My mother had deer in her garden and they ate tulips and anything else she treasured.

Our cat does try to keep the rabbit population down but she is fussy - only the small, tasty ones are up to her standard and she does like to bring her work home. Sometimes we find her leftovers behind the sofa. The smell!

You probably wonder where this is leading. Well to be honest, nowhere but I was looking forward to that strawberry.

Plans for 2009

Next year, we have some fabulous sheets shaping up. We celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of the Mini with a striking sheet produced in association with the Heritage Motor Centre. That’s the Museum that owns Mini One, the first ever Mini. We have a great autograph lined up for that one.

There will also be superb Aviation sheets marking the 40^th Anniversary of Concorde (with a fantastic autograph which we have never offered before) and the 60^th anniversary of Comet’s first flight. The Comet sheets are being signed by the first test pilot, John Wilson.

As well as Concorde and Comet, there are a number of important air and space anniversaries next year so a great year for air buffs (whatever that means).

If railway is your passion, you’ll love the sheet we are producing for the Great Little Trains of Wales. There are 10 steam engines in the group, making a perfect sheet (different train for each of the 10 labels). Cath is just waiting for one more to finish the design. It is fantastic, I love it. We are also doing a set of 10 covers as well.

Oh, I've also had some good news for Paddington Bear fans. Michael Bond has been staggeringly generous and agreed to personally sign a few more Paddington 50th Anniversary stamp sheets for me. I think we have a bit of a waiting list for these but if you want to grab one, go to www.buckinghamcovers.com

More news from me soon!