Saturday was the Best Morning of the Week.
Editor's Note: Jamie sent this to me saying that he did not know what to do with it. I have decided to put it up here. I love this sort of nostalgic writing and sentimentality for times past. I have written similar stuff about my ten years visiting the Stamp Fair in the underground car park at Embankment London every Saturday. Perhaps we should have a 'Down Memory Lane Forum' for philatelists? Will anyone contribute? But enough said, lets get back to Jamie's Saturdays in Jo'burg 30 - 40 years ago, starting at the Carlton Centre, then the accessible heart of the city.
SATURDAY WAS THE BEST MORNING OF THE WEEK.
by Jamie Smith.
With the lock-up I haven't been writing so much and I am always looking for something to write about. Due to circumstances I was sat in the car this morning waiting, whiling the time away with an old copy of 'The Anglo Boer War Philatelist' dated March 1992. As I turned the pages names kept popping up, David Crocker, Betty Sandilands, Stephan Welz, Dannie Swart, Richard Johnson, Henk de Lange, Bill Hart, etc. I was reminded of the old Saturday mornings spent wandering around the then philatelic dealers in Johannesburg. If the aforementioned weren't dealers on that circuit you were likely to bump into any of them and many others like them.
I usually parked the car in the Carlton Center and made my way upstairs to the dealers. Robamark in the early days were in the Arcade with Coen Slagt, Robertson Stamps and Speedy. They then moved to just under the stairs in the Carlton Center. Later still they had the larger shop upstairs where Benje, Ken and Peter Vogenbeck would serve you as and when they had the time, they were so busy. In the meantime you were given a box of something to work your way through.
Although your eyes were in the box in case you missed a priceless gem your ears were everywhere. Much as when I was catering and clearing tables, nobody noticed you and you heard everything. About; The well known Johannesburg forger of 'Germany Colony' stamps. A second forger of S.W.A. Overprints and surcharges (some of which are now catalogued as genuine). The collector who managed to buy an error of colour Rhodesia one pound stamp and after celebrating with a bottle of his favourite whisky thought one of the perfs was too long so decided to trim the stamp with his guillotine. Was it his hand or the guillotine that slipped? I don't know but I do know it was exhibited later as the 'Guillotined Error'. Plate blocks of KUT for R10, the bottom two rows of the 1c. sheet with all the errors for R20, I was offered an inverted waterfall Ruanda by Kenny, I never bought it! As I remember at that time I was the only one collecting East Africa. Everyone else wanted King's Heads, un-mounted mint especially the South African £1 pairs. There was a good trade in re-gumming in those days, you had to have a sharp eye and check the inside of the perforation with a magnifying glass. I nearly forgot the MacKenzie estate box of 'rubbish'. It is those photostats that the dealer did for me that I am now showing on South African Philately Club's site. I just bought the Polar Bears from Archangel and a MacKenzie WW2 cover from Luderitz.
A quick change of scenery to 'Republican Stamps and Coins'. The same story. The excitement on a German collector's face when shown a collection of photographs taken at Pietermaritzburg POW camp during World War I. He was pointing everywhere... “That's Willie and that's Adolf. Oh and that was on the Kaizer's Birthday... the celebrations”. 'How do you know'. Peter asked him. “I was there” he replied. Angus worked there in those days. I remember him offering me a copy of a British East Africa stamp signed 'AB' When I asked 'how much?', he gave it to me because it had a pin hole in it. Today it is catalogued at £1,700+.
A quick walk down to the Arcade and it was the same story. The dealer rushing in and asking if they had any first day covers signed by President Vorster only to be told that they were hard ones to get so they would only be ready later in the afternoon! The expensive stamp that had coffee spilled on it and was sold later as an 'Error of colour'. The beautiful G.S.W.A. 10 Mark stamp correctly cancelled at both ends that George had and I could never afford. (I was usually spent up when I got there).
There were other dealers at different times, Mike Nethersole on the Mezzanine floor, selling boxes of world War II Air Letters. I sold my Marshall Hole Rhodesian currency cards there, four of them that I had bought in England for £2.50 the lot. Some memories hurt but at least I still have the memories. I think that was where I bought the Bailey-Southwell collection. She lived in Rosebank and was the Red Cross representative who sent collections of books and magazines to the boys Up North during WW2. The senior officers must have got 'specials' as most of the collection was from the cream of the military, including Harry Oppenheimer, Generals Theron and Poole, Jan Smut's son and a relative of Mackenzie's who at the time was working for the Red Cross and who arranged for the exchange of prisoners with Italy. It is surprising what you can learn from reading peoples mail!
After Jo'burg it was a quick rush out to Florida and David Crocker. He had bought well at some auction or other. I remember over the period clearing him out of his BEA Mint and Used Uganda Railway stamps. The archival material... King George V Key plate trials for the Tanganyika revenues. The Dan Pienaar Crash Cover from the Terence Radue collection that cost me R2,500 but which I later sold for R12,000 and which changed hands the following day for 15,000. Where is it today?
As I write the memories of those Saturday mornings come streaming back to me. Betty showing me a Paquetbot cover from Lake Victoria for R40, I couldn't afford it but told her what it was. When I had the money I went back but she told me that after I had told her about the cover she had changed the price to R260 and it went to the next person in! Funny, sometimes I can't remember what day it is but a good cover I can remember as a photograph. Only last year I was sat at the back at a club meeting when a guest speaker put a page up on the boards. From the back of the room I recognised it as a Mafia cover that used to be in my collection but that I had sold nearly 30 years before.
I had a similar experience in South Africa. I bought a cover off Glen for R9 and after studying it, wrote an article on it for the SA Philatelist. When I went back to his shop the price had gone up to R60 per item but you also got a photostat of my article with it 'for nothing'! I realise I have mentioned a lot of names, many of whom are no longer with us. I don't want the reader to think that I am associating any misdeeds with any of them... I love them all! For the joy that they gave me back in the good old days.