Collecting First Day Covers by Tony Buckingham

The hobby developed quickly and over 400 different illustrated envelopes were available for the 1937 Coronation Stamp. WW2 slowed things down but collectors still managed to get their first day covers, although the quality of the envelopes obviously left much to be desired. These wartime covers are much underestimated.

After the war, special stamps were few and far between, but in 1957 the General Office (GPO) organised a massive operation to automate the Scout stamps. It was a false dawn. The next issue for Parliament was an overprint on a normal 4d stamp. Most people missed it, which is why it costs up to £100 today.

In 1963, there came a major change. Pictorial stamps became a regular feature of the stamp year. The GPO introduced FDI postmarks. Collectors became more demanding. They wanted better illustrations, more interesting postmarks and neat, printed addresses or labels they could remove.

For the Red Cross issue, a special Florence Nightingale cover was posted at West Wellow, her birthplace. The Botanical Conference issue of 1964 had a pictorial postmark of Edinburgh and one dealer posted covers at Primrose Valley (there were primroses on the stamps). The reasons for most postmarks were obvious: Biggin Hill for Battle of Britain and Wembley for the World Cup.

The hobby had changed again and those collectors who paid for the extra service were the winners, with the special covers ending up worth ten times the standard. Meanwhile, a second development was also taking place: autographs on covers.

Again, like postmarks, the choice of most signatures was obvious. Douglas Bader's autograph on a Biggin Hill cover cost probably around 25p at the time. It now adds over £100 to the cover value.

Bobby Moore and Alf Ramsey were even more lucrative. Many collectors paid £1 more for the signed pair and also did the same on the Winners issue. Today, the four covers would cost up to £2000! Autographs are worth more on relevant covers and condition is very important.

In the early 1970s special postmarks became the in thing, not the boring ones issued by the Philatelic Bureau at Edinburgh, a place with no connection to the stamps. Collectors wanted the more unusual ones.

Whereas the Bureau covers still only cost £1 each, many better postmarks cost between £100 and £300. As more and more collectors got wise to this, of course these spectacular gains became more infrequent. Dealers and collectors then turned to small normal postmarks from relevant Post Offices or special mail slogans.

I can remember taking covers to Turners Hill for the Turner issue in February 1975. The covers cost collectors less than £1 at the time. Today they fetch over £150.

These were good days for such postmarks. I did six for Churchill in 1974 - all now cost over £100. I arranged Cowes for sailing (now worth £100) and Angel Hill, Sutton for the Christmas stamps of 1975 (now worth £175). Informed collectors did well.

However, as with postmarks, more and more new dealers joined in and made the basic mistake of doing 100s or even 1000s of covers, thus ruining all but a few extremely good ones. By the early eighties I did very few covers and am horrified seeing the glut of badly produced covers done with no thought for the collector.

WARNING ABOUT CONDITION
Stamps and covers are like antiques - condition is everything.

Another major trend was the interest in the envelopes produced by the sponsor of special pictorial postmarks. The Post Office at the time allowed organisations, who had a definite reason, to pay a fee to sponsor a postmark, provided it was done to guidelines. The Post Office then offered it to everyone else for free!

Even worse, if the sponsor did more than 1000 covers, they had to pay more. It was ridiculous. I know of one sponsor who did a few hundred covers, whereas another dealer did thousands. Early official covers are very sought after and fetch amazing figures - up to £500, but by the end of the seventies too many dealers had joined in and overproduction undermined the market.

In 1978 I started the first numbered first day cover series. I called it the Benham Official Cover Series. It was revolutionary in that people started to collect a complete matching series of covers and because I worked with the organisations whose anniversaries were commemorated by the stamps. Many of these covers are valuable but Benham supplied hundreds of dealers, who, excited by the quickly rising prices, overbought, hoping to make a quick killing.

When the recession of the eighties hit I realised just how many extra covers had been stupidly bought and resolved never to make that mistake again. During my time with Benham I organised some fantastic signatures and many of these are fetching extraordinary prices. Up to 50 times the original price is not unusual. Collectors found the type of cover they liked and the dealers they could trust and collected those covers.

If you aim to build a valuable collection, it is no use joining the 125,000 people who buy the Philatelic Bureau covers from Royal Mail. These are always available and have no future. Collect these for the fun of a letter dropping through your letterbox. All Royal Mail want to do is sell stamps. They have no interest in what happens to them afterwards, they say that is the dealers 'job. But dealers do not want the bureau covers either.



Collect these for fun if you like them but do not expect a future value. Never hand address covers. I have seen superb covers ruined as collectors believed the stupidity of "personalisation". A hand addressed cover can reduce the value of a rare cover by 60% and makes modern ones worthless. If you do your own, buy labels that peel off and get the postmark bulletin so you can choose a good postmark.

A well- produced cover that has not been overproduced should have a good future. The better the make, the better chance of future gain. However this does not mean silly numbers. If only 85 are produced regularly that is the market. Yes, they are scarce but who wants them?

I think the maximum figure should be 5000 and that would be for a very big issue. I limit Buckingham Covers to 2500 and try to ensure there are always new collectors finding out about them (cue a Squidoo lens! ). Hopefully one day we will have sold all 2500 before issue and have a waiting list!

I have raised nearly £750,000 for good causes through signed covers. These are limited to the number of covers the celebrity will sign. Since I started Buckingham Covers I have tried to get the best signatures for our collectors. It is not always possible but if you aim high your standards stay high.



If you look through our latest catalogue you will see, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu, Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Geoff Hurst, Jason Robinson and Ben Cohen. Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith, VCs, Prime Ministers, Film Stars, actors - in fact a Who's Who. I am proud of our charity work and of the great signatures I have obtained for collectors.

Provenance is important. I saw a great Montgomery of Alamein cover the other day but it was signed by his son not the Field Marshall. It was bought by a dealer who is selling it apparently cheaply at £225; in fact son's signature is worth only £20.


Bobby Moore signed many covers when he was alive and even more covers recently! His signature is regularly forged. If you buy rare autographs, buy from someone you trust. We can all make mistakes, but a reputable dealer will put it right. A certificate of Authenticity from Mom and Pop stamps is not worth the paper it was printed on.

If you would like to collect covers or find out more about the hobby, all you have to do is write fax or email to me, Tony Buckingham and I or one of my team will send information completely free of charge or you could check out our website. Tony Buckingham