Stamp Fairs and Globetrotting. Insights from a 30 year career

For our latest interview we spoke to Andrew Mansi, Senior Commonwealth Sales Specialist about upcoming events Stanley Gibbons are involved with and some tips he has learned from his 30 year career at Stanley Gibbons.

What fairs are the Stanley Gibbons and Baldwin’s Auctions team visiting this year?

Our team will be visiting Romania for the Efiro Stamp show for the first time this year in April. We are excited to be visiting a new country. Personally, I will be learning a few expressions in preparation. Myself and my colleague Oscar Young will also be attending York Stamp and Coin Fair and our team will be at Westpex in San Francisco right after the Efiro show.

I enjoy going to different countries, and through Stanley Gibbons I have been to every continent, the only place I haven’t been is Antarctica!

What can you expect when visiting a stamp fair?

We enjoy finding new clients at our events. Beforehand, we set appointments prior to the event; we will try to source the material, plan meeting people with the aim at greeting new clients and supporting clients in finding interesting items from our auctions lots. We also take in new lots for our future auctions so if you are looking to consign your items to auction this a great opportunity to talk to us in person.

What can you see at stamp fairs?

There is the opportunity to view displays and competitions and talks as well as view our range of catalogues at select events such as Stampex in September. We also enter Stanley Gibbons catalogues into competitions at the events. At Thailand 2023, We took all the catalogues and won a number of awards including a Large Vermeil Part 1 and a Philatelic Literature Gold Award for our India Catalogue. The catalogues are a great resource for a collector.

At some of the international and national shows, you can view impressive stamp displays – it may be of interest to collectors that these could, in future turn up as a future auction lot. We want to support collectors however they may wish collect.

What work is Stanley Gibbons doing to support stamp societies?

We welcome stamp societies to use our office and auction space to host meetings and displays. We have upcoming events throughout the year, a few recent meetings have included events for The King George VI Collectors Society and The Italy and Colonies Study Circle and Great Britain Philatelic Society (GBPS).

With the company, I will be attending The Rhodesian Study Circle annual meeting in May.  At the event we will offer a selection of stock and have a dedicated table setup to greet members. The meeting is once a year by invitation only and is a good opportunity to view presentations and listen to talks.

How have the events changed in recent years?

The last RSC event was up to date with new technology. They had a Zoom setup so members across the world could view the event, and there was a timed rota for presentations. It is good to see new technology allowing members to join in the discussions.

What are your favourite things about the job?

I like talking to people and helping people build their collections. You have to be keen about what you do in this type of job. You are always learning something new; after 30 years, you are still learning; it's not a dull job; where you don’t learn something new. Every day is different and you never know what you are going to see.

Do you have any recommendations for those starting out in the job?

It’s not a job you are going to learn on the first day. When I first started 30 years ago I thought I knew about stamps, but I discovered after the first week I had to learn everything again, for example the quality of items I had to learn in detail. My advice to those starting out would be to be open-minded and be prepared to learn.

The list of our upcoming events are:

17th-20th April - Efiro, Stamp Fair, Bucharest Romania

26th -29th April - Westpex, San Francisco, USA

2nd - 4th May - Virtual Stampex

19 - 20th August - York Stamp and Coin Fair, York, UK

17th-20th October - Hafnia Copenhagen, Denmark

23rd- 26th October – Stampex, London, UK

5th - 8th December - Monacophil Monaco

For Commonwealth enquiries and to book a meeting at one of our upcoming stamp fairs please contact amansi@stanleygibbons.com

We look forward to seeing you at a future event!