Courtesy of The Postal Museum and Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, The UK’s Largest Stamp Exhibition Stampex (14th – 17th September 2016) is bringing boy hood collections by John Lennon and Freddie Mercury together for the first time.
To celebrate their 60th Anniversary, Stampex are hosting a Court of Honour to celebrate two music legends and their stamp collections - Freddie Mercury and John Lennon.
John Lennon’s childhood stamp collection portrays the music legend in a different light to the public persona we saw. He would take stamps off letters sent from New Zealand and America – dreaming of distant shores and adventure. The collection had been a gift from his older cousin Stanley Parkes who had started the collection and passed to Lennon when he was 10. It is clear to see in the book that Lennon erased the name of his cousin out and cheekily added moustaches to cover pictures of Queen Victoria and King George VI.
Alongside John Lennon’s collection sits Freddie’s Mercury’s - displayed in the Court of Honour on the year that would have marked his 70th Birthday. The collection was bought in 1993 by The National Postal Museum, predecessor of The Postal Museum, with all proceeds generously donated to The Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS charity set up to remember Freddie.
Freddie collected stamps between the ages of 9 and 12, his collection focuses on stamps from Zanzibar (where he was born) and the British Empire. It is the unique way that he displayed the stamps which is in itself interesting, Freddie had ordered the stamps by colour, size or type.
www.thepts.net
