This page provides recent news about the Society for its members.

April 09, 2008

Menelik's Journal, Volume 24, No.  1 and
EPS featured group at Westpex 2008
Editor, Ulf Lindahl mailed Menelik's Journal (MJ Volume 24, No. 1) on March 31st.   Featured in this issue are several articles on postage due covers by Graham Scott, Ulf Lindahl and Floyd Heiser.  Other articles include new information on the 1942 restoration issue by Espen Solheim, rarity of AA Arada and Gare postmarks by Juha Kauppinen, a recovered Ethiopian airletter from a 1950 air crash by Jerry Kasper, a 1902 postal card from both Muhle and Michel by Philippe Jauzac, Italian invansion of Ethiopia by Luciano Maria, and a 1906 post card franked with a very rare Harar provisional by Ulf Lindahl.  You can view the current issue in pdf format by clicking here .   If you have not yet received your copy wait about two more weeks and, if it still has not arrived, contact me.

The Ethiopian Philatelic Society is a featured group at WESTPEX 2008 to be held on April 25-27 at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel.  Daryl Reiber is the EPS' contact for the show.  An overview of the event can be found at the WESTPEX website at http://www.westpex.com .  If you are interested in attending, I'm sure Daryl can be of help.  His email address is dreiber@surewest.net .   

Copies of Ethiopian Stamp Catalogue
are available at a reduced price
EPS member Wondimu Alemayehu has sent me another small supply of the Imperial Ethiopian government's "Ethiopian Stamp Catalogue" and they are once again available for sale through the EPS.  The Catalogue, authored by Theo. Michaelides, includes indispensable details as well as a color plate for each issue through December 1968.  Also included is the supplement that extends the coverage through December 1971.  Both the Catalogue and supplement are in pristine condition.  The price had been $40 plus postage but is now reduced to $30 plus postage.  Ten percent of the proceeds goes to the EPS.  I might add that the Catalogue is no longer available through the Ethiopian Post Office.  Email me at fbheiser@comcast.net if you are interested in purchasing the Catalogue.

Luciano Maria needs your help for
his pre-UPU cover data base project
EPS member Luciano Maria has undertaken an ambitious and very worthwhile project.  For a number of years now he's been putting together a data base listing all known covers, postal cards, and postcards that were used prior to Ethiopia's entry into the UPU on November 1st, 1908.  He's already published much of his data in MJ XVII, No. 4 and XVIII, No. 1 and more recently in MJ Volume 19, No. 2 as part of a collaboration with Roberto Sciaky.  Luciano's is, however, an ongoing project and he is always interested in adding new information to his data base.  If you haven't yet provided information to Luciano on your pre UPU covers/postal cards please do so now.  What Luciano needs are the key pieces of information about each cover or card including the type and date of all cancels and postmarks, the franking used, and the sender's name (if known) and the addressee.  If possible, Luciano would like a scan of both the front and back of the item and, if that is not possible, color photocopies.  For more information about his project and the best way to assist, you can contact Luciano at luciano.maria@fastwebnet.it . 

Prof. Roberto Sciaky 1929-2006
Our esteemed Vice President and good friend Prof. Roberto Sciaky has passed away.  As some of you know he had been successfully battling prostate cancer for many years.  In the past year, however, the effectiveness of his cancer treatments started to wane and his condition began to worsen.  On Thursday, February 9th, 2006 he succumbed to the disease.  Roberto's wife called EPS member Luciano Maria with the bad news and said that he went peacefully from sleep to death without suffering.

Roberto had been a stamp collector since a boy but came to seriously collecting Ethiopia only late in his life.  He joined the EPS in 1996 and quickly made a mark in Ethiopian philately.  He formed a fabulous collection of Ethiopia in a short period of time and became a major contributor of articles to "Menelik's Journal."  But his writing didn't stop with his well-researched articles for MJ and in 1999 he had his first book on Ethiopian philately published by the prestigious Italian publisher "Vaccari."  This award-winning, handsomely illustrated book titled "Ethiopia 1867-1936 History, stamps, and postal history" was the first comprehensive hard-back book published on Ethiopian philately.  It was quickly followed by three more award winning books on Ethiopian philately with his last published in November 2003.  But, writing about Ethiopian philately was not enough for Roberto and in 2000 he began to exhibit his early Ethiopia in national and international exhibitions.  His ability to organize his collection and present a good story garnered him a number of gold awards.  His exhibiting history as well as his publications are chronicled below.

Prof. Roberto Sciaky's collection auctioned by Harmers of London
Harmers of London began auctioning  Professor Sciaky's multiple gold medal exhibit on July 25, 2006.  The exhibit was titled "Ethiopia:  From prephilately to the Admission to the U.P.U. (1908)."  Harmers broke the exhibit down into 127 single cover lots with a total estimate of £129,100 (about $240,000).   The first 16 lots were prephilately with 13 being "Napier expedition" covers from 1867 and 1868.  The balance of the sale included covers ranging from the more common to the very rare.  Harmers mailed all EPS members the auction catalogue.   Further details and realizations from this sale are provided in MJ 22/03.  Harmers auctioned another large group of material from Roberto's collection on March 6, 2007.  The material was broken down into 150 lots and included material up to 1936.  The bulk of the material was from Roberto's Ethiopia 1909-36 exhibit but also included unsold material from previous sales. Estimates were in general quite high and I expect that contributed to lackluster sales with only 59 lots sold.  I expect a few more lots sold in Harmer's after sale although based on feedback from one member Harmer's would not accept offers at less than 85% of the auction catalogue estimate.  The sale of Roberto's collection has continued with the latest sale closing on December 12, 2007.  This installment included 87 lots with some new material but also many previously unsold lots at reduced estimates.  Unlike previous sales with their focus on postal history this sale included a mix of postal history and stamps.  However, one huge stamp lot with an estimate of £35,000 went unsold.  Sales were once again lackluster with only 27 lots selling.  The total of the sold lots including the 17.5% buyer's commission was £25,233.  The highest valued lot was a group of 120 covers and cards dated between 1888 and 1942 that sold for nearly £10,000 including the buyer's commission.  

Prof. Sciaky's books
As most of you now know, Prof. Roberto Sciaky's last book was published in November 2003 by Vaccari of Italy.  I have read it and can attest that it is well worth the money.  If you haven't yet read it, my review of the book is in MJ Volume 19, No. 4 (October-December 2003).  The book is titled  "Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, The Exile, The Restoration, The Deposition."   Full details of the book can be found at the publisher's website http://www.vaccari.it/   .  Click on the "English" version and on the next page click on the "English" version link again and then under "Books" the "Made in Vaccari" link.  Scroll down the page until you find the professor's latest book as well as his three earlier ones.  You can order them directly at the Vaccari website or via email at info@vaccari.it .   Your EPS membership number is good for a 20% discount off the price.  The number is shown in the upper left corner of the mailing label for your Menelik's Journal.  If you don't have a label and don't know your membership number, email me and I will email the number back to you.

I might add that there is an addendum to the Professor's book that you can download when you get to Vaccari's web page providing the details of the Professor's book.  You will need Adobe Reader or similar software to read and download the file.   Professor Sciaky has added new information to his addendum on the airmail rates for the period 1942-1948.   In addition to the postal rates, the file has several updates and a few corrections to the book.

And, as noted on the main page (our home page) of this website, two of Professor Sciaky's Ethiopia collections are available for viewing at the website for the AICPM in Italy.  Click on the home link at the bottom of this page to go back to our main page.  Once there click on the designated link for the AICPM website.

For those of you who are interested in the 1868 Napier Expedition to Abyssinia, Roberto wrote a very interesting article on the subject for the June 2003 "London Philatelist" which is published by the prestigious Royal Philatelic Society of London.  The article titled "Postal History of the Napier Expedition" includes a host of new discoveries and it is a "must read" for anyone interested in the expedition.  The article includes a list of all known covers from the campaign. 

Prof. Sciaky's exhibiting success
The year 2005 started off well for EPS former Vice President, Roberto Sciaky.  At the Pacific Explorer 2005 international exhibition held in Sydney Australia from April 21-24 he was awarded a gold for his "Ethiopia:  From prephilately to the Admission to the U.P.U. (1908)" exhibit.  The competition was severe with 84 exhibits entered in the Postal History section.  Roberto received 92 points from the judges which tied him for 9th position with three other exhibitors.  Not only did he win a gold but he also placed in the top 10 percent of all the competitors.  A pretty remarkable accomplishment considering how many top-rated exhibits were entered in the competition.  In June, at the 9th New Zealand National Philatelic Literature Exhibition, Roberto's 3 books about Ethiopian postal history published by Vaccari in Italy, won a Gold and was the "Runner-up to the Grand Award."  The Runner-up award was a Maori Club.  Roberto noted that it was the first tme his books received an international gold.  The motivation for the judges awarding such a high award was that the books have opened a new field of research to collectors.  

The year 2004 was a banner year for the professor, exhibiting not only his Ethiopia but also some of his other collecting areas.  Here is a summary of his 2004 efforts:

Roberto's last book titled  "Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, The Exile, The Restoration, The Deposition" was awarded a Large Vermeil in the philatelic literature category at both the Valencia, Spain and the Singapore World Exhibitions.  At the Valencia show his Ethiopia exhibit of the "Prephilately to admission into the UPU in 1908" period was awarded a Gold.  This 128 page exhibit received 92 points which was just 3 points shy of winning a large gold.

At the Italian National AICPM exhibition, the above same exhibit was awarded a Large Gold and more importantly won the Grand Prix.

Roberto's more recent exhibit titled "From Liberation to the Federation with Eritrea (1941-1952)" was awarded a Gold at the Ravenna National Exhibition.

And, finally he was invited to exhibit at Monacophil 2004 in December.  The show limited competition to one-frame exhibits only.  Due to the one frame limitation, Roberto chose to exhibit 16 letters/covers of the Napier expedition.  Of note, this is a very important exhibition to which only a few collectors were invited.

As to his other collecting areas, Roberto's "Bulgaria from the Principality to Kingdom (1879-1890)" received a Large Vermeil at Vasto National exhibition; his "Romania the post classic period (1872-1890)" received a Large Vermeil at the Ravenna national exhibition; and his 1-frame "Walacchia, the prephilatelic cancellations" received a Gold at the same exhibition.

But 2004 has just been the icing on the cake.  The years 2000-2003 were also very good years for him.

Roberto exhibited his collection of "Ethiopia postal history 1895-1936" at London 2000.  At that show Roberto won a GOLD MEDAL and joined EPS member Nachum Kaplan as the only other collector to have won a gold medal for an Ethiopia exhibit in international competition. The success of these "pioneers" helped gain respect for Ethiopia in the international community as an important area to collect.  In addition to the Gold for his postal history exhibit, Roberto won a Large Vermeil medal for his book "Ethiopia 1867-1936 History, stamps, and postal history."  Roberto was also invited to show his collection at Espana 2000 in Madrid, and at that show Roberto also struck GOLD  with the same titled exhibit.

The year 2001 turned out to be even busier than 2000.  He broke his collection down into two parts and at the Bellinzona, Switzerland show he noncompetitively showed "Ethiopia 1909-36" in the Court of Honor.  At Belgica '01 he showed his exhibit titled "Ethiopia 1867-1908" and naturally struck gold again.  Later in the year he exhibited at the Japan World Stamp Exhibition in Tokyo and again received a GOLD for his 128 page "Ethiopia 1867-1908" exhibit.  In addition, he won a Large Vermeil for his "Ethiopia 1867-1936" book and its "must have" Addendum.

Roberto continued his "gold" streak into 2002 when he competitively showed his 1909-1936 collection at the National Exhibition of San Colombano.  The jury also awarded his exhibit (which was titled "Ethiopia: The UPU period, November 1908-May 1936") a special prize.  At StampShow 2002 his "Addendum" to "Ethiopia 1867-1936--History, stamps and postal history" won a vermeil in the Handbooks category.

In 2003, Roberto stepped back into the ring and once again showed his 1909-1936 collection.  This time it was at the National Exhibition of Sestri Levante.  The Exhibition focused on modern postal history (after 1900) so Roberto's exhibit fit nicely into that theme.  And, par for the course, he continued his winning ways with a large gold and a special prize for the best collection exhibited in the postal history section.  Obviously the Italian judges recognized the significance of Ethiopian philately.      

Roberto's efforts should serve as a stimulus for all of us to start thinking about stepping into the exhibition ring. Who knows where that trip might take you (ask Daryl Reiber who is having substantial success exhibiting the 1919-28 period and, more recently, additional areas of Ethiopian philately).

Daryl Reiber's website
EPS member Daryl Reiber has created a website to display some of his exhibit pages as well as other interesting aspects of Ethiopian philately.  His website is titled "Daryl Reiber's Ethiopian Postal History Web Site--Exploring the stamps and postal history of Ethiopia."  The site can be accessed at http://www.postage-due.com/index.html .   Some interesting items are on display and the site is well worth checking out.   Daryl plans to continue adding to the site as time permits so keep checking in from time to time.

Ethiopia website
EPS member Ken Doig's Ethiopia website should be of interest to all EPS members.  The title of his site is "Doig's Ethiopia Stamp Catalogue." Ken had been concerned with the number of fake stamps that started appearing on eBay internet auctions as well as elsewhere in the stamp market.   Hence, to help better inform both buyers and sellers of Ethiopian material he created his site.  He provides details about each issue including illustrations of the stamps (and overprints) and where appropriate how to differentiate between the original stamp and any fake or reprint.  He also provides details of the cancellations of Ethiopia both before the Italian Occupation and postwar. Diagrams of the cancels are provided as well as scans of actual usage's on cover.  The address for his site is  http://doig.net/EthiHome.html (case sensitive).   Ken is interested in any feedback you might have on how the site is organized, the accuracy of the information presented, and additional information that should be presented. Ken can be contacted by email at ken@doig.net .   Of note, Ken keeps updating the site with new information.

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As specifics develop on any of the above items or we learn of breaking stories, they will be posted at this site. If you have any questions contact me at my email address listed below.

Secretary-Treasurer
Floyd Heiser
email:  fbheiser@comcast.net

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