Modern stamps that have never been used and have been stored in protective envelopes in albums are preferred by collectors; used stamps that have been soaked off their envelopes are of little individual value and a pack of 100 used orchid stamps costs little over £10 on eBay.
The Rev Wood-Robinson, an amateur orchid grower now in his mid-90s, is one of a dwindling band of dedicated stamp collectors. As he recounted in 2020 in an article in the OSGB Journal 69(3):195–197, he decided after orchid holidays in Europe and Australia to build up an orchid stamp collection. By the advent of the millennium he had 3,000 mint orchid stamps in protective mounts in six albums. Uniquely, these are arranged by genus and not (as is usual) by country. Each page is annotated with information about the plants. They form a wonderful example of the iconography of pictorial stamps, a historic record of artistic styles in philately.
Henry Oakeley, renowned orchid grower and previous President of the OSGB, was challenged to find a home for this collection. The hunt was harder than he'd expected and several institutions, who he naively expected would be keen to have them, declined. The collection nearly went overseas, but as the Rev Wood-Robinson was keen for them to stay accessible in Britain, both Oakeley and Wood-Robinson were delighted when the Natural History Museum in South Kensington welcomed them. Here their future preservation and access is ensured, they will be available to researchers, and will be properly stored, cared for and available for public display.
COMING SOON: View the six wonderful albums of stamps collected by the Rev Wood-Robinson.
The orchid stamp collection of the Reverend David Wood-Robinson
Collecting stamps used to be a hugely popular hobby, but the digital world and computer games have taken over; children and teenagers no longer pore over stamp albums. However, collectors, aware of the impossibility of collecting every stamp issued, often concentrate on a single country or a theme, like decorative stamps depicting birds or orchids. Thirty years ago, orchid stamp collections were occasionally seen at orchid shows, but now rarely if at all. Peggy Alrich (the author of the wonderful Orchid Genera, which should be in every orchid grower’s library) published a landmark 88-page book, Orchids on Stamps, in 1991, and Roy Bigham appeared with Orchid Stamps in the AOS Bulletin (September 1992), reporting that 1991 was a vintage year with 273 orchids on 239 stamps from 26 countries being issued. Stamp collecting as an investment is uncommon now, and it is only very rare vintage stamps, such as the 1847 Mauritius Penny Red, that still sell for millions of pounds at auction.
Countries worldwide produce decorative stamps as a source of income or to commemorate significant events. In the UK a set of orchid stamps designed by Pandora Sellars was issued in 1993 on the occasion of the 14th World Orchid Conference in Glasgow. Jersey has had several issues in the past 30 years featuring wild orchids and those from the Eric Young Orchid Foundation.