Page 11 - Gustaf Douglas: Classic Sweden

Prologue

Olle Pettersson started at Frimärkshuset at an early
age, as did Göran Hammarlund – eventually an expert
on the King Oscar II issues. Bernhard Beskow was the
Iceland expert and contributed greatly in promoting
Icelandic stamps and helped to form the Iceland
collectors club. Bo Castengren was the Norway and
Denmark man with a deep knowledge and personal
qualities. Of course there were dealers outside
Frimärkshuset such as Bo Grenstedt and John c1 c1
Ahlström (mostly dealing with Swedish stamps).
We also had the odd speculator Amuth Gustavsson b1 c1
who published the ”Nordan catalogue” – not a bad
publication in the late 1940:s, but with a mission b1 b1
concerning two issues (UPU and the World Congress
in 1924). They were pushed through the roof and b1 b1
he fiercely attacked everybody who criticized his price
ideas. The battle of the prices eventually subsided and b1 c1
probably killed most of the natural interest in those
beautiful stamps. b1 c1

Collectors I met and heard about: The positive
direct and indirect examples to learn from
First we have those whom I never met but read
about and whose collections told their story.
I came to respect and learn from the examples set by
Lars Hedberg, Nils Westberg and the formidable
Fredrik Benzinger. They had the eyes and minds to
change the focus and discover new aspects. Having
acquired some portions of their collections you could
read their mind – like the innovative mind and
Nils Westberg was one of the great philatelists
humour of Lars Hedberg who now is represented by
some items in my collection. inspiring Gustaf Douglas to get into the study of the
Nils Westberg was active his whole long life and was different shades on the classic stamps from Sweden.
This cut from a cover with 12 pieces of 5 Öre Coat‐of‐
always ready to challenge the eternal truths in
philately, among them the shades of 3 Skilling Banco Arms Type II ”Öre” is now in Gustaf’s collection
– ”Sweden Number 1”. His finds were not even men‐ (displayed in frame 9), but derives from Nils Westberg.
tioned in the 1961‐64 handbook. On the piece two different shades are represented:
Then we had Fredrik Benzinger the creator of milk 5 x green and 7 x yellow‐green.
distribution in Sweden and leaving an enormous
collection in high quality. Over the years, parts and When talking about philatelic material, of course
pieces came up for sale – easy to identify by their nobody can match Sven Eric and Anna‐Lisa
quality and knowledge. Beckeman’s Grand Prix‐winning (1995) China‐exhibit,
When I came back to collecting classic Sweden, I was opening the doors for new ways of collecting
immediately taken by the improvement in knowledge philatelic material.
that had taken place in my absence from philately and There are many good exhibits formed by Swedes,
also the differences shown in the collections. There such as Björn Sohrne’s collections of Persia and Jan
were quite a number of good collections from other Berg’s Samoa.
parts of the world than Sweden.