Singapore 2015 World Stamp Exhibition

My first ever stamp exhibition visit coincided with Singapore's grand celebration of its 50th birthday, making this year's visit a memorable one. It is an honor for the nation to host this high profile philatelic event, which gathered showcases spanning 66 countries and trade booths from various nations for collectors to fuel their obsession. The decennial exhibition was last hosted by Singapore 20 years ago (in 1995), and is held with the full support and patronage of the Federation Internationale de Philatelie (FIP) and under the auspices of Federation of Inter-Asian Philately (FIAP), so it is natural for this exhibition to gather postal authorities and philatelic traders from different corners of the world.

The last time Singapore hosted the World Stamp Exhibition was 1995, and they returned to the position to coincide with the nation's 50th birthday.

Age

Sails

The exhibition attracts both the simply curious and the obsessive collectors alike. Generally split into several divisions, the collectors swarmed around the trade booths, hunting for bargains and filling the missing gaps of their collections. Not to miss out though are the various exhibits around the floor, displaying postal history and modern technologies employed in stamp production. One of the sections which caught my eye was the unusual stamp sections, which contained gold plated and silver hot foil stamps as well as glow in the dark stamps, most of which would seldom be used in general postage.

In the unusual stamps section, the glow in the dark stamps are the most mesmerizing.

An exhibit in Cartor Security Printing's booth. Their name would be a familiar one for collectors of unusual stamp, such as Hong Kong's Chinese New Year series incorporating 22k gold plating and silver hot foil printing technology, as well as the silk stamp sheetlet with a certificate to prove its authenticity.

However a large section of the floor is devoted to postage history, including postcards dating back to the end of the Qing Dynasty, money remittance mail of overseas Chinese in South East Asia to the motherland, and printing errors which somehow attracted its own collectors. To me not all are as interesting but a cursory glance already granted me much knowledge, so I advise visitors to at least take a walk among the exhibit stands since you are already there.

Opium smoker in Qing Dynasty, showing life in China in a postcard to France.

Mail covers sent from Sawahloento to Jial Lin, franked with Provincial Netherland Indies in 1924. Sorry to say I understood none of these places, but it showed how much had changed in the past century for mailing. The franking also shows the speed of mail transfer in those times versus the distance they traveled, and where the mailing hub for a province lied.

SPINK, an auction house, is one of the major sponsors of this exhibition.

Philatelic traders and postal authorities are abound in this World Stamp Exhibition, selling to the obsessive collector.

Hanging laundries on poles - not the nicest depiction of Singapore yet a truthful one. The World Stamp Exhibition's coincidence with SG50 meant that local sceneries are part of the floor plan to exhibit Singapore's heritage.

Shophouses

For those interested in postal history, there are rows upon rows of exhibits, showcasing the various postal topics and themes as well as their ties to history.

Travel the world via philately, just like my blog does... :)

The exhibition really granted an eye opening opportunity, and since this is a decennial event, anyone interested in philately should really get there and take a stroll. Who knows if you would find a gem hidden among the various traders for your collection. I know I did, in the form of knowledge.

Date:              14th (Fri) - 19th Aug (Wed) 2015

Admission:
2015-08-14                 10 am - 06 pm                         SINGAPORE 2015 Day
2015-08-15                 12 pm - 08 pm                         Youth Philatelist Day
2015-08-16                 10 am - 08 pm                         Heritage Day
2015-08-17                 10 am - 06 pm                         Tourism Day
2015-08-18                 10 am - 06 pm                         Stamp Collecting Day
2015-08-19                 10 am - 04 pm                         Friendship Day

Entry fee:      free admission (entry requires registration)

Location:       SANDS Expo $ Convention Center, Hall B, Level 1, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Website:        Main website and Facebook page