Indian expatriate leaves his stamp on unique collection

Philately, collecting stamp as a hobby, is one of the few hobbies which can save children from online addiction, spending too much time on the internet, but also beneficial for elders as well. This hobby also increases one’s geographical, political, historical knowledge through postage stamps across the globe.

These were the remarks of long-time philatelist 76-year-old Syed Salim Akhtar, an Indian expat in Sharjah in an interview with Gulf Today. He was found on the sidelines of the 5-day Sharjah Stamp Exhibition, which recently concluded in Sharjah. The exhibition was organised by Emirates Philatelic Association in partnership with Mega Mall Sharjah recently.

Akhtar has been living in the UAE for the last 26 years and retired as Quality Control Manager from a private firm. He is not a professional philatelist but has a huge collection of postage stamps collected by his father Syed Hafeez Akhtar, throughout his lifetime as a passionate collector.

“I started getting interested in my father’s philately since I entered college and took time on a daily basis to help him in collecting postage stamps he got from different friends from mail. I along with my father participated in one philatelic exhibition held in New Delhi, India during 1973,” he said.

“My father Syed Hafeez Akhtar in India was working in the private sector and had limited money to spend on his life-long passion of collecting stamps. But he was smart enough to get new and old postal stamps through exchange with his philatelic friends around the world. Some of his friends were in New Zealand, Argentine, USA, and other countries who used to exchange stamps with my father till his last days,” he said.

He said his father didn’t spend too much money on new and old stamps but whenever he knew someone was visiting a foreign country he asked them to bring postage stamps of that country for him. “Besides, he managed to put his hands on hundreds of stamps through different means,” he said.

There is a common practice among the collectors throughout the world to exchange their unique stamps with each other by mail which helps them increase their collection and have as many as they can.

In the collection, Akhtar has some old and unique stamps including Italy 1867, USA 1870, Hungry 1874, and Sweden 1884 and many more.

“The hobby of philately cannot be improved only by purchasing or spending money on stamps from the market or from the collectors, but wisely exchanging with others around the world through mail. My father used to exchange postage stamps with his friends spread around the world and it helped him increase the unique stamps in his personal collection,” he said.

People around the world are showing interest in varied forms of the philatelic field. Many people have stamps with printing errors, technical features or likewise but easily sold at high value either through online auctions or open markets around the world.

Akhtar retired from his job in 2013 and after that he managed to put his all efforts to save his father’s legacy of collecting stamps. “After my retirement, I took my father’s hobby seriously and arranged to save the stamps and also sorted out professionally,” he added.

He pointed that part of the collection had been badly affected due to improper storage and negligence. “The collection of hundreds of thousands of old and unique stamps was neglected many years in our family home in India after my father’s death. No one from my family is showing any interest any more toward the unique collection of my father. I have a 7-year-old grand-daughter who sometime sat beside me while I was sorting out the old stamps,” he mentioned.

“Taking care of coins and stamps is a very difficult and time-consuming exercise. I had most of the collection in India and after seasonal rains, the moisture in the air made these very hard to save. It is one of the reasons I want to sell this collection and visit exhibitions and other events in the UAE to find a suitable buyer,” he said.

Akhtar said as no one in his family wanted to carry on the legacy of his father, he started to sell the collection and so far some of them he already sold. “As part of my father’s collection, many old stamps from USA, Canada, Israel, Belgium, Pakistan and other countries are still with me and am visiting different exhibitions to find a suitable buyer,” he added.