Dear John,
I'm now back from Vietnam and can provide some comments about how I acquired this collection of Vietnamese stamps. Essentially, stamp collecting exists in Vietnam, as it does worldwide, but at a low level. There are no retailers of stamps of which I'm aware, or auction houses, and most people live on a penny economy, so their ability to collect is limited. However, they do their best.
My wife is Vietnamese, and I became interested in the stamps of modern-day Vietnam as a result of repeated visits to that country in the early 1990s. At that time, Cotevina, the Vietnamese stamp-issuing agency of the post office, still offered mint copies of issues going back to 1946. This in itself was remarkable, especially as they sold the stamps at face value, which was next to nothing. I rapidly built up a noteworthy mint collection of virtually everything issued by the Communists post 1975 for the unified country and 1946-1975 for North Vietnam. The stamps of South Vietnam were officially banned, but I was able to find a collector in Saigon, now re-named Ho Chi Minh City, and acquired his mint collection, along with some Indochina material.
My biggest problem in acquiring material was to find a local contact in Hanoi who could purchase and store for me new issues until such time as they could be transferred to either myself or my wife. This was made possible through the husband of a woman who nursed my wife's mother. Everything in Vietnam depends upon knowing someone! Mr. Vy had been a doctor in the North Vietnamese army, and served in Angola as well as South VN until a land mine took his leg and ended his career. Invalided on a small pension, he developed a lively correspondence with individuals throughout Eastern Europe and formed a very good collection of postal history of wartime Vietnam, without either intending to do so or realizing the uniqueness of what he had built up.
He died three years ago and his widow asked me to value his collection, which I did. I gave what I felt was a generous valuation, but the widow, like the relatives of many a stamp collector, felt that the collection was worth much more than I was prepared to offer. She tried for the next two years to find anyone willing to pay anything for his collection, without success. During my recent visit to Hanoi, she asked me again to purchase it as she didn't trust local buyers. We agreed upon a price if I took everything, much of which had little value and was of Eastern Europe so of no interest to me.
The collection was quite extensive, filling six large suitcases and weighing almost 300 pounds. I was actually able to bring it back to Canada as luggage. It duplicates what I already have in the sense of normally-issued mint stamps, but has such a wealth of postal history envelopes as to be worth its weight. I am still in the very early stages of realizing what I've acquired, but he has a complete collection of all postal franks used by the North Vietnamese military in all printings, along with envelopes of a hand-made range that is truly exceptional. Another collecting interest of his was to acquire signed envelopes of significant local figures, such as General Giap, the head of the NV military for many years, and battle commanders from selected wartime incidents. He also has a first day of issue cover for Vietnam's independence day - September 20, 1949, complete with a postmark from Hanoi and an imprint on the envelope of what everyone assumes was only the flag of South Vietnam.
There are lots more treasures in his collection, gathered over many year, as there is in the lifetime collections of many people. I've taken enough of your time with this letter, but hope that it gives you a break from your normal arriving in-box of activity.
Sincerely,
A Collector