Virtually any topic or theme can be collected. But of the collectible topics and themes, the most interesting are ones that go beyond the pictures of the stamps and tell a story that is bigger. I just came across an eight volume collection of Penguin philately. It consists of thousands of stamps and covers from over forty countries going back to the 1940s. The collection has just about every stamp issued that has a penguin pictured on it to the year 2000. It had hundreds of Antarctic Expedition covers. Scientific expeditions to the Antarctic have been going on for over 100 years and have heated up in recent years as concerns over global warming have made better temperature measurements and glacier melt rates important to monitor. Many of the expeditions partially fund themselves from creating covers and stamps for philatelists. Even the ones that don't have any official government sanction find that the scientists are moved to create philatelic items during the tedium of the 24 hour Antarctic winter nights. This collection was begun in the 1960s by an early Antarctic explorer who continued collecting this material, and so he wouldn't be considered too one dimensional if he threw in some seals and an occasional polar bear as well. You can collect just about anything, but those of you who have a few spare minutes might want to come and see a collection that was a life long love and is a pleasure to look at. It is in our April 24-25 auction and can be viewed here (lot 4342).
