Fake Local Posts: Staffa and Such: Clive Feigenbaum

Just as the Sand Dune issues began to settle down around 1972-74 (see my previous post), the 1970s brought us the very uniform mini sheets of 8 from Staffa and other places ("State of Oman", Eynhallow, Dhufar, Nagaland, more).  Surely, those were the work of one company.  I had a block about 3 inches thick of these at one point, and I go back and forth between thinking they're trash and wondering how uncommon they might be now, almost half a century later.  Most of these were from real islands in Scotland, and all of them would best be described as fake local post issues or just "labels".  I think the description at Conchology.be covers the bases: "These stamps are entrepreneurial labels with no carriage or postal validity and should therefore be classified as BOGUS."

I honestly don't know how collectors can look at these and think they are real postage stamps.  Don't we all have thousands of real stamps to compare them to?  They look unfinished to me, and to my eye they fall well below the Sand Dune issues in quality -- chalk drawings and watercolors with a lot of empty/solid areas versus full photographic subjects, and a lot of blurry printing.  But I guess they would fit in with a bunch of souvenir sheets from Bulgaria or Grenada at the time.

Well, let's get to the story ...

It turns out that another major "character" in the stamp trade was responsible for all of these issues, as well as items from lesser-known islands like Gairsay and Grunay.   This is Clive Feigenbaum, who has quite a Wikipedia page.  It sounds like he was able to buy the legal rights to print local post stamps from Scottish landowners who had islands to work with, even if there was no postal service or philatelic need, after he had seen the prices that legitimate local posts brought in over the years. 

Here is a 1985 case "United States v. Philatelic Leasing, Ltd., 601 F. Supp. 1554 (S.D.N.Y. 1985)"   which has a good profile of Feigenbaum himself: "Feigenbaum's experience in and knowledge of stamp collecting were impressive. He started dealing in stamps part-time at the age of 16 (25 years before the time of his deposition) and had dealt in stamps continuously ever since (Feig. Dep. 14). In 1961 he formed a stamp company which dealt in Middle Eastern stamps, and in 1964-65 began to specialize in topical stamps such as those commemorating the deaths of Kennedy and Churchill (Id. 14-15). By 1967-68 he began to observe a growing collectors' interest in "thematic" or "topical" stamps and, because he recognized a "demand for thematics wherever they came from," began specializing in "locals" (Id. 15).[3] From that time on he organized, or was associated with, a variety of firms specializing in local stamps (Id. 15-20, 51). He was also a member of several philatelic associations (Id. 16-17). He identified several catalogues which listed and priced local especially British local stamps (Id. 71-75), and spoke generally of an active market in such stamps (Id. 77-86)."

This parallels the biography of Mr. Feigenbaum from the notorious Stampdile.com website (archived by the Wayback Machine) where probably millions of dubious stamps were sold.  "Stampdile Ltd was formed in 1980 by Clive Feigenbaum, a devoted philatelist for virtually all his live. He started dealing as a schoolboy and by the age of 18, had his own stamp shop in Paddington. During the 1970’s, Clive pioneered the introduction of topical or thematic collecting, first through his British Local issues and later as a philatelic agent, acting as consultant to various governments. In 1984, he became chairman at Stanley Gibbons – a role where he still actively promoted thematic collecting.

Earlier in 1967, Clive qualified from the City University of London as an optician but philately soon took over. During his career, he developed a fine all-round philatelic knowledge with a particular understanding for stamps of the Middle East and Israel. Outside of philately, Clive played rugby for the South Eastern Counties and was a fine cricketer playing at club level until just before his death in 2007."

The same case also discusses the earliest stamps of Staffa and gives a glimpse at the money involved: "So far as the record indicates, stamps [...] issued in the names of these Islands first appeared as collectors' items back in 1974 (prior to Crailheath's coming into the picture) when Staffa stamps printed on gold foil were offered to collectors both in the United States and abroad. These gold foil stamps seem to have been highly successful and to have achieved total retail sales of twenty-six and a half million dollars. Although each stamp contained only a few cents worth of gold, their prices tended to vary with the world price of gold, the highest price they achieved in the United States appearing to be about $20 a stamp."

Here is a 1986 case against Feigenbaum and his associates ("United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Philatelic Leasing, Ltd., Melvin Hersch, and Hambrosestamps, Ltd., Defendants-appellants, 794 F.2d 781 (2d Cir. 1986)") for using the master plates of fantasy stamp issues as a multi-million dollar tax shelter. 

This ruling includes an extremely down-to-earth description of these issues: "The stamps involved bore the names of one of four islands located off the coast of Scotland: Staffa, Bernera, Eynhallow, and Grunay. These islands are privately owned and not independent political jurisdictions; two of them are uninhabited and another has only two residents. The stamps produced from the plates are not really postage stamps since they are not valid for the transmission of mail anywhere except between points on the islands or from these islands to the Scottish island of Mull; for the mail to go any farther regular postage stamps must be applied. One may assume that there is little use for postage stamps on uninhabited islands; on the other hand, there is a vast philatelic market and this shelter was purportedly directed toward the production of stamps for sale in this market."

Another court battle from 1989 ("Joseph M. Newmyer, John W. Kwiatkowski, John C. Collins Andtobin R. Collins, (88-1345) Plaintiffs-appellants, v. Philatelic Leasing, Ltd., et al.[...], 888 F.2d 385 (6th Cir. 1989)"). This case gave a more detailed vision of Staffa: "The island of Staffa, an uninhabited outcropping of rock measuring about 3/4 mile long and 1/3 mile wide, is located near the Isle of Ulva in the Inner Hebrides. Johnson and Boswell visited the proprietor of Ulva and Staffa, the Chief of the Clan M'Quarrie, during their tour of the Hebrides in 1773, and the travelers were distressed to hear that although the property had been in Mr. M'Quarrie's family for 900 years, it was soon to be sold for the payment of his debts. One wonders what thoughts would have gone through the minds of the impecunious M'Quarrie and his distinguished visitors if they could somehow have foreseen the multimillion dollar financial maneuvers with which the name of Staffa was to be associated in the 20th Century."  This link has a footnote which had even more details.

When I started looking into the makers of unofficial stamps, I certainly did not expect to find caches of legal documents as a major source of information.  But compared to the mostly angry threads on philatelic sites, they provide sober pieces which have stood up in courts.

Looking at my boxes of odds and ends, I have other non-postal items in the same format, from places like Calve Islands and Bernera Islands, and I can probably find a few more if I dig around.  I also see that same sheet of 8 square stamps layout on some non-issues from Equatorial Guinea.  So I still wonder how far and wide this particular family of non-postal issues goes.

 I have no antipathy toward the makers.  They saw a market and added new items to it.  I do wish collectors knew better or spent a little more time researching before buying.  But a few dollars per sheet for something we've never seen before is not outrageous.  Blatantly wacky "errors" or gold foil issues being sold for hundreds of dollars does stretch any sense of decency.  And when it comes to those large-scale million-dollar schemes, I can't even wrap my head around that kind of business.

I'm not here to get into all the legality.  I just wanted to post an introduction to Staffa and this family of labels, and where they came from.