The rich and colorful history of stamp collecting.
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The World's Greatest Existing Stamp Collection
Was Started Before The Turn of the Century. It Is
Now Seen Only Rarely and For A Very Good Reason

King George V - Philatelist

When the grandson of Queen Victoria was merely a boy he began to collect stamps with the help of some of the
servants at Buckingham Palace who handled the Royal household's mail. It was to become the love of his life...and by the time he became an adult, the future King George V was one of the world's leading philatelists.

In fact, when asked to become a member of London's Philatelic Society, he quickly acceded and not only became a member, but a very active one. Later, he was actually elected the Society's president and, when he became King of England, he bestowed his patronage on the club giving it the new name, Royal Philatelic Society, London.

All this while, the King was assembling what would turn out to be one of the world's greatest stamp collections.
Each year, during his reign, parts of his collection would be presented to the club as an annual program. It is a
tradition that continues today for, you see, this great collection still exists!

King George V often bid at auction even while he was the sitting King of England. The famous 2-Cent Hawaiian Missionary was one of the gems he sought, but he was the underbidder on it to the famous San Francisco philatelist, Henry J. Crocker.

King George's collection---which was maintained for him during his reign by Sir Edward Denny Bacon---became an integral part of the Palace household. Then, as today, the collection is housed in its own special rooms and is
maintained by a full-time curator, like Sir John Wilson (shown in the photo above), who was curator of the
collection through part of King George VI's reign and on into the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

King George V, like other famous collectors such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, was just like any other stamp collector in that he pursued stamps through many normal channels. For instance, he actively bid at many auctions...and was even said to have been one of the individuals who tried to acquire the rarest stamp in the world when the Count Ferrary estate was broken up and sold in the 1920s. And naturally, his collection contained many one-of-a-king items...like a rich holding of essays and proofs of British Commonwealth issues to which only a King would have access.

Today, following tradition, the collection---which is now considered the Queen's collection---is always displayed, in part, at the first annual seasonal meeting of the Royal Philatelic Society, which takes place at the club's headquarters on Bedford Street in London in September. And every so often a part of it will be put on display at a major international exhibition, such as last year's PACIFIC 97 in San Francisco, Calif.

Truly, stamp collecting is the hobby of kids and kings. And it got this appellation from when King George reigned supreme as the world's best known philatelist.