Collector may harbor million dollar stamp

VietNamNet Bridge – The orange stamp with an image of Queen Victoria, printed in Mauritius, was believed to be the only one of its kind in the world; in 1993 it was sold at over US$1 million at auction. But, one old collector in Hue claims he may be the owner of the same kind of stamp.

On a free weekend, an acquaintance told me I should go and meet with the stamp collector at his home at the foot of Ngu Binh Mountain in Hue. At the age of 82, he looks weakened, but has a sonorous voice and a sound mind. He has a strange name: Le Phi Cong, which means "pilot."

After talking to him, it turned out that Cong used to be a soldier, who joined the revolution before 1945. In 1946, Hue fell to the French. He joined the army and took part in a number of battles, and moved with troops in Laos and Cambodia. It was not until 1973 that he demobilised.

His real name is Le Huu Cong, but there had been two people with that name in his army unit, which caused a lot of confusion. Because he was born in Hue, and was endowed with a talent for drawing, his comrades named him Le Phi Cong, because at that time there were two famous artists named Phi Long, Phi Ho in Hue.

After national liberation in 1975, Cong and his family returned to Hue – the city by the banks of the Huong River and Ngu Mountain. Cong has nurtured a hobby since he was small: collecting stamps. "I started collecting when I was in grade three," he says. "It was quite popular at the time among schoolboys of my age."

As well as swapping stamps with friends, he took pains to hunt down and collect stamps. "I still remember one Catholic Priest, Per Ganier, at the Redemptorists Church and Sister Teresa at Phu Cam Church; they loved me very much and gave me any stamps they had."

By 1946, Cong had collected stamps from 147 countries all over the world. That year, he joined the resistance war, and left the collection at home. When he returned home in 1975, the first question he asked his relatives was where his collection was. They told him they had lost it, not knowing its value. "I was speechless," Cong says.

But his loss didn’t put him off starting from scratch. In the winter of 1946, when Cong left Hue to join the army, he remained a keen stamp collector. He collected them everywhere, and carefully put them in a nylon bag in his pocket. The stamps went with him from campaign to campaign. "When we rested from fighting, I used to take my stamps out and look through them. It was very comforting," he says.

His love for stamps wasn’t even deterred in the face of danger. Once, when Cong saw an envelope lying near a fresh bomb crater, he headed straight for it, ignoring his comrades’ cries of warning. During one battle in 1953 in Thakhet, Laos, he asked his commander for permission to take stamps from the enemy’s documents. During the time he was serving in Laos and Cambodia, he collected a great number of stamps.

Valuable investment

Stamp of approval: Le Phi Cong studies his extensive stamp collection.

At present, Cong’s stamp collection includes thousands of stamps. He has three books of Vietnamese stamps, of which some had nominal value of 2 cents. His prize additions are a set with 12 animal designations, and stamps with images of the former President Ho Chi Minh and other revolutionary leaders.

Among these is a set of six stamps published when US troops attacked northern Viet Nam by air force. The stamps were published when northern residents shot down 500 American planes, and then 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 ones and at last 4,181. A Canadian, of Vietnamese origin, offered to pay Cong US$3,000 to buy the set, but Cong refused, saying "my collection will lose its value if I sell them."

Paper gem

In Cong’s collection there is one orange stamp with an image of the Queen Victoria, and a price of 1 penny. Cong displays the stamp together with Nguyen Hoang Tung, a collector who won the National Stamp Exhibition Vietstampex in 2000, and Thanh Nien (Youth) newspaper last June 7.

In the interview Tung says the rare 1-penny stamp was one of the first postage stamps in the world, and was considered "king of the stamp kingdom" for a long time. After that, some famous stamps were published, including a Swedish stamp published in 1855, which was auctioned off in 1990 in Switzerland for US$1.25 million; and a stamp published by the Mauritius Post Office in 1847, which was auctioned for $1.5 million.

According to the website www.temviet.com, the 1-penny orange stamp was published in Mauritius in 1847 and is printed with the image of the Queen Victoria. "The stamp was designed by Joseph O Barnard, according to a request by the Mauritius Post Office. So far, people believe there is only one stamp of its kind in the world." In an auction in 1993, it was sold for US$1,072,260.

Cong believes the stamp is the same as the one he has in his own collection. He says a foreigner of Vietnamese origin gave him the stamp in the period between 1951-1952, when he was on his business in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

At the old age of 82, Cong is considering presenting his collection to someone, who will respect it, so his stamps will continue to be preserved and their true value appreciated for generations to come.