Bagpipes That Come with the Mail the COLLECTORS’ IMPULSE

COLLECTING COLLECTING Bagpipes that come with the mail THE COLLECTORS’ IMPULSE

EAN Stewart in East Yorkshire, England, and Oliver Seeler on Snorthern California’s Pacific Coast have never met but they have become close friends through common interests that range from fire fighting and piping to stamp collecting — and the stamps they collect and display on their websites all having something to do with bagpipes. Sean Stewart is the more seriously committed philatelist of the two and his col- lection of bagpipe-related stamps is about as complete as it could be: “We’ve scoured the SEAN STEWART with the image of a piping pig he sources pretty thoroughly and I don’t think discovered this past Christmas Eve on a pew end there’s an officially issued bagpiping stamp at the Church of St Peter and St Paul at Drax near Goole in East Yorkshire … “it’s not just about out there we don’t know about,” he said. looking for bagpipers; it’s about opening your The handyman and former fire fighter eyes and noticing things you otherwise wouldn’t have seen.” has been a member of the grade 4 Beverley and District Pipe Band in the northeast of England for about 11 years: “My sister was stamps. Then I went to the internet and found ‘Christmas seals’ (also known as “vignettes” engaged to a Scot and my then-wife thought Oliver Seeler and wrote to him about this stamp or “labels”) that were particularly popular it’d be a good idea for me to learn the pipes from New Zealand… we’ve been writing back in the early 1900s, and have become quite so I could play for the wedding,” he said. “I and forth and collecting ever since. We’ve be- collectible. So, when we ran out of stamps, began learning the pipes but it was four and come good friends. we started getting into some of these.” a half years before they married by which “Meanwhile, our band was down on num- Sean Stewart now has a bagpiping friend time I was hooked and had to carry on, and bers and our pipe major, Paul Wright, was doing in Holland who also collects stamps, and the irony was that I never played at their an Open University information technology contacts in France, Canada and Ireland, so wedding after all.” degree course while he was working full time. As there are now six bagpiping stamp enthusiasts When, about five years ago, on a letter a part of his course, he had to set up a website who keep in touch with each other: “and we from New Zealand, he found a rather odd and, to have a website that worked for him, it let each other know when we find things,” stamp displaying a picture of a letterbox had to be used. So he got a website up for the he said. dressed as a piper, Sean Stewart began band and I put as much stuff as I could onto “I’ve spent many happy hours with a wondering how many more stamps like that it — at: www.bevpipeband.com/index53.htm magnifying glass at the local library searching there could be. He began looking. — to add something that was interesting and through Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogues “My father used to collect stamps and I a bit different. and magazines. And the internet is bril- took down about eight shoeboxes full of his “I keep adding stamps but we don’t get liant.” stamps. One of the boxes was broken and many these days. I got up to 40 or 50 stamps “I’ve now got the world’s largest collection the whole lot fell on the floor. Every single in my collection and then it got silly: I started and Oliver’s not far behind but he just col- stamp fell face down but one, and it had a collecting things like stamps with a picture of lects the individual stamps; I collect the full bagpiper on it. I’m not spooked by creepy an old master’s painting that has a piper tucked sets of everything. There’s a recently released things but that was weird. away somewhere, and it’s grown from there. Irish set of four stamps featuring traditional “After searching through the rest of More recently, I’ve also come across what they music, for example: the Chieftains, the Dub- the shoe boxes I found five more bagpipe call ‘poster stamps’ — things a bit like modern liners, Altan and Tommy Makem. On the

PIPINGPIPING TODAY TODAY • 20 • 20 PROFILE This painting, in the British Royal Family’s collection,wastheimagefromwhichengravingforSudanese stampwasmadebyRichardCatonWoodville,This painting,intheBritishRoyal Family’s afamousengraverofhisday. cally Iaskedeach dealerwhetherthere wasa the stamp. piper wasasmuchaproblem asobtaining rial Identifying set,around £200-worth. the probably the1935Sudanese Gordon memo- a bagpiperonit. from Liberia but only one of the stamps has The largestsetIhave isa50-stampset set. while Oliver hasthatonestamp,Ihave the bellows down ononesideofthestamp.So, line drawingofanuilleannpipechanterand uilleann pipes over hisknee andthere’s asmall Maloney is playing a whistle but he has his Chieftains’ stamp,foundingmemberPaddy “There were three maindealersandspecifi - mostrare “The andexpensive setIhave is General Gordon. and totheleftofportrait stamp ismagnified:justbelow reasonably clearwhenthe to locateany. Onepiperis stamp dealerswereunable several pipers,but 50 yearspreviously, includes General GordoninKhartoum commemorating thedeathof THIS 1935stampfromSudan, about bagpipes really. like newspapersandmagazines. So it’s notjust revolutionised ofengravingforthings theart Richard Caton Woodville, wasapersonwho areThe engraver, infactthree pipersinit. which theengravinghadbeentaken andthere and by chance foundtheoriginal picture from a bookabouttheBritish Royal collection art found two. who wrote backtosaythat,indeed,hehad to the chairman of the Sudan Stamps Society piper somewhere onthestampIfinallywrote Due thatthere topersistentrumours wasa bagpiper on the stamp, and they all said‘no’. “Some countries havegood produced very lookingthrough Iwasinalibrary “Then on a stamp is purely incidental,” he said. band’s website. as annotationstothestampimages onhis ing aspectsofitall.”He postshisresearch The research sideisoneofthemostinterest - and researching theydepict. theinstruments learn more. ers cometothefore. Andhopefullypeople brings bagpipes tothefore, themore bagpip- more thatyou cancreate adiscussionthat so manydifferent typesofbagpipesandthe Therethan thegreat are Highland bagpipe. way todrawsomeattentionpipesother bagpipe imagesontheirstamps.It’s beena “Half the time, the presence of bagpipes “There are thingstobelearned from stamps overall painting. minor detailsinthe drone ofonemore… and thetopofbass shows twopipers’heads This detailofthepainting PIPING TODAY •21

COLLECTING COLLECTING

“Not many are about presenting an image of a later on that day and was filled up with coffee bagpipe or bagpiper, but there are some good and mince pies,” he said. “I was surprised that OLIVER SEELER Pictured below playing ones. Britain has some; Netherlands, and the none of the congregation knew the carving his first set of bagpipes, Antilles have recently produced a stamp that existed.” back in 1973 … “One of the aspects I like focuses on a bagpipe. Generally, though, the The previous year, Sean Stewart found the about bagpipes is bagpipe is just part of some other scene.” carving of a piper playing a double-chantered their mystery. We do not have any hard And the market can be complicated by fake bagpipe among sheep on a misericord at his lo- answers about their stamps and forgeries. “A problem is that certain cal church in Beverley Minster, a figure carved origins or history and that is something people fabricate stamps and sell them, and in 1520, probably by the Ripon School of that has always kept they are not real stamps,” said Sean Stewart. carvers from North Yorkshire. There are several me from getting bored; you keep “When they are sold as purely collectible items, other representations of pipers in the church encountering some the sets they were produced in get broken up and, while this carving was known of, the figure new form of bagpipe and it embodies all the and, because they have perforated edges, most had not been identified as a piper. questions yet again.” people then don’t know whether they’re real In this case, the wood is chipped between the stamps or not. bag and the piper’s mouth, “Not every stamp we have on our sites is so the blowpipe is missing, actually a genuine stamp. Ones from the little and the carving had been countries like Kyrgyzstan and the Tuva Republic described as a woman apply- often turn out to be fraudulent. And we have ing medication to a sheep’s ‘stamps’ from places like Gairsay and Staffa in hoof. Sean Stewart had also Scotland, unoccupied islands, but someone has previously found an un- bought a licence to manufacture the stamps as documented relief image of tourist collectibles and they become part and a monkey playing a double- parcel of the fun of collecting. And they’re fun chantered bagpipe at Burton to research. Constable Hall, near Hull. “A lot of Christmas stamps use old masters’ Nativity scenes, for example, many of which IT is largely out of his long- include a shepherd with bagpipes. I enjoy go- standing desire to widen ing down to the museums and galleries to find people’s appreciation of the the paintings that have been used on stamps,” bagpipe as a diverse class he said. “It gives me a focus for a visit when of instruments that Oliver I’m going specifically to see a particular paint- Seeler, chief of the Albion- ing… something to look for. You either find the Little River Volunteer Fire stamp, or you look for an old master’s paint- Department, California, and ing that includes pipers and then you look for the proprietor of the online stamps with that picture on them. Sometimes Universe of Bagpipes piping the images are very small.” business, displays 164 piping To Sean Stewart, all of this is an interest that stamps on his on his www. spurs on or complements other interests. hotpipes.com website. “I fervently search for bagpiping iconog- He began piping in his raphy,” he said. “And, when I go to churches mid-20s on a Portuguese and so on, I always look to see whether there’s gaita he had been given in a bagpiper hidden somewhere and, in looking exchange for some home ren- for that, I always find other interesting things, ovation work for a friend. so it’s not just about looking for bagpipers; it’s The pipes had come from about opening your eyes and noticing things a band called The Golden you otherwise wouldn’t have seen.” Toad, an alternative music On Christmas Eve morning, Sean Stewart group on the American West went to the parish Church of St Peter and St Coast in the early 1970s. “It Paul at Drax near Goole in East Yorkshire and was led by a brilliant musi- was delighted to discover the image of a pip- cian and historian, the late ing pig on a pew end that none of the regular Robert (Bob) Thomas,” said congregation had noticed. “As a result of taking Oliver Seeler. “It was a group photos of the carving, I was invited to play my of up to 30 people and they pipes at their evening Christmas carol service performed a lot of ethnic mu-

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THIS fine copperplate engraving, in Oliver Seeler’s collection, is from a German geography book of 1674: a rare, highly detailed depiction by engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder of instrument making (including bagpipes). Aspects shown include sawing the wood, boring, a treadle lathe (far right), sewing bags (right bottom corner) curing hides (on the roof), etc. — and in the background people are dancing to the music made on the instruments (the bagpiper is seated at the left of the picture). The original image is not much more than five inches wide. sic from all over the world, music that people Francisco one day in the early 1970s and saw for a long time now. Thirty years ago, when he weren’t hearing at all at that time. Bob had a a piper playing uilleann pipes. “We looked at took different bagpipes to Highland games and big zampogna, Spanish pipes and pipes he had each other’s bagpipes and simultaneously said, things, he was not at all well received. Now they made, including reproduction of pipes pictured ‘what’s that?’,” he said. He had just met Sean ask him to come, so the respect and awareness by Breughel. Folsom and the two have since become firm have changed. “They staged magical concerts and that’s friends. “It’s been one of my objectives for a long time where I contracted the bagpipe disease. Hearing “Neither of us had previously seen the in- to try to foster that awareness and interest. It’s Golden Toad, our mouths were hanging open strument the other was playing,” said Oliver important from a musical standpoint because a and I got totally hooked on the pipes. I was Seeler. “The information was just not to be number of instruments and traditions died out playing the fiddle at that time, and I worked had, and the big deal was to get a copy of and others came very, very close… and there’s on stringed instruments. Anthony Baines’ book, and that was about it. I an obvious loss to us all when that happens. “When I got this gaita, I realised I could sympathise with Baines, working from museum “Now, thank heavens, that’s reversing in most make a better one and began making some artefacts, and his book suffers from the centuries parts of Europe and it enriches us all.” gaitas, then smallpipes and things went from of scholarly neglect that preceded him. A part of his campaign on behalf of bagpipes’ there. I gave up the fiddle — I’m more a techni- “People are much more likely to have some diversity was to produce and edit a CD of Sean cian than a musician — and got seriously into idea of what a different pipe is nowadays. And Folsom — Bagpipes of the World — and to working with pipes and my business is based the misconception that the Highland bagpipe is launch it by way of a website. On the album, around that.” the world’s only bagpipe… that’s shifting. Sean Sean Folsom demonstrates different bagpipes He took his gaita into an Irish pub in San Folsom has been playing a lot of different pipes from his collection.

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This was the start of Oliver Seeler’s online bored; you keep encountering some new form business. “In a very small pond, Sean’s CD made of bagpipe and it embodies all the questions quite a splash when it was done,” he said. “That yet again.” was only six or seven years ago but it seems like Stamps, for him, add to this interest. prehistory now. “I collected stamps as a child. I’d thought “People started buying the CD, the site that there were very few stamps that had a fire got some publicity from Yahoo and the BBC service orientation on them, despite it being and other places, things got busier and people a fairly big thing. I identified 40 or 50, and I started asking me how to begin playing the thought of acquiring all of those in quantities pipes. So I contacted the Canadian pipe-mak- and making up and marketing a fire services ing firm of J. Dunbar Ltd and got six practice award presentation document that included chanters to hold in stock. I finally sold one. the stamps. Now… well, I went through 40 chanters last “I eventually found a list of around 28 bag- week, I have orders backed up for more. And piping stamps that someone had put together I have about 1,000 people a day going to the and it was a big chore to get them and start site. It’s going well. putting them on the site, just as a point of “My main personal interest is educational. interest. A lot of my customers are relatively isolated, “Then Sean Stewart got in touch saying he and I get people constantly calling and keen to had that stamp from New Zealand he could develop their piping. One of the big successes send to me and it went from there. I’m on about THIS ETCHING of a Polish piper by Jean Pierre Norbin for me has been John Cairns’ tutorials. dates from the mid-1700s. It is one of the early art prints in 20 acres about half a mile from a sealed road “It’s become full time and I’m finding it hard Oliver Seeler’s collection. “Norbin did a famous and wildly on the far north coast of California and there’s popular series of miniatures, of which this very charming to devote time to the other projects I enjoy etching is one,” said Oliver Seeler. “This is a very small no-one close at hand to bounce piping stuff off working on too.” Some of these other interests print, just 1.7 inches tall.” so I appreciate having a piping correspondent are also evident on the 700 or so pages of his comes from the art. The engravings are largely like Sean. website. Much of the material is essentially copies of paintings and, in many cases; the “And I think anything that helps raise peo- educational. Some of it is rather more for fun… paintings don’t exist any more. ple’s awareness of bagpipes — stamp collectors like his collection of bagpipe spoons. “While the detail of various pipes is vis- and people receiving mail, not just pipers — is “The spoons are probably the largest col- ible in some cases, it is the contexts in which desirable. lection of bagpipe spoons that you’ll find,” he the instruments were played in the different “The interesting thing you find is the diver- said. “It started when I was in Wiesbaden in cultures that I find especially interesting; they sity, and that there’s still some recognition of Germany and came across this very nice little really come to life in these images: you see the bagpipes in a lot of cultures. Some stamps raise piper spoon: I’m always looking for things that ways people relate to the piper in ways that, to questions that can be a lot of fun researching. are a bit unusual. me, are very evocative and that aren’t described And I get a kick out of it all. “Spoons used to be worn in the hat as a in the literature. “There are some very good, accurate bagpipe badge of poverty that has been associated with “I’m planning on releasing a CD with very stamps, especially the North African ones. Then itinerant musicians, but there’s no obvious high resolution scans of about 50 of these at there are things like the East German stamp connection between that tradition and these some point and people will be able to make that illustrates a wrongly assembled Bohemian collectible and souvenir spoons, most of which themselves framing-quality copies. That’s a duda; it’s a nice, colourful stamp but the pipes come from the late 1800s until about 1920, a project that’s slowly wending its way onwards. are wrongly put together. Illustrators often seen period when collecting these things was espe- And I do put scans up on the site from time to have problems with bagpipes as you’ll see in cially popular in Europe and North America. to time.” my online ‘Weird Art’ section.” “But I don’t collect ceramics,” he said (al- His website also features illustrations and Oliver Seeler and Sean Stewart, with their though 80 pieces are pictured on his website): descriptions of 30 different bagpipes, the core virtually exhaustive collections, would very “most of them are ugly, they take up a lot of of Sean Folsom’s collection. “Something that’s much like to see more bagpipe-related stamps room and they’re breakable — but I do collect important to me,” he said: “is finding commo- issued. antique graphics and that’s something I haven’t nalities between cultures, and the promotion Said Sean Stewart: “We keep putting sugges- really released onto the site. of mutual understanding and respect that, tions forward and think about which country “I have about 170-180 originals from the especially in these times, is very worthwhile. we are we going to write to next and suggest 15th to the 19th century. It’s a significant col- Bagpipes are such dramatic and interesting they get some decent bagpiping stamps made. lection: engravings and woodcuts in particular, instruments that they do this relatively well. “Anyone can do that and our next project and some etchings. “One of the aspects I like about bagpipes may be trying to get the English pipes, the “They’re very interesting because there are so is their mystery. We do not have any hard an- Leicester, Cornish, Welsh bagpipes and so on few good written descriptions of instruments swers about their origins or history and that is onto some British stamps. from earlier times and a lot of what we know something that has always kept me from getting “It’s just another dimension to things.” l

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