Bibliography of Philatelic Periodicals

 

by

 

Brian J. Birch

 

 

Although this document is only intended to exist in electronic form, I find it very convenient to have a hard copy to hand. It is easier to refer to a book than wait the five or ten minutes it takes to start up and close down a computer, just to obtain a single reference or check a fact. Books also give you the big picture of the document as a whole, rather than the small-screen glimpses we have all got used to. Accordingly, I printed and had bound a copy of this document in January 2007, which I have called the First edition, for convenience. Henceforth, I will have a copy bound each January, or thereabouts, provided the document has increased in size by at least ten percent since the previous printing. At the same time I will send an update to the web files on http://hps.gr/fipliterature, where the electronic version of this document is hosted. Since printing and binding is quite an expensive undertaking, I donate the obsolete volumes to important philatelic libraries round the world.

 

In January 2007, I completed a major overhaul of the Bibliography of Cumulative indexes to Philatelic Periodicals and brought the references into line with those in this document, which was then called Histories of Individual Periodicals. It immediately became obvious that the overlap between the two documents was massive since both were listings in order of periodical title, each title being accompanied by complete bibliographic details of the periodicals, their antecedent and successor titles. This duplication of effort could not be left unattended to, owing to the limited time I have available for creating these documents. Accordingly, after much vacillation, I determined to combine the two documents into this, renamed, Bibliography of Philatelic Periodicals. In order not to lose the historical origins of the Cumulative Indexes document, I added an Appendix to contain the basic data from its introductory pages. Although I began to merge the documents in 2007, the process was not completed until 2008.

 

Late in 2008, as I was bringing the formatting of the stand-alone Section 2.2.1.5 Bibliography of Current-Awareness and Retrospective Indexes into line with my current practice, it became obvious that the List of Periodicals Indexed it contained would duplicate much of the information on periodicals found herein. Accordingly, this list was removed from Section 2.2.1.5 and merged into the current volume.

 

This edition was printed on the second day of January 2012

 

 

1^st edition, January 2007     A single bound copy of 146 pages with the title Histories of Individual Periodicals. It was donated to the Western Philatelic Library of Sunnyvale, California, when it was replaced in my library by the 2^nd edition.

 

2^nd edition, January 2008     A single bound copy of 275 pages with the title Bibliography of Philatelic Periodicals. It was donated to the Collectors Club of New York, when it was replaced in my library by the 3^rd edition.

 

3^rd edition, December 2008 A single bound copy of 443 pages. It was donated to the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library of Denver, Colorado, when it was replaced in my library by the 4^th edition. This edition was requested earlier than usual by Anthony Virvilis, the incoming President of the FIP Literature Commission.

 

4^th edition, January 2010     A single bound copy of 568 pages. It was donated to the American Philatelic Research Library of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, when it was replaced in my library by the 5^th edition.

 

5^th edition, December 2010  A single bound copy of 694 pages. It was donated to the National Philatelic Society of London, UK, when it was replaced in my library by the 6^th edition.

 

6^th edition, January 2012     A single copy of 853 pages. It was donated to the Royal Philatelic Society London, UK, when it was replaced in my library by the 7^th edition.

 

FOREWORD

 

 

This is a combination of Sections 2.2.1.2 and 2.2.1.4 of my masterwork:–

 

THE PHILATELIC BIBLIOPHILES COMPANION

 

Section 2.2.1.2     Histories of Individual Periodicals

 

Section 2.2.1.4     Cumulative Indexes to Philatelic Periodicals

 

The original idea behind this Section was to compile a bibliography of articles giving the history of, or relating to individual periodicals. In reality, very few of the many thousands of philatelic periodicals that have been published have ever had anything written about them, never mind a complete history. Accordingly, the entries for many periodicals consist of fairly minor but, to my mind, interesting or important notes. If this volume preserves this information and facilitates the easy access to it by others, it will have fulfilled its purpose.

 

At the same time as this Bibliography was being completed as part of The Philatelic Bibliophile’s Companion, I was busy listing in a separate document, all of the periodicals I had read whilst looking for relevant data to supplement all of my various works. Since these periodicals had actually passed through my hands, I made a point of including publication details as well as name changes and any other interesting information I came across. Belatedly, I realised that I was compiling the data on individual periodicals in two places - both in the ad hoc list of publications I had checked and in Section 2.2.1.2 of The Philatelic Bibliophile’s Companion. Deploring duplication, I decided to incorporate the contents of Section 2.2.1.2 into this document and change its name, thereby making it a free-standing sub-document of The Philatelic Bibliophile’s Companion.

 

I realised subsequently that the same duplication existed with Section 2.2.1.4, Bibliography of Cumulative Indexes to Philatelic Periodicals and some of the data included in Section 2.2.1.3, Periodicals Devoted to Philatelic Literature and Section 2.2.1.5, Bibliography of Current-Awareness and Retrospective Indexes. Parts of both of these have now incorporated into this document.

 

 

Brian John Birch

 

Standish, UK

4^th April 2011