The Autumn Sberatel Fair in Prague attracted enormous interest from visitors and the media

The date of the largest gathering of stamp, coin, banknote, postcard and mineral collectors in Central and Eastern Europe is now firmly fixed in the calendar of every company that matters in the world of collecting.

Visitors could shop with the oldest British philatelic dealer, Stanley Gibbons, with the Austrian Mint, major German gold dealers such as C. Hafner or Sincona. Naturally, leading international dealers and auction houses such as Rauch, Künker, Feldman, Emporium Hamburg, Heritage Auctions, Aixphila, Hanmart, Tietz, Vincennes, Wim van der Bijl or JF Stamps from Denmark were also present. At face value, visitors could obtain stamps from the postal administrations of Germany, Cyprus, Slovakia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, or from the United Nations – and of course also from Czech Post, which introduced a number of interesting new issues at the fair.

The largest Czech players were also present, including Antium Aurum, Macho & Chlapovič, Aurea Numismatika, Klim, Šůcha, Pešek and Zlatá koruna. Albums and other collecting supplies were offered at attractive prices directly by manufacturers such as Leuchtturm, Lindner and, for the first time, Safe.

The Sberatel fair attracted enormous media attention. In addition to live coverage on Czech Television, all major print and online dailies as well as the business magazine Forbes reported on it.

The biggest attraction of this year’s Sberatel Fair was undoubtedly the so-called Moon Landing Cover. In 1971, the Apollo 15 crew secretly took 400 postal covers to the Moon. One hundred of them were intended for German philatelist Hermann Walter Sieger. A scandal erupted – Sieger immediately sold the covers, the astronauts were excluded from the Apollo programme, forced to return the money, and NASA confiscated the envelopes. After several years, the astronauts managed to win back a portion of them in court. Today, the so-called Sieger covers are extremely rare, and one of them – owned by Czech collector David Kopřiva – was exhibited publicly for the first time at the fair.

Artist Pasta Oner – a pioneer of pop art and street art on the Czech scene – personally introduced at the Sberatel fair a new stamp entitled Love Letter, which he created for Czech Post. It is a so-called personalised stamp, which meant visitors could have their own design printed alongside it directly at the fair. At the christening, he explained that his inspiration came from the love letters he wrote in abundance to girls during his teenage years, while, as he sadly remarked, he received “a far smaller number” in return.

Auction house Macho & Chlapovič presented in its exhibition one of the most beautiful specimen of gold coin from Hungarian history – a rare five-ducat piece of Leopold I from 1669, estimated to be worth more than 150 000 EUR.

At the Sberatel Fair, visitors could also meet Matej Gábriš, a leading global creator of fantasy banknotes and author of a collector’s banknote featuring a Delage D6-70 car, which had its premiere at the fair.

The express steam locomotive 498.1, nicknamed the “Albatros one”, holds the official Czech-Slovak speed record for steam locomotives at 162 km/h. The motif, which appeared on a new 0 euro souvenir banknote and a couponed stamp issued by Czech Post, was created by artist Petr Ptáček, who willingly signed autographs for collectors.

The Czech Mint presented at this year’s Sberatel Fair a new version of the investment coin Czech Lion. The unveiling included a moderated discussion with the creator of the original design, Asamat Baltaev, and Vojtěch Dostál, to whom he symbolically passed the baton after nine years. The interesting twist is that years ago Dostál had been Baltaev’s teacher at medal-making school.

An exceptional gold set in a cubist design with Colombian emeralds and diamonds, worth nearly 1 000 000 EUR, also caught the attention of Czech Television. Created by JK Jewellery, the set consists of a necklace, bracelet, ring, earrings and brooch. It was on display at the stand of Greenshine Mystery company.

This year’s Sberatel Fair also hosted the announcement of the winners of the first edition of the Praga Ars Philatelica – competition for the world’s most beautiful stamp. Organised jointly by the Sberatel Fair fair and the Prague Postal Museum, the competition featured nine categories. Eleven postal administrations participated in this historic first edition. Representatives of Czech Post, Slovak Post, UN Post and Kyrgyz Express Post, all of which had exhibitions at the fair, came on stage to receive their diplomas in person. Other postal administrations will receive theirs by post.

Installing philatelic rarities can be fun! The Prestige Philately Club Prague offered collectors the chance to see the famous stamps of British Guiana from the “cotton reels” issue of 1850 and the “ships” issue of 1856 on both days of the fair. The presentation also included examples of their use on contemporary letters. British Guiana was the fourth overseas territory to issue its own stamps, and the first such territory on the American continent. Alongside Mauritius, its stamps rank among the rarest and most sought-after in the world.

As in previous years, the Sberatel Fair was accompanied on both days by the Minerals and Gemstones fair, and on Saturday 6 September also by the Vinyl and Stereo Expo record and CD fair, together with a special section devoted to heavy music, the Rock & Metal Market. Among others, the event featured GZ Media from Loděnice, the world’s largest manufacturer of vinyl records.

• Sberatel fair

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