I have just returned from a fascinating trip to Denmark, where I shared a stand with Chris and Perlita Swinbank of Canberra at the National Stamp Exhibition in the Forum Centre in Copenhagen. The show is an annual event and the biggest in Scandinavia, and was held on the 5th - 7th of November, only a week after Philatex in London, where I also had a stand. After a short two-hour flight from London I was met by my customer and friend Birger Mortensen at the Karlstrup Airport Station and caught a train directly to the Forum building where the show was held. It was a marvellous though expensive exhibition, with stands costing much more than the Pacific Explorer Stamp Exhibition in Sydney next year. The level of service for dealers was incredible however, and it was even possible for me to order from their food and wine menu over three months ago for delivery to my stand during the show. A smorgasbord with unlimited smoked salmon and wine was excellent value at $25, but I didn't have time to eat most days so left it to Chris and Perlita to do the honours.
The exhibition was organised by the Danish Stamp Dealers Association who charge more than $900 for their annual fee - over three times more than the Australasian Philatelic Traders Association. It is held in conjunction with the Danish Collectors Association with significant sponsorship from the Nordic Post Offices of Denmark, Greenland and Faeroe Islands. Greenland, as always, had a fantastic display and a huge staff on their very popular stand. They were surrounded by a full sized (though fortunately, deceased) Polar Bear, Musk Ox and Seal, plus Greenlandic volcanic rocks, a huge piece of Greenlandic ice, which slowly melted into a pool over the three days, plus a number of other non-philatelic exhibits and people in national Inuit costumes. They had different events at their stand most days and a huge crowd of people for their free Greenlandic barbeque on Saturday. I don't think I have ever seen a Post Office go to more effective lengths to display their cultural and ethnic origins and I hope the massive crowds spent enough to make it pay.
Despite all this, I think the best Post Office stand was Australia's, which included an Australian Embassy display for Tasmania's Bicentenary. Nordfrim, who are Australia Post agents in Denmark had a three metre high kangaroo, endless groups of hugging koalas, enormous scenic panels of Australia and its icons bedecked with flags, gum leaves and most important of all they had a video of the early years and eventual wedding of Mary Donaldson - perhaps the most beloved person in Denmark. Mary was born in Tasmania and lived in Australia until she met Frederik, the Crown Prince of Denmark at the Sydney Olympics. Their wedding last year was an enormous event. Danes are fervent supporters of their royal family, and there is total support for them. When I visited last year, every shop window and every Danish home or flat had large posters proclaiming the Royal Wedding of Mary and Frederik. There was endless media coverage, which far outweighed Lady Diana's wedding and funeral. Australia Post missed a huge commercial opportunity by not issuing a joint issue with the Nordic countries for this event, despite my strong urging. They missed out on several million dollars of sales at very high profit, given that virtually none of the stamps they sold in Denmark would ever be used for mail. I hope they rectify this when Princess Mary becomes Queen of Denmark.
The absolute highlight of the show was that Princess Mary came to open it. It was her first event since coming out of hospital two weeks ago where she had gallstones removed, thus refuting many Australian newspaper articles that she is pregnant. A few weeks ago, I approached the organisers and asked if I could meet her, as we were the only Australian standholders there. To my absolute delight they said yes and I was fitted into the official Royal Programme. I set up our stand the day before the show with flags, a map of Australia and pictures of Australian animals, birds and stamps. A group of officials came to plan the finer points of the royal visit to my stand. The detail was amazing with an exact route of where she would go amongst the stands, exact minutes when meetings would occur at the exhibition, and names of the only people she would meet. Mary was to spend 60 minutes at the exhibition and spent nearly ten minutes with us.
At 10am, Princess Mary opened the exhibition and a sea of people swarmed into the show. Photographers jostled to get Royal photos and in the melee an elderly man was knocked into the pool of melting ice at the Greenland Post Office. Mary stepped forward to see if he was alright, and his photo ended up on every TV news and newspaper. It must have turned his day into a highlight of his life!
The Princess then came to our stand with an entourage of about 50 reporters and photographers, and a similar number of couriers, advisers, secret police and bodyguards. There was a crush of people around my stand with endless cameras flashing. I shook hands with Mary and spoke to her for about ten minutes. She is beautiful, friendly and interesting to talk to and it was a marvellous experience and privilege to meet her. I suggested she should collect stamps and she expressed some interest in it. After her departure, I was interviewed by various Danish media for about 30 minutes. Effectively, I missed out on the first hours trade at the exhibition, but it was a once in a lifetime experience. Princess Mary's visit was covered in five full pages of national news, 20 major TV news spots and will appear in several magazines over the next few weeks. What fantastic exposure for philately!
The show was incredibly well organised by Ib Pedersen and his team. About 10,000 collectors attended. Over 200 guests attended the dealers' dinner on Saturday night. Tickets cost $100 each and wine cost a fortune. It was held at Copenhagen's hottest nightspot - a museum devoted to Iceland, Greenland and Faeroe Islands history and culture, with the top chefs in Denmark cooking the specialties of these countries. It was a fantastic night, with many new friendships made. Thomas Hoilland was the host, and invited us on to his table. He owns the biggest auction house in Scandinavia and has just taken over the entire Old Danish Stock Exchange of 5000 square metres. Lars Boers, another Danish dealer is the President of the International Federation of Stamp Dealers and I urged him to come to Philatelic Explorer in Sydney next year, which he hopes to do. Tourism between Denmark and Australia has boomed since Mary became the Crown Princess and our country has an enormous profile over there.
At 8:59 on Friday 5th November, the Danes can buy their traditional Snow Beer. It is double strength and the breweries have attractive girls pouring free glasses throughout the country for the first few minutes of the launch. It was mayhem, but everyone was having a good time and very little work is done that weekend. I found it very difficult to concentrate on stamps on Sunday!
One of my customers collects parrots, and he brought his macaw to our stand for some hours on Sunday. It was a huge bird, over one metre in length with a fearsome sized beak that kept trying to peck things, including the back of my suit jacket. Chris was having enormous fun and got a few tail feathers as souvenirs, but we constantly had to watch our mischievous visitor who caused a sensation on our stand.
Philately in Denmark is strong, though large sales were hard to find. Several clubs have many hundreds of members and even the Perfin Club has 75 members and prints its own catalogue of Danish Perfins. You can email me at shieldsstamps@email.com if you want this looseleaf book, which is updated regularly and has prices in a separate section. There are a couple of specialist collectors of Australia, but generally they collect thematics or Nordic countries.
