Leavey Lecture

The world seems to be catching up with the views of Stamp Scandal.com. It's taken long enough but there seems to be some movement to deal with the issues we have raised.

On 26th April 2004 in Madrid at the FFA, Thomas E. Leavey, Director General of the UPU, delivered a lecture entitled "Challenges Facing The Philatelic Industry - The Way Ahead".

Primarily, Mr. Leavey has declared stamps issued by the notorious Sako Khatchikian, long time friend of the Michel catalogue and the Yvert and Tellier catalogue compilers, and his equally notorious company Impressor S.A., as illegal.

We have campaigned long and hard aginst Sako Khatchikian and at last his stamps purporting to be issued under the authority of the Republic of Chad are identified categorically by Mr. Leavey as illegal.

We have obtained samples of the actual illegal stamps (see below) and we applaud his inititative in his identification of Sako Khatchikian as one of the primary sources of illegal stamps in a market groaning under the burden of his activity.

Unfortunately, one thing you can be sure of is that you'll be seeing these stamps listed in the Michel catalogue as genuine stamps which is one of the ways that Mr. Leavey and his associates still get it wrong even when they're trying to do the right thing.

We have written of the self-appointed policeman of the philatelic trade, Albertino de Figueiredo and his bunkum "Foundation for Philately" before and, as host to Mr. Leavey's lecture, he has stepped into the arena again.

The broad message of Mr. Leavey's lecture sounds very grand but once again, and in Mr. Leavey's own words, "the UPU mandate in the field of philately gives it little direct legislative authority to act of its own volition regarding illegal stamp issues. It does not regulate the industry, per se."

This has always been a bone that has stuck in our craw. The UPU insists on meddling with legitimate businesses producing stamps under contract with Postal Administrations without ever involving itself when problems arise in checking the background of the production of the stamps.

He states that "ultimately, it is up to the postal administrations, who are the stamp issuing authorities, to manage their own businesses."

If he really meant this, the UPU would not exist and he would be out of a job which might not be a bad thing.

If the UPU must exist, it must adopt the pro-active stance he advocates in the real world and involve itself more directly with the operations of the Postal Administrations it represents.

Mr. Leavey states that "new contracts are signed with different agents when management changes at the postal administration or the ministry, without ever cancelling the old contract."

We hate to say "we told you so" but "we told you so"!

He also says that "Vigilant attention to catalogues, websites and stamp exhibitions must continue." Unfortunately, he is not very vigilant in these matters as some of the very stamps by Sako Khatchikian that he condemns as illegal in his lecture already appear in the current Michel catalogue.

The UPU must challenge the Postal Administrations when they submit directives identifying illegal stamps and find out if contracts have been issued to those agents for the issue of those stamps. If such a contract exists the UPU should reject the claim of the Postal Administration and contact the agent to inform them that the Postal Administration is behaving in an unethical manner and attempting to undermine the legitimacy of the stamps issued under that contract.

Without this active challenge from the UPU, unscrupulous officials in Postal Administrations can continue to lure legitimate postal agents into contracts which are later refuted because of the fraudulent activity of those officials, and illegal stamps will continue to proliferate.

Mr. Leavey cannot sit back and deny all responsibilty for the situation, hand over regulation to quasi-authorities like the Figueiredo Foundation and INTERGRAF under the guise of the WADP, tamely do the bidding of corrupt postal officials and still maintain the credibility of the UPU.

All of this smacks of restrictive practices to create a monopoly for Figueiredo and his cronies and the chosen few involved in INTERGRAF.

Stop tinkering at the edges of the problem, Mr. Leavey and bring the Postal Administrations to heel and we might, just might, see some improvement in a situation that is just getting worse.