Telegraph Seals, a World Catalogue
Written by Steve Hiscocks and published by him in Woking, 2007.
ISBN: 0950830135 (0-9508301-3-5)
Steve's Copyright Note:
Permission is hereby given for use of material drawn from this book in newspapers, magazines and periodicals and by dealers and auctioneers in advertising matter, price lists and sale catalogues intended for distribution free of charge or at cost providing full acknowledgement is made. Use of the copyright material in this book in any publication intended for sale at above cost price is prohibited unless written permission has previously been obtained from the copyright holder.
To view the book 'Telegraph Seals, A World Catalogue, written by Steve Hiscocks and published by him in 2007,
you need first to
to respect his copyright notice as detailed above.
This will give you access to the original book. Clicking 'UPDATE' on any page will give you my updated version.
Where do I fit in ?
I have been creating a web-site for some time now that started by consolidating information about GB Precancels.
After buying a book called 'The Telegraph stamps and Stationery of Great Britain 1851-1954 (By Peter Langmead and Alan Huggins, ISBN: 0-907630-14-6),
I felt there were things in it that could not go unchallenged, and decided to add a 'side-branch' of GB Telegraph stamps to my existing website.
With these I concentrated mainly on the Private Telegraph stamps, comparing what had previously been written with my own investigations.
My plating efforts (inspired by Raymond Lister's book of 1961) has unearthed much new information.
After I obtained a copy of Hiscocks' 1982 book 'Telegraph & Telephone stamps of the world, a priced and annotated catalogue' (ISBN: 0-9508301-0-0),
I extended my own website to cover the rest of the world. The book had a similar copyright notice to his later book above, but also allowed use of his numbering system.
This allowed me to use his book as a framework to inform and extend knowledge on the subject.
There is now a new book by John Barefoot that also extends the work Hiscocks did on Telegraph stamps of the world,
though without preserving the numbering system or listing seals, and restricting itself to simplified form.
John has also found many new items and would welcome more input for future editions.
While books have served a very useful purpose in the past, they have some fundamental drawbacks.
They are limited in ability to provide high quality colour images in quantity without high costs.
They cannot be automatically translated into dozens of languages in a few seconds.
Once written, the contents do not get updated without new editions.
Some of the older books are now hard to find and/or expensive.
Printed catalogues do not have the ability to select currency.
My purpose has been to use the internet to create an online FREE resource that can provide information to others and also act as
a magnet for further information that can be almost instantly added.
In his forward to the book on Telegraph Seals, Hiscocks said "My hope is to publish a much more complete edition, printed rather than photocopied, in full colour,
with revised numbering corresponding to order of issue and suggested values once the flood of new information has dwindled. But then I always was an optimist!"
This was written in 2007. In his 1982 book his last page showed a selection of telegraph seals and expressed his wish to create the 2007 book.
In the introduction to the 1982 book Hiscocks had similarly hoped to produce a further edition.
Sadly Steve Hiscocks did not survive to produce further editions of either of these two books.
My existing website has already attracted donations of many images that have added to Steve's 1982 book. Few people have seen his 2007 book.
I would like to continue the work of building the World Catalogue of Telegraph Seals by bringing it to the attantion of others and inviting further contributions.
To do this within the copyright terms, I would ask for my website to be considered as a form of 'magazine' albeit online. It is certainly not sold for profit and
it advertises my website to better attract information and images from collectors all over the world that may have major rarities in their 'back of book' section.
I would further add that I think this is very much in the spirit of what Steve Hiscocks would have wished.
To keep things simple, my updates will be done under the same copyright term as the work of Hiscocks.
Here is a Site Map of my website. If you see anything that interests you, just click on it.
The telegraph section has proved to be much more popular than the precancels.
In retrospect I should have changed the name or created a new site as the name is not really appropriate anymore.
However it is quite high in search results now, so perhaps a bit too late with that.
Comments, criticisms, information or suggestions are always welcome.
Contact: S t e v e @ g b - p r e c a n c e l s . o r g
Please include the word 'Telegraphs' in the subject.
Last updated 20th. September 2022
©Copyright Steve Panting 2012-2022 except where stated.
Permission is hereby granted to copy material for which the copyright is owned by myself, on condition that any data is not altered and this website is given credit.
