Freddie Mercury's stamp album is a hit at Sberatel!
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Zoe Lewis, Access & Learning Manager at The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA), took Freddie Mercury's stamp album to Sberatel. It was on display at the international collectors fair from 14-16 September 2007.
The album and the accompanying exhibition graphics were a very popular display at Sberatel. This year was the tenth anniversary of Sberatel which is the biggest meeting for collectors in Central and Eastern Europe. This year the fair attracted over 10,000 visitors!
With John Lennon's stamp album safely housed in the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., the BPMA was hugely proud to present the stamp album of the late, great Freddie Mercury.
The talented Queen rock star collected stamps as a boy, between the ages of 9 and 12. His album is one of the few personal belongings that still exist in the public domain. This fair was the first time that Freddie Mercury's collection has been shown in public since the world philatelic exhibition in Melbourne in 1999.
Freddie Mercury - who has appeared on his own British stamp, a millennium issue on 25 December 1999 - was born Farrokh Bulsara on 5 September 1946 in Stone Town, Zanzibar. His father Bomi originally inspired his stamp collecting. Shortly after the Bulsara family moved to Feltham, Middlesex, in the 1960s, Freddie began studying graphic illustration at Ealing College of Art and Bomi decided to keep the stamp album safely while Freddie was away at college.
Following Freddie Mercury’s death on 24 November 1991, the majority of his belongings were burnt in line with his family’s Zoroastrian religious beliefs but because Bomi had been caring for the stamp album he decided to keep it. Bomi eventually decided to auction his and Freddie’s stamp collections with Sotheby’s and the BPMA – then known as the National Postal Museum – purchased the album for their collections on 17 December 1993.
The amount paid was donated to the Mercury Phoenix Trust which is the AIDS charity that was set-up by Queen band members John Deacon, Brian May and Roger Taylor along with Freddie’s friend Mary Austin.