LOTS OF SUCCESS FOR IRAQI STAMP AUCTION

Agence France Presse
Nov 6 2009

BAGHDAD — Reckoned to be Iraq’s top expert on cement, Anis Amjad
does the rounds of factories during the week but nothing can stop
him conducting the stamp auction in old Baghdad every Saturday.

On that day the 56-year-old chemical engineer takes off his white
coat and raises his auctioneer’s gavel. The lots are knocked down in
an old Ottoman building dating from 1908 which, nine years later,
became the first British Post office and where a traditional red
letter box still adorns the facade.

"I am head of the inspection department at the industry ministry and
I supervise Iraq’s cement works. But I have always declined foreign
assignments so as not to miss this meeting," says the confirmed
bachelor, who first ran the auction 12 years ago.

Interest is reviving fast at the Iraqi Philatelic and Numismatic
Society, founded in 1951, which has only recently resumed meeting
after three years of suspension because of a violent struggle between
Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni populations and a strong Al-Qaeda presence
in the neighbourhood.

Official membership stands at more than 2,000, though only around 80
are active buyers and sellers.

Stamp prices are rising sharply, in particular any ones showing Saddam
Hussein, the dictator overthrown by the US-led invasion in 2003.

"Before 2003, the country was closed in on itself and we were cut
off from the international market. But now business is going well.

American and British collectors snap up stamps with Saddam on them,"
says Kamal Kamel, 46, who runs a stall in the Bab al-Muazzam district
where the society meets.

"Unlike us, they couldn’t get enough of him — they could not buy the
stamps, because of the embargo," he said, referring to UN sanctions on
trade with Iraq introduced after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

"A series showing Saddam Hussein which was worth 200 dinars sells
today for 5,000 dinars (4.3 dollars). My monthly revenues have passed
from 200 to 1,500 dollars. Prices really have risen," Kamel said.

"Only Iraqis come into my shop but I have an intermediary with access
to the Green Zone who sells a lot to American soldiers and diplomats,"
he added.

Sitting round a long table, 30 or so dealers and collectors examine the
stamps, bank notes and coins which comprise the lots on offer that day.

Anis livens up the sale with auctioneer’s patter but all the bids
are below prices given in foreign catalogues.

Festooning walls of the room are photocopies of letters from the
British Philatelic Association dating from 1917, along with many
stamps from Iraq and other Arab countries.

Since Iraq’s first stamp in 1917, the postal service has issued 1,824
series of stamps, including 24 from after the fall of Saddam.

Garo Manaskan, a 51-year-old Iraqi of Armenian origin who is an
accountant and runs a well-known Baghdad restaurant, is selling
several items from his collection of three million stamps.

"I started at the age of six. It is my passion — when some cease to
please me I sell them to buy others. As I am unmarried, I will leave
my collection to the Armenian church," he says.

Next to him, Haqqi Abdel Karim, a 45-year-old coin enthusiast, is at
the auction for the first time in three years since seeking exile in
Syria to avoid intercommunal violence.

"Today things are better and I am thinking of coming back but the
association should move. This is not a safe district," Karim said.

Members come from a range of religious and ethnic backgrounds, but
old animosities have prevented the election of a committee for the
past six years.

"Two thirds of the people around this table made a lot of money
by taking part in or even leading the looting of post offices which
happened in the wake of the American invasion," confides Mohammed Dhia,
an active member of the society.

"When you accuse them, some go silent and others promise to give them
back without having any intention of doing so. Then there are those
who try to convince you the stamps are better off in their hands than
with philistines knowing nothing of philately," he added.

His point is illustrated by the society’s location at al-Koshla
("clock" in Turkish) post office, in Seraglio Street in Bab al-Muazzam
neighbourhood, where the stamp museum stood before 2003. The museum’s
collections were all stolen and sold… to stamp collectors.