Events

My father’s stamp collection, home at last

For sixty years in exile, my father Juhan (John) Karl Gross collected the stamps of the first period of Estonin independence, coming out of the 1914-18 War, then submerged in that of 1949-45. He collected every trace, down to thepoostmarks of individual villages and mail trains, and annotated the pages in his minute handwriting. What to do with a thing of that value – I don't mean market value – after his death?

Fourteen years on, this was the answer. With the friendly, dedicated help of the Estonian Embassy in London, the albums made their way to the gentle and exact curating hands of the Eesti Rahva Muuseum in Tartu. Home at last. My thanks to everyone involved. And the poem that accompanied them can be read HERE.