New stamps from Malaysia

The Baba & Nyonya Heritage

Date of Issue : 29 November 2013

Here is a magnificent set of stamps from Pos Malaysia featuring Baba & Nyonya Heritage   of Malaysia.The stamps and Miniature sheet show Nayanaware, Nayana slippers, Townhouse wedding couple and Nyonya Kebaya Embroidery.

 

Views and Opinions

IT’S TIME FOR MAKING 4th GENERATION THEMATIC EXHIBIT

  - Naresh Agarwal

It was nice personal conversation over phone with Mr. Madhukar Jhingan who had visited Brasiliana 2013, The world Philatelic Exhibition, in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil,a beautiful city of large country of North America. Well, he was pleased and if am not wrong mesmerized by the beauty of the place. Further more by the visiting philatelists and their associates from all over the world.

We often talk about dark future of philately with the incoming of new technology communication systems in the world which is making life of physical light weight mail harder. Letters are seldom written by hand and email has now taken over at most of the places even surpassing Telex, Fax , and Phonograms where as one has seen that Telegram to has gone back to its shell for ever at least in India.

The exhibition as per Mr. Jhingan who was accompanied by his wife a philatelist too; was superb with displays properly done, with exhibits of high order and philatelists of great sense. The exhibition as per him was a treat to watch, an open book to learn and enjoy & and a place worth visiting.

With all these good things spoken by him, the best I could understand of my interest was the One Day Jury Seminar cum Training Workshop on Thematic Philately which was open for qualified judges international, continental and national and also allowed to be attended by the foreign delegates of other participating countries. The aim with the workshop was to establish the new concept as the FIP Thematic Commission would adopt for training judges. The workshop focused on a limited numbers of judging criteria and work with them "in deep".

In other words the aim of the workshop was to improve the quality of judging viz a viz quality of exhibiting. Mrs Savita Jhingan was lucky enough to attend the workshop as a viewer. Apart from other power point presentations while discussing on different elements of thematic philately, the jury discussed on three selected exhibits from the ones which were on display at the exhibition and were awarded too. I must say I am lucky enough to be the one of those whose exhibit was selected for necessary discussion by the jury in that workshop. I hope my detailed discussion with Mrs. Jhingan will certainly bring good result and fruit for me for bettering my said exhibit on “Mail and Its Movement” as I have been given to understand various aspects of the same had been discussed in detail by the jury during the workshop discussing about the shortcoming in the exhibit and the area where the exhibit needed improvement and the ways to improve. Genuinely this is very highly appreciable move of FIP. This will certainly help exhibitors to improve the quality of exhibits not only in terms of presentation but in other aspects too to make impact on the jury and to make exhibit easy to understand by the common viewer.

The new and appealing words which were heard by Mr. Jhingan being spoken by FIP jury during the show was the exhibits of 2.5G, 3G,4G and even 5G (G refers to Generation Process) order. Which means, the jury now look forward for exhibits of high order with write up in proper but short and sweet form and giving statistical data in tabulated / graphical form wherever necessary and possible, usage of high quality display material, new protecting techniques, high order vocabulary to write better and knowledge of computer graphics and writing in a far better way and of course variety of philatelic material of highest available quality and rarity & short but well researched thematic and philatelic text..

One must understand that jury at this level has to prepare themselves in a far better way to adjudge the exhibit. Jury too has to be well updated in all respects such as philatelically, thematically and postaly. Only few days back, I wrote in one of my mail to Mr. Sandeep Jaiswal that like “India Study Circle” we should think about formation of “Exhibit Study Circle of India” so that before the exhibits are sent to higher level shows, they are adjudged by the highly experienced philatelists to guide the exhibitor for bettering the same. There are such circles already working at many places of the world but we need it to be in India. We should also think in terms of conducting seminars or workshops to discuss and design the methodology of preparing so called 2.5G,3G,3.5G,4G,… exhibits so that we may perform better in such philatelic shows.

I would like to recall my opinion written on Rainbow where in I showed my serious concern on the results of BRASILIANA 2013 where performance of Indian participants apparently did not appear quite satisfactory in Indian scenario. The reasons may be many. As gathered from Mr. Jinghan, when there are talks of 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G exhibits, certainly we are bound to get lower medals not because the exhibit is of low quality but there is a need of making necessary changes in exhibiting to stand at par with the generation process in progress. Though presentation has only 5 marks but proper presentation gives better impact on other aspects too as it helps the viewer to better understand both the thematic as well as philatelic elements of the exhibit. We can well understand that our exhibit has to be of at least 2 generations ahead. In other words, if we go back to about 2 generations and think upon the methodology of preparing exhibits, reflection of knowledge, completeness of subject, concept, treatment and development of theme; and further the quality of search / research and the variety and rarity of material used, we find that Ist generation exhibiting comprised of just fixing / display of stamps of simple and common topics like animals, birds, ships etc.( so to say topical philately) either on plain sheets or pre-printed albums irrespective of condition, presentation or any information. The period normally spanned from 1920’s to 1940’s. The 2^nd generation exhibiting spanned between 1940 to 1970’s which comprised of addition of some text mainly related to the stamps affixed by the exhibitor but no proper placement, no elaboration of thematic or philatelic aspects. The text too written with pen pencil and in whatever way. Paper quality was not of that high standard. The 3^rd generation exhibiting spanned between 1970’s to 2000.s when one saw vastly improved exhibits as some new variety of material like cancellations, postal stationery, stamp booklets and covers was used and there was better illustrated text and text placement. Type writers came in to play. It was the time when topical philately turned in to thematic philately. Then came the 3.5G, a little better both in terms of quality and variety of philatelic material with well researched specific text illustrations and then the 4G which required better knowledge, better search and research both thematically and philatelically, usage of even better and more variety of material strictly in line with the storyline in most suitable and befitting manner. It also calls for better development and overall balance of every aspect of exhibit. So to say well advance quality thematic exhibiting.

In all, in the last 15 years, there has been vast change in thematic philatelic exhibiting and the ways to judge such exhibits. There was lack uniformity in past but now there is standardization in every aspect of philatelic exhibiting. There are electronic means to get information and acquire knowledge, there are computers to make presentation better and best utilize the space with the usage of desired font and language and letter style, there is variety of philatelic material which has been searched and so can find place in the exhibit and above all, there are variety of subjects which can be chosen and exhibited. Hence, today is the time of high quality advance exhibits. Comparative analysis with the exhibits world over has too become easy and so the competition so to say has increased calling for betterment and quality in every aspect of exhibiting.

This also calls for a better understanding by the exhibitor of every aspect of his exhibit so that with the same material, a better exhibit may be prepared which calls for change in presentation, shuffling material, changing plan by acquiring more knowledge and slight change in the plan, of course. For sure the same exhibit can get better award by slight changes, if done properly. It is time that we should come forward and discuss on this generation process in thematic exhibiting. Let’s conduct workshops and seminars on this. Let’s write and make philatelists aware of this standard of exhibiting .

: Naresh Agarwal - email : nareshkumar1992@yahoo.co.in