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Dr. Woo (far left) with the President of
the Royal Philatelic Society London, Gavin
Fryer, in front of some of Dr. Woo's frames. |
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An interview by Uty Rohrs
Before talking to Dr. Woo about his beautiful, award-winning, 'Birds of the World' collection, I asked him some general questions. Woo explained: 'I started to collect stamps just after World War II, and the first stamps I collected were those of Hong Kong. My second country was USA and I didn't collect selected issues from the whole world until a few years later. As in most countries we started to collect stamps as school children - in Hong Kong it was no different'. But, why birds? Woo told me: 'It's simply the beauty of the Western Australia Swan, the Guatemala Quetzel, the Colombia Andean Condor, the USA 1869 Eagle and Shield etc. These wonderful designs, coupled with patience and determination, enabled me to form the collections I have now'.
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ABOVE: The Western Australia 4d blue
swan with inverted frame |
On February 21, 2002 Dr. Woo exhibited at the Royal Philatelic Society London and afterwards I went through the whole collection with him, and his friend Brian Moorehouse, to understand its origins. It's a breathtaking display of mostly imperforate classic stamps and covers. Many collections often have minute margins or bad perforations, but Woo's pieces are all top quality.
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ABOVE: Yemen 1933 Zeppelin cover to South America,
cancelled with red Cockatoo. Also note the Friedrichshafen
and Sudamerika marks which chart the cover's progress
across the Atlantic |
If it's not the rarity that astonishes the admirer, then it's the freshness, the overall condition of multi-colour franking, or neat tied cancellations. He is constantly adding to the collection and, as yet, hasn't had time to prepare a definitive write-up of it. When you have so many good pages, it must be difficult to judge which ones should be entered for international competition. In fact Woo often just enters one country from his bird collection, as he did at Belgica 2001 with Nicaragua, and in the USA with his Guatemala pieces. |
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