Greetings from the UK

I post from time to time on another popular stamp forum, so I hope those who know me from there will bear with me. My main interest is in the reasons why particular stamps are issued, and what they can tell us about the governments and countries from where they come - stamps as propaganda, if you like. I focus on Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, specifically Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, but also on any stamp issued during the Second World War by countries involved in that conflict. Further to that is a massive undertaking of assembling all subsequent stamp issues commemorating WW2 - again confining myself largely to Europe and the countries directly involved. That is ongoing and requires careful decision-making as to what is, or is not, sufficiently relevant to the subject.

A secondary interest is in stamp design: I have a collection of recess stamps from the USSR and have recently attempted a study of the major engravers of the Soviet era.

These interests tend to set me at a tangent to most collectors (judging by other forums). I want to know why a given set of stamps was commissioned, by whom, and through what channels it eventually saw the light of day; I am less interested in varieties, errors, papers, perforations and other details which form the major part of the philatelic hobby. As such, I find myself well short of hard information, which tends to make me wonder if the issuing of stamps was ever, in the greater scheme of things, considered very important - or important enough to maintain its own national archive.

The search continues - and when brick walls are encountered I enjoy fanciful speculation!