The Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions
A monumental undertaking
This article was first published as “The Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions” Philatelic Literature Review 68 no. 2 (Second Quarter 2018).
Between 1993 and 1998, Raymond Price (Figure 1) of Adelaide, Australia1 self-published a series of five volumes indexing the lots and realisations of Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions. Spread over more than 850-plus pages, they are the last word in the indexing of the auction catalogues of, arguably, philatelic literature’s greatest dealer, Harry Hayes. The purpose of this article is to briefly introduce the man, the index, and finally, set the record straight, with respect to some of the bibliographic aspects of this series.
Harry Hayes and his Auctions
Harry Hayes (Figure 2) was born in 1925 in Batley, Yorkshire, UK.2 He started part-time trading in stamps and magazines (mainly Stamp Collecting and Gibbons Stamp Monthly) in the mid-1940s solely to build his stamp collection. After seeing an advertisement in Stamps, he started exchanging Great Britain magazines of the 1940s for American ones (mostly Stamps) of the same period with L. R. Stadtmiller, a prominent US literature dealer;3 this arrangement was a ‘one for one’ each having to pay their respective postage. The magazines that Hayes received were many times the size of the thin wartime ones he sent. Threatened with eviction by his sister, with whom he was living, for having too much paper around, he started offering these magazines to dealers. Later Stadtmiller wanted more and Hayes effectively became his purchasing agent advertising for journals and books and hunting for them amongst collectors and dealers. In 1960, on his way to work in Leeds, he had a eureka moment4 and decided to start a postal auction of philatelic literature with his accumulation of about 50 books and 1,000 magazines.5 His first auction was dated 1st Sep 1960 and had just 88 lots. However, in time, his business flourished and his catalogues soon started having 800-1,000 lots.
Hayes regularly claimed to have the largest stock of philatelic literature in the world.6 His stock of books and journals were partly derived from the libraries and accumulations of great collectors and dealers such as F. A. Bellamy7 and philatelic societies.8 Over time, he became the favoured source of philatelic bibliophiles such as Dan Vooys, George Turner, Prof. Bruhl, Pedro Monge, and Jose Maria Sempere,9 amongst others.
Hayes’ last auction was dated 21st Nov 1986; in all, he had conducted eighty-eight postal auctions and one public auction10 comprising some 65,000 lots.11 He sold his business to Judith Holder and John Woodcock in late 198612 and the new business, renamed HH Sales (formerly Harry Hayes) commenced from Jan 1, 1987.13 Hayes died on 5th April 2011 at the age of 86.
The Making of the Index
The making of the index is a case of being fourth-time lucky! Its story can be constructed from Hayes’ references to it in his auction catalogues and in his foreword to Price’s vol. 1.
By 1963, when his auctions numbered in the late teens, the first attempt at the index had been undertaken by Ken Lake, philatelic author and former editor of Stamp Collecting. Hayes (1965a), most likely, refers to this effort in his auction catalogue no. 25 when he remarks:
I am considering…the publication of a cumulative index to these catalogues….is a gigantic project, and is already under way – or at least the preparation of the master index.
In his very next auction catalogue no. 26 Hayes (1965b) says:
Work is going on with the Index to my sales, further announcements later.
Hayes (1993) reveals what was going on in the 1960s with respect to the index. Ken had indexed the first seven sales but could not continue further. Colin Hinchcliffe, Hayes’ one-time “helper” or “helpmate”, made the second attempt and listed all lots to the ninth sale, Ken’s index having been accidently destroyed. However study and work commitments saw him giving up midway. Finally, an unnamed collector took Hinchcliffe’s index cards and the catalogues to Malaya and Singapore where he was posted on a two-year R. A. F. duty. Unfortunately, he could not find any free time and returned the index cards back to Hayes.
We do not hear about the index from Hayes until his 1971 interview to Stringer (1971). By this time hopes for the completion of the index have faded; in response to a question on what he would like to do if money and time were not constraints, he mentions, among other things, wanting:
…to keep a record of all books I have handled…
A few years later in 1975 in his auction catalogue no. 59 he mentions (Hayes 1975):
Some two years ago, I was offered help by over 40 collectors in the compilation of this. Unfortunately, I have been so busy...However I have not forgotten the plan, and fortunately several friends give me fairly regular reminders of this. If you would like to “jolly me up” on the plan, please let me know of your concern. I have the index cards, a fairly clear idea of what is needed, and the auction catalogues!”
I interpret this to mean that while several collectors were willing to offer help, their help was limited or not to the extent desired by Hayes. Hayes ran a one-man shop and had his hands full with his postal auctions, his publications,14 his want list service especially helping fill in broken runs of periodicals, his sale of articles and clippings pulled from clipped or damaged journals, a current literature clipping service, and last but not the least, his Salvation Army15 work. He just did not have the time or energy to invest in this mammoth project; he could only put an interested person on the right path.
Unfortunately, no such person appeared on the horizon. In his last auction catalogue, Hayes (1986) speculates on how he might spend time after retirement:
…perhaps to keep my garden in better order…perhaps to learn Spanish…perhaps at long last tackle the cumulative index to my 88 auctions...
In Bill Hagan’s survey (Hagan 1986) of worldwide literature dealers published a little over a year after his retirement, Hayes responds to a question on the ‘references’ he uses stating:
My own files – of about 6,000 titles.16 I plan to summarize all of my eighty-eight auction sales.
In an article published some years later, Hayes (1989) remarks:
For twenty years, I have been looking into ways of publishing a cumulative index of my auctions…In the early days of my sales, three friends started indexing, but all three quickly gave up for various reasons. And now I haven’t got the drive to tackle the task.
By now Hayes was in his mid 60s. In his heydays he did not have the time and now he did not have the energy to work on the index. Perhaps providence had Raymond Price in mind.
Price and his Index
In 1991 Price decided to take on the challenge of indexing the lots. Price was a regular contributor to Philatelic Literature Review and especially to its ‘Book Reviews’ section. He had done a librarianship course and was trained in indexing. In the early 1980s he had indexed Vols. 1-30 of The Malayan Philatelist, journal of The Malaya Study Group. Apart from this he had also indexed Vols. 1-30 of The Sarawak Journal, journal of the Sarawak Specialists Society in 1978 and Vols. 1-20 of Pacifica, journal of the Pacific Islands Study Circle of Great Britain in 1984. Hence, he was probably better placed to succeed where his predecessors had failed.
Price first subscribed to Hayes’ catalogues in 1968 when living in Penang, Malaysia.17 When he started the job he did not have Hayes’ complete set of catalogues from 1960 onwards. Furthermore he wanted to test the market for these books to see if:
…the efforts required to finish the index would be worthwhile and to ensure that the publication cost of the project was going to be financially possible.
Therefore he started by indexing books published after the 1980s i.e. books which had came out after the earliest of the catalogues that he had on hand. He updated Hayes on his progress regularly and finally, when on a business trip to the UK, visited him in March 1993. Hayes, who then lived in York, was satisfied enough with Price’s work to-date (which included the draft of the second volume) that he provided the latter with originals or photocopies of his old catalogues as well as some of his photographs.18 He also agreed to write the foreword to Price’s Vol. 1.
Price published the first volume of the index in end-1993 and followed up with the rest of them in quick secession over a little under five years (Figure 3). The indexes were produced using a computer and database software, quite a novelty in the early 1990s. From Vol. 2 onwards, Price also offered them on disc in electronic format; this version had more information than the printed ones such as the sources of reviews for many titles and series details.
As Price (1993) mentions, the index is intended to be useful on three counts: First and most importantly it is a guide to the value of philatelic books and journals; secondly it is a guide to books available on philately; finally it provides enough bibliographic information for the reader to borrow or purchase books pertaining to his or her interest.
Each of the five volumes contains an alphabetical Subject Index, an Author Index, and a Title Index (Figure 4). The Subject Index contains details such as the Author, Title, Edition, Publisher, Date of Publication, Pagination, Lot Numbers, and Realisations. Lots unsold or failing to reach the reserve price are also identified. The Author and Title Index cross-refer back to the Subject Index.
Vols. 2 to 5, in addition, contain three tables:
The closing dates of Harry Hayes auction sales with lot numbers
The value of the British Pound from 1960 to date, and
Consumer Price Indexes in Great Britain from 1960 to date.
The latter two were provided to enable the reader to make a judgement of auction realisations over time.
Finally, Vol. 5 contains two additional sections. The first includes periodicals, annuals, and yearbooks and items offered in series such as auction catalogues while the second is a brief listing of books in numbered series which have been included in the five volumes of the index (Figure 5). For example, the details of each of the 45 booklets in Philip Cockrill’s series is given here with the Series No., Author, and Title.
It should be noted that not all of the 65,000 odd lots are indexed. Covers, maps, stamps, non-philatelic books, photocopies, journal articles, and mixed lots (except for periodical lots which cover a name change) were kept outside the scope of this work.
Bibliography of the two Editions
This section contains the bibliography of the softbound (SB) and hardbound (HB) (Figure 6) edition of Price’s work and will probably appeal to only the hardcore bibliophile!
Soon after buying a set of the SB edition from a British auction, I stumbled upon some of Birch’s observations on this series in his magnum opus (Birch 2015).
The SB edition comprises ‘250 numbered copies’. The highest numbers recorded by Birch for Vols. 1 to 5 is 154, 188, 116, 114, and 95 respectively. Why are higher numbers not seen especially of the latter three volumes? Approximately how many of each volume were sold?
Birch is not sure whether the 250 copies included the hardbound edition. While Vol. 1&2 of the HB edition says that it is an edition of 50 copies, Vols. 3, 4, and 5 do not.
Birch’s copies of Volumes 4 and 5 are neither signed nor numbered. Why?
They piqued my curiosity. To understand further, in Feb 2018, I contacted Raymond Price through the professional networking site: linkedin.com.19 Over many emails, through March and April, Price narrated the story of his publication as well as some incidents connected to it, not all of which can be penned down! On my request, he located his long-misplaced record book and gave me details, many of which are enumerated below.
i. These dates are as published on the title page of each of the volumes. ii. These dates are those on which Price collected the copies from his printer. Dates for Vols. 2 and 3 are approximate. iii. A craftsman binder, who was also a member of Price’s philatelic society in Adelaide, did the binding. He was, unfortunately, slow! While Price gave him the printed pages soon after receiving them, the binder supplied the 50 HB copies in lots of about 10 once a month. iv. NA indicates that the data is Not Available.
Copies Printed
Due to sluggish sales of the initial two volumes, only 300 copies of the later three volumes were printed. 250 were the SB edition and 50 were supplied loose-leaf to be hardbound later. However, the HB edition of Vol. 1&2 saw only three sales on publication and, apart from Birch who was “pressing him” (Birch 2015, 700) to get the later volumes bound, no pre-publication orders were forthcoming. Therefore, Price got only 10 of them hardbound individually; the rest of the loose-leafs were discarded. No special verso to the title page was printed since the printer’s quote for just 10 sets was high (around A$ 1 per page). Hence, all of them say ‘250 numbered copies’ just as in the SB edition.
a. The SB edition of Vols. 1 and 2 comprised of 250 numbered copies and 30 unnumbered copies meant for gift, review, etc. b. The SB copies for sale are invariably numbered. However in a few cases Price supplied unnumbered copies to resellers so that they could make up matching sets. c. The SB copies for gift, review, etc. are not numbered but are labeled so. Price has also, over the years, given away an unknown number of numbered and unnumbered copies as gift but has not kept a note of how many since his record book was misplaced sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Further an unknown number of copies have been damaged or lost. d. Numbers are as recorded by Birch (2015). It is quite likely that higher numbers exist for some or all volumes. One question that may arise in the readers’ mind is why the highest number recorded is greater than the numbers sold? The main reason is the need to make matching sets. So, for example, if someone bought say No. 90 of Vol. 1, he or she would typically want the subsequent volumes to be numbered the same. e. My HB set is No. 8 and all volumes have been signed. In Vols. 3, 4, and 5 Price has struck off ‘250’ and replaced it with ‘50’; further he has added the word ‘hardbound’ so that the line now reads ‘First edition of 50 numbered copies hardbound.’ This has been done to match the statement in Vol. 1&2 (Raymond Price, 2018, email message to author). Another sale was made to John W. Jackson from the UK. f. These were gifted to Harry Hayes, James Negus, Brian J. Birch, and libraries in Melbourne and Adelaide. Further Price holds one HB (unnumbered) set. Thus all the 10 sets are accounted for. g. While there is not much of a difference between the numbers sold and the highest number recorded, a large difference exists in case of Vol. 2. Price mentions that Nos. 184-191 were sold to Vera Trinder and HH Sales (Raymond Price, 2018, email message to author). Hence, No. 188 held by the Royal Philatelic Society London is from this stock.
Numbering of the SB edition
When Vols. 1 and 2 were published, Price numbered all the 250 copies up for sale. Numbering of Vol. 1 was done by a rubber stamp (see Fig. 6) but was abandoned for the other volumes when it was realised that the ink could soak through the page. When the later volumes were published, Price matched those numbers on these copies as and when they were sold to the same buyers and resellers. However, the numbering for the later volumes are not always strictly sequential and a few gaps have arisen when, for instance, Price agreed to sell unnumbered copies to resellers so that they could make matching sets or when numbered copies were returned by resellers or when Price could not match the numbers of Vols. 1 and 2 at the time when he was making up a set due to the loss of his record book.
Numbering of the HB edition
When the HB edition of Vol. 1&2 was published in 1995, Price numbered all of them to 50. As we have noted earlier, only 10 copies of each of Vols. 3, 4, and 5 were published. Sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s, Price misplaced his record book for many years.20 Therefore most of the HB editions of these three volumes are either labelled as gift or not numbered or numbered incorrectly. For instance Birch’s Vol. 1&2 and 3 are No. 10 while Vols. 4 and 5 are not numbered (nor signed).21 Jackson’s set is No. 11 and this begs the question how when only 10 sets are possible? This is because Price had lost control of the numbering in the absence of his record book and gave a number which he was sure was definitely available i.e. a number greater than the copies hardbound!22
Conclusion
Raymond Price produced a great index of a great philatelic literature auctioneer. As a testimony to the depth and breadth of Hayes’ auctions, the five volumes serve as a pretty comprehensive bibliography of philatelic books and journals published; they very well serve to answer the question – What exists? Through some 9,000 titles,23 they contain much information of 20th century literature, especially British Commonwealth ones, not easily found elsewhere.
However, browsing through the old numbers of Philatelic Literature Review and The London Philatelist makes me believe that Price did not get the widespread recognition that he and his work deserves. One reason could be the lack of general publicity24 for an index series that did not have a well-known publisher from either the US or Europe, the principal centres of philately. Furthermore, Vol. 1, a thin book that dealt with just seven years of a recent period when it came out in 1993, seems to have misguided buyers, resellers, and reviewers25 from what was to come and they may have refrained from buying or reviewing his later volumes. This is quite apparent from the declining sales for each succeeding volume as well as the relatively low realisations seen whenever sets come up in auction sales. Perhaps this article will help to direct the philatelic literature world’s attention to Price’s work.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Raymond Price for his patience in dealing with my numerous questions (which got “more difficult” over time!) and also for his permission to use the photograph of Harry Hayes that originally appeared on the back cover of the SB edition of Vol. 5. I would also like to thank Brian J. Birch, Leonard H. Hartmann, and Casper Pottle for their valuable inputs. Any feedback or information can be shared on my email id: abbh@hotmail.com.
References
Birch, Brian J. 2015. The Philatelic Bibliophile’s Companion. Volume 1 Sections 1 to 2. Wigan: The Author.
East of England Philatelic Auctions. 1973. Sale of Postage Stamps plus the First Public Auction for Harry Hayes Literature. Peterborough: East of England Philatelic Auctions.
Gahl, Norman. 1995. Letter to the Editor. Philatelic Literature Review 44 no. 3 (3rd Quarter).
Hagen, Bill. 1986. “The PLR Dealer Survey.” Philatelic Literature Review 35 no. 3 (Third Quarter): 67-77.
Hagler, Irving, Robert Hagler, Helen Hagler, and Larry Resnick, eds. 1971. HJMR Priced Guide to Philatelic Literature. 2nd ed. Miami: HJMR Co.
Hayes, Harry. 1965a. Literature Auction No. 25. Batley: Harry Hayes.
Hayes, Harry. 1965b. Literature Auction No. 26. Batley: Harry Hayes.
Hayes, Harry. 1975. Philatelic Literature Auction Number 59 – 23 October 1975. Batley: Harry Hayes.
Hayes, Harry. 1984. Philatelic Literature Auction No. 80 March 9, 1984. Batley: Harry Hayes.
Hayes, Harry. 1986. Philatelic Literature Auction Number 88 – 21st November 1986. Batley: Harry Hayes.
Hayes, Harry. 1989. “About the Many Faces of Philatelic Literature.” Philatelic Literature Review 38 no. 2 (2nd Quarter).
Hayes, Harry. 1990. Letter to the editor. Philatelic Literature Review 39 no. 1 (1st Quarter): 69-71.
Hayes, Harry. 1993. Foreword to Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions. Volume 1: Publications of the 1980s by Raymond Price, i-ii. Adelaide: The Author
Hayes, Harry. 1996. Letter to the editor. Philatelic Literature Review 45 no. 1 (1st Quarter): 18-19.
[Holder, Stephen]. 1990. “A Little History.” Postal Sale No. 100: The Clarendon Collection. London: HH Sales Limited. Inserted as a flyer in the auction catalogue.
Horridge, Glenn. 2011. “Harry Hayes - A Tribute by Glenn Horridge.” SA Historical & Philatelic Association, 1 August 2011. http://sahpa.blogspot.in/2011/08/harry-hayes-tribute-by-glenn-horridge.html. Accessed on 15 Apr 2018.
Negus, James. 1991. Philatelic Literature: Compilation Techniques and Reference Sources. Limassol: James Bendon.
Price, Raymond. 1993. Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions. Volume 1: Publications of the 1980s. Vol. 1. 5 vols. Adelaide: The Author.
———. 1995a. Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions. Volume 2: Publications of the 1970s. Vol. 2. 5 vols. Adelaide: The Author.
———. 1995b. Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions. Volume 3: Books Published 1950-1969. Vol. 3. 5 vols. Adelaide: The Author.
———. 1996. Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions. Volume 4: Books Published 1900-1949. Vol. 4. 5 vols. Adelaide: The Author.
———. 1998. Index to Harry Hayes Philatelic Literature Auctions. Volume 5: Books Published Before 1900 and Serial Publications. Vol. 5. 5 vols. Adelaide: The Author.
Stringer, K. E. 1971. “All in a Decade: An Interview with Harry Hayes”, Philatelic Literature Review 20 no. 4 (Fourth Quarter): 278-283.
[Welch, Bill]. 1985a. “Harry Hayes: 25 Years of Literature Auctions.” Philatelic Literature Review 34 no. 4 (Fourth Quarter): 164-165.
[Welch, Bill]. 1985b. “Harry Hayes, Philatelic Publisher.” Philatelic Literature Review, Vol. 34 no. 4 (Fourth Quarter): 166-168.
Note: While Bill Welch is not credited with the two pieces published on Harry Hayes, it is quite likely that he is and hence I am crediting him with them. Incidentally Welch took charge as a new editor of Philatelic Literature Review starting from this issue on; he edited it for almost 16 years until Vol. 50 no. 3 (3rd Quarter 2001).
Raymond Price now lives in Melbourne, Australia. He is the editor of The Sarawak Journal and may be contacted on editor@s-s-s.org.uk.
Much of the background information about Harry Hayes is taken from Stringer (1971), Hagen (1986), Welch (1985a, 1985b), Hayes (1986), Hayes (1989), Hayes (1990), Holder (1990), Hayes (1996), and Birch (2015).
L. R. Stadtmiller purchased Paul Bluss’s stock of literature, which included remainders from William Ricketts’ library. Bluss had, of course, auctioned a major portion of Ricketts’ library in many sales the most famous of them being the Auction No. 427 held on 18 & 20 Aug 1945. Stadtmiller in turn sold parts of this stock through three auction sales in 1949 and 1950. Later, in the early 1950s, he sold his stock to George Atkins. The latter formed Edenbridge Philatelic Literature in the 1990s to dispose of this stock (Birch 2015).
Hayes describes this moment in Hayes (1993): “A flash of inspiration came – appropriately whilst the bus was passing the post office in Street Lane Gildersome – why not try a philatelic literature auction?”
In a recollection published in Holder (1990), Hayes doubles this number to “some 2000 journals and 100 books”.
Hayes (1989) says that in 1984 he had 40,000 books, 100,000 journals, 60,000 press clippings, 10,000 or more photographs and negatives – all concerning philately. HJMR Company of Florida, USA also used to claim to have the largest stock of literature in the world. See, for example, the introduction in Hagler et al. (1971).
Bellamy was one of the greatest philatelic literature collectors of all time. Hayes (1990), Holder (1990), and Negus (1991, 220) detail the fascinating journey of tons of philatelic literature from F. A. Bellamy to Albert H. Harris in 1938 to F. Hugh Vallancey in 1946 to Ramsay Stewart in 1948 and through Shanahan’s in 1957 and Robson Lowe in 1960 to John Huxley of Treasure Stamps and finally to Ronald Shelly in 1971. Hayes acquired many tons of journals and thousands of books from Shelly in August 1973. It should be noted here that Vallancey sold his journals to H. Garratt-Adams in early 1948 and Hayes purchased the Garratt-Adams stock from “one of the top names in British auctioneers”.
Hayes’ first big purchase was that of 2,200 journals from the Leeds Philatelic Society in the early 1950s (Holder 1990).
In 1991 Christie’s-Robson Lowe auctioned the “P. M. Library”. The auction topped $210,000! The library belonged to Pedro Monge y Pineda, an important early Spanish stamp dealer. His collection was acquired by José Maria Sempere who disposed of all items that did not pertain to Spain in this sale (Gahl 1995; Birch 2015).
East of England Public Auctions (1973). The auction was held on 3 March 1973.
There were 64,811 lots to be exact (Hayes 1989; Price 1995)! Apart from this, the solitary public auction comprised of 418 lots (East of England Philatelic Auctions 1973).
Hayes had sold his new clippings in 1983, the journals (“200 large boxes”) in 1984, and other clippings in 1985 (Birch 2015). The photographic plates, negatives, and copper half-tone blocks were donated to the National Postal Museum in 1984 (Hayes 1984). Hence, only the balance business was taken over by HH Sales.
According to Birch (2015), John Woodcock later sold off his stake to Judith and Stephen Holder. As most people know, it was Stephen Holder who was the driving force behind the business from its initial days. In Jan 2016, the Holders sold their stake to their long time employee, Casper Pottle.
Hayes published 45 philatelic handbooks and 60 publications in all. The first few publications were reprints but he later started publishing revised editions as well as original titles (Welch 1985b; Holder 1990). Perhaps the most famous of them all is the 3-volume reprint of Robertson’s Maritime Postal History of the British Isles.
See a tribute paid to Harry Hayes by a fellow Salvationist in Horridge (2011).
As we will see later, Price indexes some 10,800 plus titles. Even accounting for the fact that Hayes’ records were maintained manually on index cards and hence could be understated, it is unclear why his number should be so low.
Price (1995b) mentions that he first subscribed to Hayes’ catalogues after meeting an American in a local stamp shop in Penang. Welch (1985a) remarks: “There’s a reliable story of two collectors meeting in a stamp shop in Penang, Malaysia, several years ago, where they spent a good share of their time discussing their mutual acquaintanceship with Harry Hayes”. Price is quite possibly one of the two collectors!
These photographs are those of Harry Hayes published in Price’s books. Hayes also provided Price with the cards of the index of one of the earlier attempts; however, Price found them to be “almost useless” (Raymond Price, 2018, Email message to author).
I initially tried the email address mentioned in his books but after two decades, they were no longer in use and the emails bounced.
My queries prompted Price to search and find his record book in March 2018 (Raymond Price, 2018, Email message to author)
Price signed copies only when requested and not otherwise.
Price sold his copy to John W. Jackson when the latter visited Australia for an international exhibition (Raymond Price 2018, Email message to author).
A total of 10,800 plus titles over the 5 volumes less an approximate number of works published before the 1900s.
As part of his publicity efforts, Price sent copies for all volumes to Royal Philatelic Society of London, American Philatelic Research Library, and Collectors Club of New York. Further he sent the first two volumes to Gibbons Stamp Monthly as well. Fliers were sent to 17 literature dealers in Oct 1993. While acknowledging the promotion and advertising efforts of dealers like HH Sales, James Bendon, Leonard Hartmann of PB Books, and Vera Trinder, he also confessed that he just about broke even (Price 1998; Raymond Price, 2018, Email message to author).
The reviewer to Vol. 1 in The London Philatelist, whilst being fullsome of praise, complained that the title name on the covers did not match that on the title page! Price corrected this in future volumes. Further, the reviewer suggested a table dating the sales; this was also incorporated in later volumes.