The time that I was afraid to be deceived

By Brit Gullvåg

It is a known fact that I collect motorcycles as a motif. It's been a great motive to collect, as not many others do it, so I've been lucky enough to have other collectors give me stamps and envelopes to use in my collection. But it would also have been nice to find other like-minded collectors.
So I became a member of MFN, a Dutch stamp club for motorcycle stamp collectors. As a result, I also came into contact with some Dutch collectors. It was especially Nico who helped me a lot. He has a great one-frame open collection on the use of motorcycles in war, and it was he who taught me about mail sent by motorcycle during World War II. He sent me copies of such letters and told me what to look for regarding claims on letters carried by motorcycles. I just had to have something like this, and started looking at auctions.

Then one day I suddenly found an item on eBay with a rubber stamp saying it had been transported by motorcycle. The seller said this was "rare". I just had to have this and made a bid. As the bidding deadline started to approach, I was outbid. But I had to have this, and I made a new bid. There were several rounds, but in the end the letter was mine. But it wasn't cheap.

South African letter sent to Bloemfontein in South Africa. The letter was first sent by motorcycle, and has a rubber stamp "The officer commanding no 3 motor cycle coy", dated 25-2-1941. The letter was stamped at Premier Camp the next day.

Detail of the rubber stamp

Then I panicked. I really had no idea about this. Could I be sure I hadn't bought a pig in a poke — or paid too much? The only person who could answer this question was my Dutch collector friend Nico. So I sent an e-mail to the Netherlands asking if he thought this was real, and if he thought I had paid too much for the letter. The answer I got from Nico was "So you were the other bidder".
Then I could be sure that I had not bought a pig in a poke, but perhaps paid a euro too much. And at least I have an object in my collection that Nico doesn't have!

This article was printed in Motivsamlaren issue 45, Fall 2019, Motor cycle unit, and written by our Norwegian ex-member Brit Gullvåg. She has participated in various exhibitions with her collection and achieved good results. Unfortunately I have not (yet) had the chance to participate in an exhibition in which she also participated.

With Nico, Nico Helling is meant but that was possibly already clear.

Nico Helling

Motivsamlaren is the magazine of the →
Swedish club of motif collectors

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