Pics by Umesh Marpalli
Udupi, Feb 3: Sangrahan-2015, a national-level stamps and coins collection exhibition was held at Ravindra Kala Mantapa in MGM College Udupi, on Monday.
Kusuma Kamat, MGM college principal inaugurated the exhibition by lighting the lamp.
A collection of old post cards belonging to the 50s and 70s were on display. Ammunje Nagendra Nayak, Vishwesh K and M K Krishnayaiah exhibited their postal cards and unusual coins.
Nagendra Nayak is basically a cloth trader and he cultivated stamp collection as a hobby from his childhood. After 2005 he took it up seriously in order to create awareness among youth on stamps. This was the first show for his collection and the response was totally exciting. He spends nearly 5-6 hours a day on his collection he revealed. He said that all parts of the country are part of history.
Vishwesh K, an MPhil pursuing his studies in MIT Manipal was another stamp collector. He developed curiosity on stamp collection right from childhood with the support of his father M K Krishnayaiah. It was amazing to see his passion on the cards and the well penned narrative lines.
“It gives me a lot of satisfaction and my dream has come true on this occasion,” he added.
Seed stamp was a much highlighted card at the exhibition, which was invented in Australia in 2012.
There were also wooden cards, gold material cards, silver, pictorial stamps, tower pictorial stamps, owls, airport, commemorative cards including various famous tourist places, eminent personalities like Gangubai Hanagal, Ravishankar and so on.
Another attraction was the world’s lengthiest postal stamp of size 50 centimeters in length and 10 centimeters in width from Argentina.
‘Dinosaurs talking stamp’ of Australia attracted attention. Its special feature is that it makes dinosaur sounds when opened.
DVD player stamp from North Korea-2008, personalized cards, 3D effect stamp, stamp with moving parts were part of his huge collection available on display.
Vishwesh also had many unique feature stamps like Kannada Varnamalas, Telugu and Hindi. His English cards were in the making.
He opined, “It is very much important to know about our patriotic places. This is a small contribution towards cultivating our rich Indian heritage.”
Coins
M K Krishnayaiah, a bank employee said every coin has a small symbol on it. It implies the place where the coin was made. A dot mark implies it is from Noida, diamond mark from Mumbai, star from Hyderabad and no mark present implies it is from Kolkatta.
He further said that nowadays coins are becoming lesser in India, because old coins have other uses like ornamental purpose. Hence, India imports coins from foreign countries to make up the balance.
Coins of post independence - the British period, 1000, 100, 50 molded coins, fancy numbered notes etc were seen in his collection.
Stamps having a variety of flavours like chocolate from Belgium, strawberry from France (2011), different fragrances such as sandalwood (2006), rose cards (2007), jasmine (2008) were available at the collection. There were also cards designed from pure Gandhi khadi, meteorite dust of Austria (2006), steel metal of France (2012) and natural colour effects.
International awardee Nagendra said he collected stamps from 620 UNESCO recognized sites out of 1007 world sites. In India there were 32 sites registered. He received stamps from 127 countries through exchange of post cards system via www.postcrossing.com.
Nagendra has 16 special pieces which express green house effects and global warming. He wants to generate awareness among people on this.
Around more than thousand pieces of stamps, postal cards and coins were displayed at “Sangrahan 2015”.