[This post has been updated.]
I’m sorry that I never met Dr Frank Sheeran, a retired university professor of English who passed away in Kansas City last November, aged 79. From the tributes paid, I have learned that he was a stamp collector with a deep passion for philately. He inspired those around him by assembling a primo world collection, and making time to encourage younger collectors. I send my sympathies to his friends and family and I raise a magnifying glass to him.
Frank Sheeran’s stamp collection will be auctioned in a few weeks as part of Kelleher Auctions’ Sale 732. When it went online, the auction site showed a cover page for Frank’s portion of the auction. (The resolution ain’t great.)
It would seem that either Frank had a nickname that wasn’t mentioned in any of his obituaries, or someone got their Sheerans mixed up…
Whatever the case, Kelleher Auction 732 might set a new benchmark for interest from the females-under-30 demographic. Frank’s collection stands to make a whole lot more money than anyone expects.
Unless… it IS Ed Sheeran’s collection! After all, Twitter user Swee thought he was onto something all the way back in 2014. (And, er…. language warning.)
I object to Swee’s inference that stamp collectors are boring, and I will put him in his place as soon as I finish rearranging my collection of British Machin stamps according to the positions of their ultraviolet phosphor bands.
I’ve sent an enquiry off to the auction house. I’ll let you know the outcome. In the meantime, don’t let the fact that it might not be Ed Sheeran’s collection put you off looking. It’s full of some very pretty classic philately, especially for US collectors. You just have to be on Ed Sheeran’s income to afford a bunch of it.
UPDATE: No official word back from the auction house, but a hasty correction would seem to confirm that this IS the collection of Francis J. Sheeran, to be sold under the name ‘The Francis J. Sheeran Collection’. Oh well. We had some fun, didn’t we?
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Jersey is one of those funny little islands in the English Channel that are closer to France, and part of the UK, but get to put out their own stamps.
Interestingly, this practice began during the Nazi occupation of those islands, when they were cut off from the mother country. This is just one of the reasons why nerds who are into postal history find them so delectable. (If you think you might be one of those nerds, you should check out the 
Recently Jersey jumped on the retro stamp bandwagon with a 
(And yay to you if you know which film lent me that headline.)
As the header of my site attests, I love it when music, design and philately collide. And it’s happening again, thanks to the Royal Mail. Attention cool uncles and that boring guy who used to corner me at university house parties: Pink Floyd is being immortalised!
Last year marked the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s founding, though it feels like they’ve been around for a lot longer, since every David Gilmour guitar solo goes for 50 years in its own right. Royal Mail’s tribute issue clocks in at no less than 10 stamps, which, much like a prog rock album, is more than anyone asked for and a lot more than was probably necessary to get the job done. 
I’m composing an official-first-blog-post-of-2016, but sadly it has been gazumped by the loss of a personal musical icon. Many words are being written today in tribute to David Bowie. Let me add a few of my own.
