Extraordinary Success of PPCP at the World Stamp Exhibition Philanippon 2021

The World Stamp Exhibition Philanippon 2021 took place under FIP patronage in Yokohama, Japan, from 25 to 30 August. It continued the tradition of world exhibitions organized in Japan, which have been held there at ten-year intervals since 1971. Philanippon had the same status as Praga 2018, i.e. it was a specialized world exhibition.

In the exhibition class 11 “Philatelic Literature”, 95 competition and reference titles took part (reference titles are smaller in scope and highly specialized), i.e. a total of 95 different professional publications, catalogues and periodicals of world-class quality. Among them, our catalogue, or perhaps it could be better called Biennale 2020 collection, was exhibited by President of PPCP and co-author of this book, Dr. Mádl.

PPCP’s publication was first listed in the reference part, namely in the “Catalogues” section, but then, due to its obvious broadly professional and literary content and form, it was moved to the main competition section “Philatelic books and research papers” by the jury’s decision. In this main category, it was awarded 91 points, i.e. the gold medal of the World Stamp Exhibition Philanippon. Only 3 other works from the whole exhibition class “Literature“ were awarded more than 90 points!

The mentioned 91 points are the sum of the following evaluation criteria: 36 points out of 40 for “Research”, 36 points out of 40 for “Treatment”, 14 points out of 15 for “Technical matters” and a maximum of 5 points for “Presentation”.

It is very encouraging and also obliging for our future work that the jury at a world-class competition has so significantly appreciated our research efforts, conception and interpretation of philately, emphasizing the widely developed stories of famous stamps. We have sought to bring something new to the understanding of the contexts of important rarities, and we have shown that they can be grasped and told about in often unexpected and compelling context, found in the exacting study of hundreds of sources. The Biennale 2020 book also accurately reflects the contents of PPCP’s “contextual“ exhibits. So our idea of philatelic exhibits presented in a new, attractive, comprehensible and non-philatelic form was bound to catch the eye in Japan. 91 points for the Biennale 2020 publication proves that we are moving in the right direction towards PPCP’s goals – to show philately to the public in an interesting and inspiring way, thus raising awareness of philately.

Thanks to all those without whom this crucial work of PPCP would not have achieved global success – the exhibitors, the authors of PPCP’s contextual content, Vindobona and CMC. Thanks also to Honza Rihak for the unique design, graphic form, editing and proofreading of the whole book, to Dan Toman for the excellent translations of the vast majority of texts into English, to Zdeněk Filípek for the impeccable production of the entire edition, to Lubor Kunc for arranging our participation in Philanippon.

D. Kopřiva on behalf of PPCP