Already in early years philatelists published philatelic books which were specialised on topics about Romanian philately (or its precursor prinicipality of Wallachia). The shown booklet of “Dr. Magnus” (= Jacques Amable Legrand, 1820-1912) probably is the earliest work to be mentioned. If the first edition was published also in 1869 as the second edition (shown here) is still subject of futher clarification (work in progress).
The members of the study circle “ARGE Rumänien” today have a long list of relevant philatelic literature, supporting them in their hobby. In section three of this homepage we will try to list all philatelic books referring to Romanian philately, and further we will try to give some commentarial notes to them (work in progress).
Collectors of today have a much better baseline to study philately and postal history of Romania than their precursors, 50 years ago. This is the result of the activities of many busy philatelists, some of them members (or former members) of the study circle “ARGE Rumänien”!
Which literature is essential for collectors of Romanian philately?
Of course this question depends of the exact topic of the collector (see chapter 4 of this homepage). If we want to identify, catalogue and get an idea of the value of stamps and postal stationery items, collectors are fairly advised to buy a “Michel” catalogue (for stamps or for postal stationery). Since the year 2020 Michel actually divides its catalogues for Europe into 16 volumes, whereof volume 8 is “Südosteuropa” (Moldavia and Romania).
I point out that of course there are other “world”-stamp catalogues, as “Stanley Gibbons” (Great Britain), “Scott” (USA) and “Yvert & Tellier” (France), which differ in parts from “Michel”. Also the Swiss catalogue “Zumstein” should really be recommended although this philatelic firm regretfully ceased in 1993 to publish their catalogues “Europe”.
“Zumstein 1992” gave information that cannot be found in Michel.
A class of its own and more detailled than the above mentioned catalogues is my favourite catalogue for stamps of Romania, the “CMPR ’74”. The only disadvantage of this work is the fact, that it was published nearly 50 years ago (in 1974).
Concerning the postal stationery we can use the old book of Ascher, but this book is old (1928).
We can find actual information in the “Michel Ganzsachen-Katalog Europa Ost” (including Romania). Or, maybe, we use the Romanian book of Emanoil Savoiu (see below, bi-lingual; also in english).
I do not know a reader of the following book who is not enthusiastic about it, although the quality of the illustartions somewhat is deficient.
In the year 1990 author Kiriac Dragomir set a milestone in philatelic literature of Romania by publishing his work about Cancellations of Romania 1822-1910. A short time ago, we saw a succession-work of Mister Calin Marinescu: “The Romanian Post Office Cancelling Devices, Postmarks, Markings and Seals 1852-2017” (2019). The same author is a philatelist of merit with many publications. In my opinion his masterwork is the two-volume book about the evolution of postal tarifs. The second edition of 2008 even surpasses the also useful first edition of 1992 by far.
The philatelists interested in Romanian postal history were privileged to receive many additional studies from different authors. An incredible performance was effected by Dr. Gertlieb Gmach in the years 2014-2017 in publishing the work of Austrian and Hungarian post offices in the two principalities 1782 to 1880.
The whole study was published in four volumes, including 358, 349, 411 and 466 pages. I suppose, his researches in archives required a four-figure amount of hours…
50 years ago the collecting field “Romania” was not on top of the ranking by the philatelic collectors. This surely and clearly changed within the last decades. This is also a result of the indefatigable promotion for Romanian philately by the president 1972-2021 of the “ARGE Rumänien”, Fritz Heimbüchler. His main focus was on the first eight stamp issues of Romania 1858-1872, to which he devoted two books in 1994 and 2002 (plus an additional supplement 2007).
His work “Rumänien: Fürstentum Walachei 1820-1862, Vereinigte Fürstentümer 1862-1872” received the very honourable award, the Crawford medal of the Royal Philatelic Society London in 2003.
I hope all authors of other books I missed to mention in this chapter will forgive me. Please become member of the study group “ARGE Rumänien”, sooner or later you should find your work commented in the chapter “for members only” on this homepage.
Our overview about very important literature of Romanian philately would not be complete if we would not mention the large section of auction catalogues.
In such auction catalogues the collectors find the philatelic material coming to the market. The collector learns a lot by studying the sometimes very carefully described lots and the collector is able to better valuate the offered material at the times when the sales took place. Many rarities are newly disclosed in auction catalogues.
English version 1 – hgl 2022-04-24