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It is my very sad duty to report the passing of Bill Hornadge, Founder of "Stamp News" & "Seven Seas Stamps".

Bill was 94, and passed away March 21.

He founded both operations 50 or 60 years back.

Large numbers of current collectors in this region got hooked on stamps due to Bill's brilliant marketing skills.

Seven Seas Stamps was back then, one of the largest stamp companies in the world, and had a vast factor/warehouse in rural DUBBO New South Wales, assembling millions of packets of stamps for the kiddies approval market.

Kevin Duffy phoned me today to pass on this sad news. The Memorial service will be in Dubbo early next week.

Kevin bought Seven Seas Stamps from Bill and sold it to Reader's Digest for $A4m in 1980, in one of the great business timing coups of all time.

Seven Seas Stamps was founded by Bill Hornadge in 1951, 62 years back. He founded "Stamp News" a little afterwards in 1953, and was the feisty editor for decades.

Bill until recent years was still very active, and sold me huge parcels of stock in his latter years.

Including his entire Pitcairn island holdings, still sitting in a carton here - he edited and published the "Pitcairn Island Stamp Catalogue" among many others.

Bill was until recently still in contact with his clients here and overseas via direct mail catalogues, trading as 'Review Publications' in Dubbo.

His eyesight deteriorated in later years, and his always hand typed letters and notes (not sure if Bill ever used a computer, but I never saw any evidence of it!) often had typos and overtypings etc.

I recall him saying his daughter helped him out with proof reading and letters later on in his life.

Seven Seas Stamps produced the largest range of printed albums for the Australia and Pacific area, and are still the clear market leaders in this region.

The company was based for decades in Dubbo, a country town about 300 miles west of Sydney. Seven Seas Stamps gained its strength and huge customer base from approval packets of stamps.



Mirroring the growth path of many large US based companies in the 1950s and 1960s, most comic and adventure magazines sold in Australia contained premium offers and enticements for approval packets.

Hundreds of thousands of Australian youngsters signed up for these offers. I certainly did!

Many very senior medal winning collectors in Australia today will sheepishly admit they got their start in stamp collecting from this comic book approval campaign.

The 1960s "Ampol" Promotion

If you did a survey of the Gold medal winners at the forthcoming "Australia 2013" I suspect you would find a surprising percentage started their collecting via companies like Seven Seas Stamps who locally were pre-eminent then among these mass stamp marketers.

Seven Seas Stamps were also very aggressive in using stamp packets as promotional premiums for large companies.

In the early 1960s one large campaign involved over 20 million packets of colourful world thematic stamps being given away with the purchase of one brand of petrol - AMPOL.

These packets contained an incredible 70 million world stamps in sets - many of them MUH, and they “entirely excluded cheap definitives” Bill Hornadge assured me in recent years.

20 MILLION packets made

Australia at that time had a population numbering only about 10 million people, so 20 million stamp packets was obviously a vast amount, being about two packets given away for every man woman and child living in the country. The media went crazy over alleged “rare finds”.

A very inexpensive cheap album was also made available, a massive 300,000 were sold, and again this was the formative spark that attracted many of today's leading collectors and dealers.

I was certainly introduced to philately via those AMPOL packets of triangulars from Mongolia and Nudes from Spain! (I still have the Nudes.) The packets were "salted" with the odd "goodie."



When these were found the owner often got widely reported in the daily papers, creating more excitement and demand from AMPOL ... and Seven Seas.

AMPOL would always claim to have initiated "an urgent investigation" on how a 5/- Bridge or Penny Black got into their cheapie packets! The press lapped it up.

£2 ROO FOR A GALLON OF PETROL

One feature article widely reported across the country in the mass media had a 9 year old girl called Lisa Bell of Clontarf Street, Seaforth, N.S.W. holding up a CTO £2 Roo she had found in one AMPOL packet.

Leading dealer M. C. Cohen, bless his soul, was quoted as saying he valued the stamp at a lofty £9. Seven Seas Stamps were quoted as saying they would pay £9 to have the stamp back again.

Great stuff. Lisa was quoted as saying, "This is the best stamp in my collection now, and I am never going to sell it."



At one point Seven Seas Stamps in Dubbo were tearing up, packaging and dispatching 400,000 packets a week to meet the demand - which was many times the budgeted estimate, according to then owner Bill Hornadge.

AMPOL estimated the usual "request rate" for a promo item would be the industry typical 15%. However, it immediately ran to around 50%, and stayed that way.

Young migrant dealer Max Stern was sent off packing to Europe with a blank cheque book, with orders to buy anything pretty in packet material he could lay his hands on.

Kids like me badgered Dad to fill up only at AMPOL – so I could get the attractive freebie stamp packets.

Bet we all now are annoyed we did not keep the AMPOL packets un-opened – the ones depicted nearby sold on ebay for $A32!

I wish Seven Seas Stamps or someone else would get McDonalds, Caltex, Woolworths, etc, to run such a campaign today.

Don't laugh ... the concept certainly worked for AMPOL – very big time, with big sales increases, and public awareness.

The Chairman of AMPOL was reported widely in the daily financial press in 1964 speaking at the company AGM, stating sales and profits had gone up 12% over the year before, and stamp packets were the specific reason for this upsurge in business.

In 1971 Seven Seas Stamps was sold to Kevin Duffy, who continued and expanded the approvals and premium side of the company, merging it with his own large existing "penny approvals" style business.

Names like Rocket Stamps and Peter Harris were some of Kevin's creations then, as was a much more recent one sold a few years ago to John McDonald ..."William Booth."

Kevin is still well known and liked in the trade, and has many connections overseas (he lives a few hundred yards from me in Castlecrag, actually). Kevin Duffy is a multiple Past President of the Australian Stamp Dealers Association.

With exquisite timing, Duffy sold Seven Seas Stamps in late 1980 to Reader's Digest. This publishing giant was keen to expand worldwide into other "leisure activities" at this time. Philately fitted their clean cut, conservative, American corporate image perfectly.

Stamps had of course experienced phenomenal annual price growth for several years up to the purchase in 1980, but the "real" market had peaked worldwide and was in fact falling fast.

The huge "Sydpex 80" Exhibition in N.S.W. was the beginning of the end of the stamp "boom" in Decimal and Territories stamp prices. The show closed October 5.

Kevin walked away from Seven Seas Stamps in October 1980 with $4,000,000 (Australian dollars) in his pocket. What absolutely superb timing and foresight. Even Kerry Packer or Rupert Murdoch never got their timing THAT precise!

Savvy stamp dealers knew the "boom" was crashing in October 1980, but the Reader's Digest accountants only looked at past year's audited trading figures, not the present market. These were not stamp collectors, but merely corporate "bean counters."

What they saw quite simply was an upward graph going off the wall. Head office in Pleasantville, New York loved the numbers and they signed the cheque.

Reader's Digest purchased the company from Kevin Duffy for a reported $4,000,000 plus (Australian dollars). It sold later on for around one tenth of that figure.

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The passion of Bill Hornadge for "Cinderella" and "Locals" stamps, and the millions of words he typed on both, remain today as a valuable resource on them.

Bill was Editor of "Stamp News" during the massive "Stamp Boom" of the 1980 era, and each monthly edition got up to near 300 pages thick - amazing for a country our size.

I took 2 facing pages of ads on pages 12 and 13 for decades.

I had a lot to do with Bill over 35 years, and he was an old school Gentleman that we do not see in the trade much of these days sadly.

Bill was also a prolific author on all sorts of subjects other than stamps. He would always mail me a copy of his latest book. He was a "stirrer" which is why we got on so well I guess.

His other books would cover things such as racial issues, and one I recall was about a Utopian Jewish settlement in remote northern Western Australia. He had a love of the history of this nation, and many of his works were historical in nature.

R.I.P. Bill Hornadge.

Bill is survived by 2 children and their parters, 5 grandchilden and 2 great grand-childten.

A memorial service will be held on April 9 at Greenway Chapel, Greenway Memorial Gardens, 400 Avoca Drive, Green Point, at midday.

Glen Stephens

Very sad news, and a great loss to the hobby.

RIP.

A great pity, it sounds like he certainly did a tonne and them some to help the hobby.

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

I'd be one of those collectors. I have a "Hornadge" section in my philatelic library.

RIP Bill.

Very sad news.

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FORESTS OLD, PASTURES NEW
(An expert is one who knows more and more, about less and less, until they know absolutely everything about nothing at all)

I found this amongst thousands of cinderella stamps the other day...



I'm sure he would have appreciated it...

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Looking for revenues and unusual stamps?
Weekly auctions on eBay with over 300 curious new lots every week ... Website: http://www.ibredguy.co.uk/main.php

Love that cinderella but actually he was interested in a huge range of things as his diverse list of published works demonstrates. Here is an indicative list from National Library of Australia database....there are many more but it gives a taste of his varied interests:









When I first started working in public libraries in the 1970s I recall thinking that Bill Hornadge must be Australia's most prolific author.....his often self-published works popped up all over the collection

Sad news...condolences to Bill's family and friends.

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John

Bless him !
I got hooked on his approvals 44 years ago.
RIP

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Searching for Trieste postal history prior to 1820 and AMG-FTT and AMG-VG and Trieste Zone B Revenues

Eight years ago Bill very kindly invited me to stay at his house for a couple of nights whilst I was driving through Dubbo on route for Brisbane.

We went down to his old premises and I helped him clear it out as he had sold the building.

He gave me much archival material, including two complete 1930 first volumes of the Australian Stamp Monthly.

At 86 he was still very independent and living in the home he and his beloved wife had shared for many, many years. Bill cooked me dinner and breakfast, and made sandwiches for lunch.

I am forever in his debt.

RIP Bill, a real gentleman.

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FREE sample copy of Stamp News Australasia available on request to all Stampboards members!
Also don't forget to checkout our websites at http://www.kevinmorgan.com.au

RIP Bill and my condolences to his family and friends

A sad loss for us all. I was a regular buyer from Seven Seas stamps. I too got my start from comic book advertising.

I had many dealings with Bill over 30 years was always first class.

I am sure he will be missed by many collectors and the trade.

It is the end of a great era!!

very sad news indeed.

Steven Zirinsky

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http://zirinskystamps.com/
http://zirinskystamps.com/wp/

RIP Bill, condolences to the family.

Another collector of older Seven Seas Stamps!

hutch

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I am having fun collecting WW and Indian States.

I also started with free stamps and approvals from Seven Seas, cut out from the back of either a Frew Phantom Comic, or one of the 100 page Gordan and Gotch DC Comics B&W Australian reprints.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

By the time I started driving in 1964 I was already an Ampol driver thanks to their stamp promotion. It was a very powerful incentive back then and you'd just about have to give today's kids a free iphone with the petrol to get such loyalty.

Actually it only lasted a few years. Later, Golden Fleece (I think but you know what the memory is like these days) petrol started giving a free jazz record away and I just loved that music.

I, too was pretty much hooked on the approvals from Seven Seas. The world was a much more mysterious place back then and stamps evoked far away and exotic places. As son of a Methodist preacher, I was never game to buy the nudes as Glen did, but they added to the excitement just knowing they existed.

Rest in peace, Bill (or should that be "on piece")

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I'm John. I collect Italian, particularly the Mussolini years.

Seven Seas Stamps approvals were a philatelic stimulant for me in the 1950s.

Advertising in Stamp News from 1969 onwards was an important factor in my early commercial philatelic success.

Fair to say Bill Hornadge was one of the most significant and positive influences in my formulative philatelic years. And always a gentleman to deal with.

RIP Bill.

Rod

When I first started collecting again in 1993, I naturally started reading Stamp News again (after looking around in vain for the ASM) and at the time, Bill was writing a series of articles on his experiences in the market.

For years, until he wound it up, it was the first article I read. He was not only an astute dealer, he could tell a great story.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

RIP - I am sure he will be missed

My thoughts are with his friends and family.

I have never heard of Seven Seas until today, but good to see a big US company (RD) that is only interested in the bottom line get one in the kisser That's happened to a few more since then .... I could even tell you a few tales about the one one I work for in that regard ... but no .. maybe when I retire.

As I haven't heard of Seven Seas, I obviously never knew the man either, but just looking at Margo's book listing, what an interesting person he would have been to chat to about almost anything I would have thought.

I am sure he will be really missed amongst what must be a huge circle of admirers.

PS ... don't suppose anyone has been able to track down the owner of the £2 Roo to see whether she still has it in her collection?

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Regards .. Dave
Visit the Machin forum at : http://www.stamp-collector.co.uk/MachinForum

I will make a wild guess that it went back into Bill's stock minutes after the Photo Op. was completed.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

Revived many memories as both a stamp collector and later a stamp dealer - we go back a long way. I just checked my wardrobe and I still have my Seven Seas tie - dark green with gold embroidered clipper/windjammer ships and I still wear it to family history gatherings - a real talking point as no one realise they ever existed or what it represents. Under the circumstances, it makes me a little sad but gives further meaning to my momento.

Bill Horndage and others of his generation have made exceptional contributions to the art of stamp collecting. Bill's life and contribution can be celebrated by every member of the philatelic community.

This is the tie (in part) mentioned previously

What an amazing man and HIS journey.

Greatness Lives on!.......RIP

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http://wilber11-stamp-store.ebid.net/

Bill started my stamp collection adventures nearly 50 years ago with his Ampol promotion and I have many of those "funny shaped" stamps still in my collection. I had never seen a triangle stamp before then. I would pester my dad to fill up at at Ampol stations every day.

Then for years I was on the approvals selection list and looked forward to recieving the parcel each month in the mail. I remeber collecting glass bottles (no plastic or alumimium in those days) to supplement my pocket money to spend on Seven Seas approval packets.

I still the original cardboard box that the stamp collector pack came in. From memory it had a packet of hinges, a magnify glass, tweezers, cardboard perf guage, a small book on collecting stamps with the all important country identifer list and of course a packet of stamps.

God bless him and thankyou to him for being the catalyst to mine and many others stamp collecting journey.

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Gazza
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There is no greater satisfaction then indulging in one's pleasures.

Condolences to family and friends, Bill was such a helpful gentleman!

A great loss to the philatelic world
thanks for the everlasting memory

RIP. Another great icon lost.

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Lover of all things KGVI.

Just a reminder - the Memorial Service will be held on April 9 at Greenway Chapel, Greenway Memorial Gardens, 400 Avoca Drive, Green Point, at midday.

My apology for being unable to attend.

Bill, it was once said to me (albeit around 30 years ago), had penned a book on the Australian Philatelic Trade, to be published posthumously.

I will place my order forthwith if that is in fact to be the case.

Rod

Yes he said he could not get sued for defamation that way.

The chapter on Alf Campe Senior will be interesting, I understand.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/editor-with-a-literary-love-for-life-20130418-2i2nq.html

The writer John Armati in Dubbo owned Stamp News via Rural Press or whatever, and as I recall was a collector himself so would have known Bill very well.

I was about to buy 'Stamp News' about 15 years back, (along with the "Coin Review" he also owned) and it was from the Armati company, and John Armati needed to make the final call on whether to accept the other.

I was travelling so much I really did not have the time to devote to it, and at the 11th hour, passed the baton onto current owner Kevin Morgan.

Glen


Bill Hornadge, the founder of Seven Seas Stamps, holding one of his books.

Editor with a literary love for life

Bill Hornadge, 1918 - 2013

Bill Hornadge was by any measure an extraordinary man. He intended to be a journalist from an early age but is probably best known as the founder of Seven Seas Stamps, the company that advertised in every comic book in the country and sent millions and millions of stamps around Australia.

Hornadge started the first half of his working life with a temporary job at the iconic and irreverent Smith's Weekly when he was 16, and the following year had his first copy published in the Australian Women's Weekly of March 10 1934, a ''clever verse'' titled Whistling Wind for which he was awarded five shillings.

Hornadge quickly realised he would never land a job on a major newspaper without shorthand, so he spent six months at technical college gaining the requisite speed and accuracy.

Simultaneously he began selling stamps from the family home at Catherine Hill Bay and shortly after his 18th birthday, launched a bi-monthly The Australian Stamp Collector, with his mother, Lily, as its subeditor. He charged three pence a copy and continued its publication until 1939.

Despite his youth, Hornadge clearly understood the value of cross promotion and used his fledgling magazine to establish the South Seas Stamp Club, along with a wholesale stamp magazine, a wholesale approvals business and a small printing entity.

However, the lure of newspapers was stronger than his love of philately and in 1942 he joined the Northern Star at Lismore as a junior journalist. In Lismore, he met Jean Dunning and they married the following year.

Hornadge rose through the ranks at the Star but was restless and wanted a newspaper of his own. He established the North Coast Review at Murwillumbah with his father, Thomas, but when the Review didn't meet his expectations, joined The Sydney Morning Herald as a subeditor.

Hornadge was 31 when he replied to an advertisement in The Sydney Morning Herald for a position at the Dubbo Liberal that sought ''a relieving man for one month, senior, with country experience preferred''. He was appointed, instead, to the full time position of editor of the (then) tri-weekly.

The Liberal's new proprietor, Leo Armati, had recently retired from a stellar career in journalism that had included more than seven years as editor of the Sydney Sun and had brought to the Liberal the reputation of a hard taskmaster with a fiery temper.

Armati, then 67, had a burning ambition to reinvigorate the moribund Liberal and quickly embraced Hornadge's skill and youthful energy to implement sweeping changes to the newspaper. Hornadge had been surprised to learn that he was the only applicant but soon learned that the dearth of applicants for his new position was because most Sydney journalists knew Armati was difficult to work with and a tyrant in the newsroom.

Less than a year later, Hornadge was thrown into managing (and editing) the Liberal after Armati and his wife, Patricia, were seriously injured when their car collided with a train. Hornadge, with Doug Tomsett the production manager, kept the struggling business afloat for more than six months until their irritable proprietor returned.

Armati came back to work with expansionary plans uppermost and pressed Hornadge to establish a fourth edition of the Liberal. Years later, Hornadge wrote that ''working for Leo was like sitting on a volcano; you never knew when he was going to explode''.

One Friday afternoon, the two men clashed one last time. Hornadge lost his temper and a furious argument culminated with Hornadge lifting a portable typewriter above his head as if to throw it at Armati who, in turn, had reached for a 15-centimetre long copy spike that he thrust towards Hornadge's stomach. Hornadge later said that it was a Mexican standoff: ''Neither of us could move, so I put my typewriter down and resigned.''

Hornadge had gained valuable management experience while Armati was away, which gave him confidence to make a prompt and unplanned career change, and immediately turned his energies to creating a philatelic business. He named the new enterprise Seven Seas Stamps. He and Jean worked from a spare bedroom, sorting and packaging stamps for sale.

Seven Seas Stamps grew rapidly and as additional staff was employed the business literally took over the house, forcing Hornadge to move the business to larger premises. In April 1954, he published Volume 1, No.1 edition of Stamp News, replicating his earlier modest endeavour, but this time with great success, often publishing editions of more than 300 pages.

Following a trip to the US in 1957, Hornadge decided to sell stamps ''on approval'' and for the next decade took a full-page advertisement in every comic book published in Australia. He believed children would be his main customers, but soon realised adults were also keen collectors. As a direct result, Seven Seas Stamps became the largest mail order operation of its kind in the world and was soon dispatching 5000 customer selections a week.

His fledgling company soared to even greater heights in 1963, when it won a contract with Ampol Petroleum to handle a major national sales promotion based on stamp collecting. Ampol's initial order to launch its planned three-month campaign was for 2 million packets of stamps.

The public response was staggering. The promotion lasted 18 months and at its peak required Seven Seas Stamps to assemble 250,000 packets of stamps a week.In 1971, Hornadge sold Seven Seas Stamps to Sydney businessman Kevin Duffy to concentrate on developing Stamp News and a comprehensive range of stamp catalogues.

Hornadge was the archetypal storyteller. He was a prolific author of mostly self-published gems on the most obscure topics, including The Australian Slanguage (1980) and Cricket in Australia 1804-1884 (2006).

One of Hornadge's first books, Chidley's Answer to the Sex Problem (1971) caused a minor furore in Dubbo because its then-controversial subject was not often publicly discussed, let alone documented in such an explicit fashion.

His biography Lennie Lower: He Made a Nation Laugh (1993) told the story of the humorist acclaimed for many years as Australia's funniest writer.

Hornadge was a keen Rotarian who was awarded the prestigious Paul Harris Fellowship and for many years was leader of the Rotary Youth Exchange program. He formed the Dubbo Philatelic Society, local branch of Rostrum and was a vibrant contributor to U3A, the University of the Third Age, for which he taught popular Australian history classes.

Hornadge was almost always impeccably dressed, often wearing a suit and tie, to match his meticulous writing and presentation - typed and double spaced - a constant reminder of how newspaper copy was written in the ''old days''.

He was a disarmingly cheery, charmingly offbeat personality who lived a long life with joie de vivre.

Bill Hornadge is survived by daughters Kerrie and Lindy, sons-in-law Anthony and Ron, grandchildren Sharni, Kristy, Scott, Alexander, Triona and Joanna and great-grandchildren Sophie and Beau. Jean died in 1990.

John Armati

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/editor-with-a-literary-love-for-life-20130418-2i2nq.html#ixzz2QrUCvtRK