Casual stamp collector in Helsinki
For the last few days I was an a work related trip to Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Mainly I worked from 8-5pm, but I did manage to find some time to visit both Postal Museum and a local stamp shop – both within 200 meters from the central railway station and my hotel.
Postal museum
Postal Museum, and especially the Museum Shop was an interesting experience. The exhibition was rather dull, but shop had lot of interesting “by-products” of new “EuropaCEPT/Astronomy” and “Finnish fashion” issues.
2009 Finland - Finnish fashion souvenir sheet
I felt very sad to see what kind of foreign/worldwide material Museum Shop had on sale for new collectors – “100 different animals/dinosaurs/cars” stamp mixtures. Bright, colorfull, but also full of bogus and CTO-issues. Not a single Finnish or European stamp in sight…
I managed to drop in few (international) letters to Postal Museum “special cancel” mailbox – so Thomas, Jeevan and couple of others; hope you’ll like what you get. If the letters are not nicely cancelled, please blame the Finnish postal system 
Local stamp shop(s)
Helsinki has a total of 6 or 7 stamp shops, most of them in central locations. One of the latest additions to city’s philatelic shops is Jarvenpaan Filateliapalvelu. The shop is located in Sanomatalo, a modern shopping center right next to Helsinki Central Railway station.
The shop was small (as usual), but surprisingly open and light. About half the space was reserved for accessories, and I did buy 6 stockbooks (you can never have too many)…. In addition there was the normal selection of misc. worldwide and topical stamp mixtures (once again, a lot of CTO & bogus), nice selection of kiloware, plenty of cards & covers from Finland, some numismatic items, and only a handful of collections/lots for sale “as is”.
Single stamps were available from approvals, stockbooks and Hagnar stocksheets. For most parts I skipped these over, as the prices were simply not attractive. For example stamps from approvals were 0.15€/stamp or 11€/100 stamps – and these were mainly CTO cancelled issues.
I did buy some stamps with me; more precisely a 500 gram pouch of Japanese “Osaka mission” kiloware, priced 36€. It was slightly expensive IMHO, but as the contents looked interesting, I took the risk…The actual weight of the pouch was 494 grams. Of this 143 grams was large pictorials, rest were small definitives (mainly birds or flowers). Most of the kiloware was neatly cut and in good shape, but as always there was some junky pieces. I suppose the kiloware was packed in late 2006 or 2007, as it didn’t have anything issued after 2006.
Some of the better stamps from the Japanese kiloware I bought
I also bought the May issue of Stanley Gibbons Monthly from a local bookstore. A short review of this will come in a week or so (after I have read it thoroughly)…
PS. As regular readers notice, the blog has once again undergone a small “facelift” with design.
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Hello Keijo
I received your cover today. Thanks a lot, it looks really great! Soon to be admired on my blog…
PS the cancel is really nice too, so I must say thanks to you as well as to the Finnish postal system
Best wishes
Hi,
that’s great. I’m looking forward to seeing what the cover looks like.
-keijo-
Hello Keijo!
Im collecting beermats. I was in Sanomatalo yesterday and found some there. Do you happen to know any other spots where I can find them? I understand that beermats are not your cup of tea but I figure you still might know about it because they usually go together with stamps. Thanks! Sorry for bothering!
Hi Vladimir,
no problem
You might want to check some “old stuff shops” – they usually have plenty of all-sorts of misc stuff. Pricewise the midtown places are usually notably more pricey than those outside.
Hi,
Do you know if there is any chance to find Sanomatalo open after 20:00? I will be in Helsinki next month for 2 days, but I will have time for shopping only in the evening. From their website I understood that it is open latest until 18:00 on Thursday and this is not good for me.
Related to the fact that there were no Finnish stamps for sale at the Postal Museum shop, I can tell that I had the same surprise when I visited the Postal Museum from Stockholm: no used Swedish stamps. They had only mint.
@Andrei…I’ve faced the same problem when visiting Helsinki. Sadly all the stamp there shops close around 4-6PM depending on weekday and how slow the business/sales for the day is.
I visit a couple of weeks ago in Kapylan Merkki (Pohjolankatu 1), they have lots of worldwide material and I was looking for precancels. They have whole wall full of stockbooks and binders worldwide. Maybe they were buyed from collectors. Only problem was that you must buy whole stockbook if you wish to catch few items. And guess, they were not worth of selling price. Earlier owner sell what you want stamp by stamp
Post no 3 – Vladimir; I think I have seen some beermats there in Kapylan Merkki