James Negus

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James Negus (born 1927 in Londres, died on 22 February 2008)[1] was a British philatelist and a book editor.

[edit] Biography

Student in chemistry and shortly a civil servant,[1] James Negus worked finally in book editing for British publishing houses.

He has already published some philatelic authors' books at Heinemann when he was hired in 1975 by Stanley Gibbons Ltd to manage its publications, philatelic and numismatic. In 1977, he was promoted editor of the stamp catalogue, the main one to British, the British Empire and Commonwealth stamp collectors. He decided its thematic and geographic division into 21 volumes. However, in 1981, he was fired during an economy plan.[1]

An author himself, Negus came back to this activity for Stamp World magazine and new books. he participated to the Connoisseur Catalogue, specialised in the Machin series.[1]

As a collector, he was a member of many philatelic associations in the English speaking world, and an editor or a writer to many of their publications. He was interested in the first half of the 20th century philately of many countries. In the 1980s, he studied souvenirs created and distributed during British philatelic exhibitions.[1]

In 2000, Negus stopped all philatelic activity and sold his bibliophile and stamp collections. He lived at Milford on Sea, Hampshire until he died in February 2008.[1]

Ron Butler, President of the Royal Philatelic Society London in the 1970s, described him as "the best of bibliographers and [...] the most competent of researchers".[2]

His brother, Ron Negus, was a philatelic author too[1] and honorary archivist of the Royal Philatelic Society London.[3]

[edit] Publications

  • Good Bibliographic Practice, American Philatelic Research Library, 1971. A compilation of four articles published in The Philatelic Literature Review.[4]
  • Philatelic Literature, Compilation Techniques and Reference Sources, Limassol, James Bendon, 1991.
  • Introduction to Glenn Morgan (1995). British Stamp Exhibitions: A Priced Catalogue of Sheets, Cards, and Labels. The book is a catalogue pricing souvenirs Negus studied in the 1980s.

[edit] Sources and references

  1. ^ a b c d e f g John Holman, "Obituaries. James Negus", Gibbons Stamp Monthly vol. 38 #12, May 2008, page 20.
  2. ^ Ron Butler (1991). Preface to James Negus (1991). Philatelic Literature. Quoted in John Holman, "Obituaries. James Negus", Gibbons Stamp Monthly vol. 38 #12, May 2008, page 20.
  3. ^ Function precised in Ron Negus'article for Stamp Magazine (example in volume 74 #6, June 2008, page 44).
  4. ^ Critic published in The Indexer, volume 8 #2, October 1972, page 128 ; page 4 in this pdf file, retrieved on 11 May 2008.
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