Hello, I am Bruce Henderson, philatelist, of Auckland in New Zealand.
I became a philatelist at age 9, and a printer at age 13.
Fusing these two interests meant I needed a vehicle to hang my creations on, and so dreamed up the concept of an imaginary sultanate in tropical Asia: Occussi-Ambeno.
This land (which actually exists: atlases published before 1975 show it as a tiny enclave on the isle of Timor) was extensively promoted by my public relations mailouts in the late 1960s and 70s.
Occussi-Ambeno began in 1968,and has issued stamps each year since. In 2008, we celebrated our 40th anniversary of independence from Portugal, the former colonial overlord, which makes O-A among the oldest fantasy lands around.
As I’ve grown older, and technology has improved, I have always taken advantage of whatever is around to enhance the life and productions of my fantasy land. For instance, I recently did a bookbinding course, and whilst there, produced passports for O-A.
When a teenager, I collected “the world”, but later, sold my collection and headed off for overseas experience. I had a few years in amazing Australia, living in Bondi, NSW, Cairns, Far North Queensland, and Perth, West Australia for a while, but didn’t meet any philatelists while there (not that I was particularly looking). After returning to NZ, I resumed philately in the 90s, and today, concentrate on the stamps of
Zanzibar, Katanga, Cayman Islands, Latvia,South Kasai, Samoa, Lundy, Austria, Bosnia, Railways Travelling Post offices of New Zealand, Bahamas, and Hungary, and have managed to form great collections of most of these lands.
When I was at high school, I was introduced to letterpress, a most wonderful print medium with which I have remained fascinated (commonly called “typography” or “surface printing” by stamp catalogs.)
Upon leaving school, I bought my first press, an English-made Adana 8 x 5, which I still have. More recently, I was fortunate to be given a Heidelberg platen press: the Rolls-Royce of printing machines.
This press is fully automatic and produced most stamps of O-A and some other friendly lands for many years, until the modern digital era, when I got a laser-printer, and moved to full-colour stamps. In 1986, I was offered an old 1896 treadle perforating machine, so bought that, making me self-sufficient in stamp production.
Today, I continue to design and print the odd few O-A stamps, but also print stamps for many other fantasy lands, as well as Cinderella issues for any clubs and people I can assist. Like a stamp with you, your child, grandchild, or pet?
Just email me details and photos, and I will be happy to help. (Some mint recent commem sets or minisheets of your country are the preferred barter for such services.)
And of course, I am happy to correspond with anyone keen on the lands I collect. Catch me on bh (at) graphic-designer . com
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re: Howdy from New Zealand!
Welcome to the club Bruce!
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The truth is within and only you can reveal it 12 Apr 2017 12:51:51am
re: Howdy from New Zealand!
Bruce, Welcome to the SOR chat. You're a true explorer of philately and have gone down a path few have traveled. I'd bet you have a pretty good sense of humour. I've never seen a four color tete beche pair, before.
I, as I'm sure most here would, very much like to see some pictures of your perforating machine!
