KSC History

History of the KSC - Part Two

The Kiwi Sales Circuits

In Part One, we described the foundation of Kiwi Exchange Club in 1930 by Walter Nicholas and its extensive worldwide operations.

By the late 1930s, stamp collecting activities of the Kiwi Exchange Club had grown to such significance, that new separate Divisions were created in many countries, to facilitate stamp trading amongst members. These autonomous divisions of the club were called Kiwi Sales Circuits.

Sometime in the 1940s, Walter Nicholas chose his life-long friend George Taylor to be the manager of the KSC in New Zealand. At that time, subscriptions were 2/6d and circuit books cost 2d. Preparing circulation lists was a painstaking task – George was only a 2-finger typist and local circuits encompassed 300 members.

George Taylor ran the Kiwi Stamp Circuit in New Zealand until his death in June 1974. His daughter Doreen, remembers his involvement.

“Dad worked full time for 26 years as a conductor on the Auckland trams, and then for 16 years as chief storeman at Pye. He devoted all his evenings and weekends to the welfare of the club and to fulfilling the needs of its members.”

Even today, we have members throughout the country who joined in the George Taylor era. The cover of a circuit book from the 1970’s reveals names of several members who are still part of the Christchurch philatelic scene.

Robbie Robinson (another of our Life Members) joined the circuit on returning from the War, and has been an active participant on the Wellington circuit for over fifty years.

Kiwi Stamp Circuits were set up in many countries, the largest of these being in the USA, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, Queensland and Jamaica – however, if any of these are still functioning, we have no knowledge.

During the development of the Kiwi Stamp Circuit, the Stamps Division of the Kiwi Exchange Club in NZ, continued to function independently - under the guidance of Ron Pepperell. The Stamps Division provided an extensive section on new issues from around the world in the quarterly publication Hobby News and supplied stamps from NZ, Niue, Cook Islands, Tokelau and Western Samoa to overseas members at face value.

On the death of George Taylor, management of the Kiwi Sales Circuit passed to Mike Duggan.

Responsibility for our founding body, the Kiwi Exchange Club was taken over by Peter King and that club continued until 1991, as a worldwide network for collectors of ”many things”.