Magazine Review: The Cinderella Philatelist

I hope you enjoyed my review of Stamp Collector last week.

This week I am reviewing a very different kind of stamp magazine, The Cinderella Philatelist.

A Cinderella stamp looks like a stamp but isn't issued by an official postal service. Examples of Cinderella stamps include: Charity seals (like Christmas seals)

Advertising labels

Exhibition or souvenir stamps

Propaganda labels

Local or private-post stamps Scouts stamps

Fantasy or unofficial “country” issues

A lot of people think that Cinderella stamps can be as interesting as any other stamp. I agree with this. I don't know too much about them but I have read through the magazine and in a lot of ways some of them seem more interesting than regular stamps and have fascinating histories. The Cinderella Philatelist is created for members of the Cinderella Stamp Club. An annual membership is £18. The magazine is issued four times per year and is free to members.

The magazine I am reviewing is the April 2026 edition. Every magazine comes with a free gift and this time it is a Cinderella label to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Quebec Federation of Philately. I am sure you will agree it is a very nice-looking label.

The Cinderella Philatelist is not split into different parts in the same way Stamp Collector is although there are some regular sections like the letters page and book reviews. Instead there is a series of articles by different writers who all seem to have their own interests. The first looks at the stamps of Keble College, Oxford between 1871 and 1886. I did not know that colleges issued stamps and some o these are clearly quite rare as only small numbers of these stamps were made. The writer, Vincent West, looks at covers and letters sent using these remarkable stamps. These stamps were never official but they are definitely postal history and I was interested to learn about them.

The next articles, by "Alibi" and Michael Florer, are about poster stamps. Alibi writes about some German stamps showing artists and writers of the Renaissance period followed by a series of advertising stamps from the Tip Top Shoes company of Manhattan. What they had in common was that both sets included letters that spelled out the names of products. Michael's article is about some very colourful stamps from the Crescent Manufacturing Company, showing people, places and animals from around the world.

The poster stamps were very detailed and beautifully designed and all from the early 20th century. I would guess that they must have been successful for advertising otherwise no-one would have bothered to make them. Maybe they worked well at a time when more people were interested in stamps?

The next article is something completely different. The Story of the "Lucky Number" Part 8 by Martin Weise is very impressive and incredibly well researched. Martin explored lottery stamps from Hungary between the 1890s and the 1950s. He shows many examples of the different kinds of stamps and explains how they were used. It is a very long article but worth reading and there were so many different designs for these stamps. Martin also shows us some postcards that were used to advertise the lottery. Some lottery companies liked to use "scantily dressed" ladies, which would probably not be something done today. Again, it shows how interesting Cinderellas can be and how much they can tell us about history - in this case not postal history but about lotteries and how they advertised.

The serious work about Hungarian lottery stamps is followed by The Philately of Discworld Stamps Part 4 by Steve Tandy. Even I know about Discworld but I did not know about these stamps. As you would guess these are just fantasy stamps made by The Discworld Emporium and based on the stamps created by Moist Von Lipwig in the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. What is interesting is how well designed they are. The stamps are made to look like classic vintage stamps. They're very intricate. Are these postal history? No. They're fantasy stamps and that's fine. Discworld fans clearly like them.

After that we come to another long piece. This is Great Britain Strike Posts by John Gilbert but in this article he only looks at Devon. I have seen stamps from the 1971 strike at stamp fairs, but I didn't realise there were so many of them. It makes sense because there would have needed to be a lot of local postal groups to provide an emergency postal service. It can't have been an easy thing to do.

The first thing you notice is how many different types of stamps there were. Some are very well-designed and others are very simple. Some had special postmarks and clearly thought about future collectors. I found this article interesting because it gives you an idea of how many local postal services there must have been and how different they were. One service only operated for a few days. One was only for mail between a group of hotels. One was run by a stamp dealer. It's all really intriguing.

When you read The Cinderella Philatelist you get a feeling of how different Cinderella stamps are from each other. Some people will be interested in advertising stamps while other people may only be interested in local postal services like the strike stamps or Scouts stamps.

Alan Spencer's article on the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain in 1927 tells us about some interesting souvenirs from the event. These were obviously popular and made me think that perhaps other big events like Stampex should create some similar stamps and cards.

There is always a section on British private posts, although strictly speaking I don't think many of these are genuine postal services. However, it seems there are a few people who create fascinating local labels for their community, I would guess because they are proud of these places. There were interesting stamps from Islay, Goat Island and Canvey Island and also one for Rockall which is a strange one as no-one lives there. This section also has an "Ebay watch" and I was surprised by some of the prices.

There is a lot more in the magazine including adverts for stamp collecting group and shorter articles that I haven't mentioned. What I like most about The Cinderella Philatelist is the variety and how much research goes into it. The writers obviously care a lot about their subject. Also, it's unbelievably good value for money and it would be worth joining the club for £18 just for the magazine.

I don't want to be too critical because I did find this really interesting but if you don't know much about Cinderellas already it can be hard to read and it isn't aimed at beginners. In fairness it is a magazine for club members, so that makes sense.

Xanthe's scores: Expert knowledge: 5/5 Quality of articles: 5/5 Range of topics: 5/5 Magazine design: 4/5 Distinct identity: 5/5 Appeal to young people: 3/5 Quality of images: 4/5 Ease of reading: 3/5 Usefulness for collectors: 5/5 Historical interest: 4/5 Originality: 5/5 Value for Money: 5/5 Good for beginners: 3/5 TOTAL SCORE: 56/65