Rotary Stamp Could Set a Guiness World Record

The Times of India reports when school teacher PS Seshadri walks into his classroom students immediately start asking to see his "special" stamp albums.

According to reporter Lakshmi Kumaraswami of The Times, what they're interested in are the albums filled with a 2005 Australian stamp marking Rotary's centennial. His collection could put Seshadri in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Seshadri started getting stamps as part of Rotary International's Project Stamp through which people with motor dysfunctions like Parkinson's disease were being rehabilitated by cutting out stamps from envelopes.

The 61-year-old, who is a Rotarian himself, is quoted as saying those stamps were then sent to him so that they could be distributed them at schools and stamp exhibitions. Apparently, there were a lot of duplicates of the 2005 Australian stamp with the Rotary emblem and a student suggested that he try collecting as many of those as he could.

After asking friends and purchasing some through dealers, Seshadri now has 1,50,150 copies of this one particular stamp according to the article.

Seshadri wrote to the Guinness World Records and they said they needed to verify his claim of collecting the most number of commemorative stamps of a single design from a foreign country. He's gotten several verifications and now all Seshadri can do is wait.

But he isn't too worried writes Kumaraswami.

"I keep myself occupied by conducting philately workshops for students where I teach them to maintain a stamp album," Seshadri says in the article. He adds that several of his students have taken their own personal collections to state and national level exhibitions.

"For some, these are just random pieces of paper but for us philatelists, they are bearers of knowledge and wealth."

To read the entire article, click here.