James Bendon


James Bendon is a stamp dealer, publisher, and philatelist who is an authority on specimen stamps. He wrote and published the first worldwide catalogue of Universal Postal Union specimen stamps and subsequently published philatelic books by authors such as Robson Lowe and James Negus.

Early life and family

James Bendon was born in 1937. In 1980, he married Robyn L. Shenker in the Chelsea district of London.

Career

Bendon traded as a stamp dealer, first in the United Kingdom and later in Cyprus from where his first book on specimen stamps, UPU Specimen Stamps, was self-published in 1988. The book was the first worldwide account of the method of distribution of specimen stamps among the members of the Universal Postal Union, earlier works having concentrated on the stamps of Britain or British Commonwealth countries. In 2015, an updated edition was published with colour illustrations and expanded content including a reprint in an appendix of the pioneering article "The Distribution of SPECIMEN Stamps by the U.P.U." by Marcus Samuel that originally appeared in Stamp Collecting in 1964/65.
Encouraged by the success of his book on specimen stamps, from 1991 Bendon began to publish philatelic works by others, starting with James Negus's Philatelic Literature: Compilation Techniques and Reference Sources in 1991 which was followed the same year by a reprinting with a new introduction by Kenneth F. Chapman of the Harris index to philatelic literature edited by James Negus. In all, Bendon published nearly 50 books including a number of reprints of classic works, before he sold his stock of literature to Chris Komondy of Triad Publications.
Bendon became a member of the Royal Philatelic Society London in 1991 and was subsequently elected a fellow of the society.

Own works