Church Historian Awarded for Book on Stamps

In His Good Time author garners silver award at Asian international stamp exhibition for book telling the story of the Bible and Church through stamps.

Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009 Posted: 3:07:36AM HKT

Well-known Christian author Dr Bobby E K Sng displaying a certificate and medallion of his silver award for his book, The Greatest Story as told through stamps, from PHILAKOREA 2009, an Asian international stamp exhibition held from late July to early August in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo: CP)

It started out as nothing more than a hobby nurtured under an enthusiast mother.

But a quarter of a century of effort and persistence – and a strong Christian desire to share his treasures with others – finally paid off when the stamps that Dr Bobby E K Sng had been collecting over the years gained a sizeable following and ministry when they were displayed at a local exhibition and reproduced in the form of books.

Just August, the elderly gentleman known for his classic work in Singapore Church history received a silver award from PHILAKOREA 2009, an Asian international stamp exhibition, for his latest book in which he told the story of the Old Testament, the life of Jesus Christ and the Church through stamps.

This is how it all happened: Sng, 73, simply loves the sport of collecting stamps, an enthusiasm that rubbed off from his late mother on him.

She was primarily interested in gathering letters of early Christian missionaries in China. Dr Sng liked to collect stamps reflecting the themes of the Bible and the Church.

To build his collection of stamps that shops do not usually stock because of the relative unpopularity of their theme, the Bible Society of Singapore President had to go on a veritable treasure hunt.

Dr Sng would view catalogues of stamps available in each country he visited on a conference trip and visit its stamp shops first thing so the vendors would have time enough by the end of his trip to sell him the stamps he wanted.

One particular stamp was so rare it took Sng five years to locate through a local dealer’s overseas contact. The U.S. dealer priced the stamp at 60 pounds; Sng willingly paid the price.

Sometimes the general practitioner would find his stamps in the most unlikely of places. There was a time he was in Rome looking for Vatican stamps. He was unable to find them in the stamp shop in the Vatican, but found them when he stumbled into another store.

After travelling the world over to Japan, Hong Kong, London, Rome, Thessalonica, San Francisco, working with local dealers, and roping his overseas friends into the great search, Dr Sng finally amassed a collection of around 2,000 stamps.

Of these, at least 500 stamps were reproduced in his latest book, The Greatest Story as told through stamps (Bible Society of Singapore and Armour Publishing, 2008), which is a compilation of the first three books he produced on his stamps a few years earlier.

Taking things in their order, after gathering an impressive collection of stamps over some two decades, Dr Sng decided to put them on exhibition at an event organised by the Singapore Philatelic Association at the threshold of the last millennium. He reasoned that stamp collecting could tend to be a ‘very self-centered’ and ‘almost selfish’ hobby and so he decided to exhibit his stamps selected to reflect the theme of the life of Jesus Christ and never looked back then.

The exhibition drew some 21,000 visitors. Following that, his colleagues at the Bible Society of Singapore suggested that he compile a book on his stamps so as to extend their life beyond the six month period of the exhibition.

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Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com