I’ve collected the First Day Covers (FDCs) of Barbados for over a decade now and, as you might expect, I have pretty much all of them. All that is, bar a handful that are proving ridiculously hard to find. It’s not that they are overpriced when I see them; most of the ones I’m looking for are just a couple of pounds; it’s more that I simply never see them being offered for sale.

It is entirely possible, of course, that I’m just looking in the wrong places. But after ten years you’d think that they would have popped up at some point?

The irony is that the most difficult ones to find are those from the 1990’s, with a few stragglers from the 80’s and 70’s. It can’t be because there were fewer collectors as there was still a thriving philatelic market at that time, so where are they? It’s a similar story with used stamps, with some of the hardest to find being from the early 2000s when there were millions printed and used.

Anyway, just before Christmas I bid on a lot at auction and lost, but the winner kindly allowed me to have the one cover I was missing and the reason I was buying the whole lot of 40 covers (yes, it’s got to that point!). So, here it is.

It seems ridiculous that something as common as this should be so elusive. After all, there are hundreds of collectors of space-based material and this cover was produced in large quantities. So why do they not come up for sale? Where are they all hiding and should I be looking in deeper darker recesses instead of checking the usual online (and offline) outlets?

Anyway, for now it’s another gap filled, but if you see Barbados FDC’s for sale anywhere please let me know as I’m definitely trying to compelte the set, if only to make the Gallery section of the website complete.