Press

A great idea on the internet! (II)

Three years after his first report on the planned permanent stamp exhibition on the internet, František Beneš returned to EXPONET in the Czech philatelic monthly Filatelie (issue 11/2007). By then the exhibition had grown to more than 300 exhibits from exhibitors in 35 countries, its organisation had been taken over in 2006 by a dedicated public-benefit corporation, Virtuální výstavy EXPONET o.p.s., and the exhibition had been placed under the auspices of the Czech Minister of Culture. The author recommends EXPONET as a source of inspiration for anyone considering building an exhibit, and as a place to preserve a finished exhibit permanently – without exhibition fees and without the space limits of traditional FIP exhibitions.

Ing. František Beneš, Czech Republic – FILATELIE 11/2007 (full text in Czech)

A great idea on the internet!

In Filatelie 9/2004 František Beneš announced a big surprise prepared for that year's Sběratel collectors' fair by the publisher of the online magazine Japhila: the idea of a permanent World Virtual Philatelic Exhibition. Its founders, Ing. Břetislav Janík (former secretary of the organising committee of the PRAGA 1988 world exhibition) and the well-known postal stationery collector Ing. Milan Černík, planned to gather outstanding exhibits from the whole world and display them permanently on the internet, freely accessible to everyone.

The author sees online exhibiting not as competition for traditional exhibitions but as their complement: it can reach collectors who do not want to exhibit physically, preserve collections before they are sold, allow visitors to "judge" exhibits informally, and serve as an archive of important material for study. He closes with the words that later became the motto of the project: "On the tombstones of most unfulfilled wishes stands the inscription: He did not try…"

Ing. František Beneš, Czech Republic – FILATELIE 9/2004 (full text in Czech)