The Springbok Archive
There is a wealth of philatelic knowledge in old The Springbok magazines.
Previously we shared scanned copies of The Springbok on the old Legacy Website. These could be read but not searched and copied. We have now converted these scans into a search-friendly format that will allow you to find and copy relevant articles and information by entering a specific search term. More will be added over time. At the moment we are still missing many issues, mostly from the 1960s to 1980s.
The Springbok – 1950s
The Springbok – 1960s
The Springbok – 1970s
The Springbok – 1980s
The Springbok – 1990s
The Springbok – 2000s
The Springbok – 2010s
The Springbok – 2020s
SACS 70th Anniversary Issue
The first ‘The Springbok’ journal was published in January 1953 with six issues per year. The first editor of The Springbok was C. Eric Sherwood, a Manchester stamp dealer specialising in South African philately. The first front cover of The Springbok used a customised image of a 1928 London Pictorial ½d Springbok Definitive stamp created by Edward Lauder, the first President of SACS. The Springbok’s use of this image would continue for 40 years until 1992. We hope its use as the logo of this website provides a sense of continuity between old-time stamp collecting and modern digital philately.
Eric Sherwood selling South African stamps.
Read about Eric and this photo in the 70th Anniversary Issue.
The first issues of the magazine were written up on a typewriter and presumably ‘printed’ by the roneo method of duplication. Generally their print quality is not great. This, and especially the spacing between typewritten words, may affect both the text recognition and your results if and when you Cut & Paste this material. You can expect better results from the later issues of The Springbok.
NOTE: If you quote this material, please reference The Springbok, the Month and Year and the author of any material you copy! Thank you.
How to Search the Archive
You can Search the Archive by entering a Search term into the Search dialogue box. This can be found on the Home Page or wherever the sidebar shows it. It has a standard Magnifying Glass Search icon.
This website uses Google’s Search to find instances of single words like ‘Bantam’, ‘Officials’ or ‘rotogravure’ in the Archive, as well as phrases.
Try to keep it simple. If you search using a complicated phrase like ‘Collect Southern Africa’, it will find instances of this phrase but will also include single words finds based on ‘Collect’, ‘Southern’, ‘Africa’, and also ‘Southern Africa’.
NOTE: If you enclose a phrase in double quotes ie. “Collect Southern Africa”, it will ONLY find instances of the phrase, not the words. Also, do not worry about capitalisation. A Search for ‘bantams’ is the same as a search for ‘Bantams’.
After entering your Search term, press Return or click on the Magnifying Glass icon.
This will display a series links to articles, etc., where your Search term is to be found. You can scroll through these to find the most relevant one.
Click on the most relevant link. If the link references an old copy of The Springbok magazine, this copy will load showing the front cover displayed on screen.
Scroll down through the magazine to find the reference to your Search term or use your browser’s Search facilty. In most browsers, this can be accessed by pressing Ctrl+F (press the Ctrl key and the F key at the same time), which will bring up a Search box.
Re-enter your Search term in the Ctrl+F box. It is unnecessary to press Return as most browsers will now automatically go to the first instance of the Search term in the magazine. There are usually Up and Down Arrows which if pressed will go to the next instance of the Search term in either direction.
