Legendary Stamp Collectors - Freddie Mercury (of all people!)


Who would ever have guessed that the late Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the famous British rock group Queen, was a stamp collector?

His interest in philately began when he was still a young boy in India, long before he changed his name from Farrokh Bulsara to Freddie Mercury. Freddie, whose parents were both Indian, was born in Zanzibar. His father, who worked in the British Colonial Office, collected British Commonwealth stamps and inspired his son to follow in his stamp collecting footsteps.

Rather than trying to acquire valuable stamps, Freddie chose each of the stamps in his collection based on their design and color - in other words, based on whether they were pleasant to the eye. He carefully placed them in his stamp album in beautiful arrangements. By the time of his death in 1991, his stamp collection was substantial although not of great value in and of itself. After his death his father sold his own and Freddie's stamp collections to raise money for an AIDS charity, the Mercury Phoenix Trust.