01 November 2018
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We spoke to Erling Daugaard, founder and CEO of Nordfrim and member of the board of IFSDA, and asked him about the company, which provides a range of services for stamp collectors around the world
How did you become involved in stamp collecting and your role at Nordfrim?
As a young boy I inherited my sister’s stamp collection, and that is where it all started. After having collected stamps for some years, I started selling stamps by advertisements in newspapers etc, and then I founded Nordfrim back in 1965. Since then, the company has grown significantly and today we employ over 120 people around the world through our eleven subsidiaries. Our headquarters is located in Denmark, actually at the place where I was born and the company is still family-owned. I am still the CEO of the company.
What type of equipment do you offer and how can it help collectors?
We offer more than 20,000 different items at www.nordfrim.com. This includes stamp packets, kiloware, duplicate lots, wonderboxes, new issues, collections, lots, classic stamps and much more! We offer more than 5,000 accessories as well, stamp albums, stock books, magnifiers etc!
Our focus has always been to offer interesting products at reasonable prices and to provide excellent customer service.
You are now the appointed agent for many countries around the world, how does this work?
We have been dealing with many postal services around the world since the company was founded. A big number of postal administrations have selected Nordfrim as their partner and agent, meaning that we can offer new issues from nearly anywhere in the world to our customers at great prices. We both supply new issues as casual sale and on standing order basis, where our customers will be guaranteed to receive all published issues – even the ones which can be difficult to get hold of.
How do you think stamps, new issues and collecting has changed over the years?
During the last years many postal services have become more innovative with their new issues. Stamps are produced from a lot of interesting materials, some come with a scent and some are even fitted with crystals. The topics have also been re-thought and we see a rise in thematic collectors. As an example of a popular theme, Royal Mail has issued really interesting stamps during recent years with popular themes, such as Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. It is great to see this kind of innovation, as the industry is otherwise challenged as the number of young people picking up the hobby of collecting stamps is unfortunately low, which is a real pity, as the hobby is really diverse and interesting, when you first get started!
From your position in Denmark, how do you view collecting in Europe and how do you think it differs from collecting in Great Britain?
Actually, I don’t think that there is a big difference in collecting in Europe and collecting in Great Britain, I think that collecting is universal. We see that in each country, it is popular to collect the national stamps, and as the world’s first stamp was issued in Great Britain, it remains a very unique country. However, we don’t see that British collectors purchase different articles than European collectors. Find out more about Nordfrim at: www.nordfrim.com