Dear Clients & Friends,

In recent weeks, Max Williamson and I have been joined in our cataloguing and describing activities by a three new philatelic describers and consultants. "New"in the sense that they are experiencing the "business" side of collecting for the first time but certainly not new in terms of their expertise and knowledge. You will have see evidence of their considerable input in our latest auction catalogues and I am sure their influence will continue to grow with future auctions.

Let me introduce to you - though many of you will already know them and their reputations, Bernie Beston, from Brisbane; Malcolm Groom, from Hobart and Bernie Manning, from Melbourne.

Bernie Beston has been active in organized philately for many years. He was chairman of the Jury for the Australia 99 International Exhibition. He has won International Gold Medals in Postal History and Postal Stationery and has built a wide range of collections including Queensland, Jordan, Australian Postal History and others. He is also widely published, has recently been appointed editor of "Philately from Australia" and has held executive positions on many State, National and International philatelic bodies. Bernie is the executor of the Ed Druce estate, one of the largest and most important philatelic accumulations in Australia. While some of it has already been dispersed, under Bernie's careful guidance you will be seeing a lot more of Ed's collecting legacy coming through our catalogues in the coming months - there are important groups in this catalogue, especially the British African postal stationery and we have started working on more Druce material for our first auction of 2003, scheduled for February 1st. Bernie brings years of experience and a good sense of humour when he comes to work and he is available for consultation in Melbourne, Canberra and his home town of Brisbane.

Malcolm Groom has been exhibiting internationally since Ausipex in 1984 when he showed Tasmanian postal history and has since been awarded international gold medals for Tasmania and Maritime Postal History. He has been an international judge since 1990, having been invited to serve on juries in Norway, London & Tokyo. Malcolm is an ex-president of the Australian Philatelic Federation and is currently Secretary-General of the Asian Federation. He is the series editor for the Australian States Postal Stationery catalogue - W.A. has just been published and further instalments are in the pipeline. Besides being one of the tallest philatelists in Australia, Malcolm has a very broad knowledge, excellent research skills and contacts all over the philatelic world. I think his association with us will be very fruitful. Malcolm will spend part of each month with us in Melbourne but will also be our agent in Tasmania.

Our third new member of staff is Bernie Manning. With two Bernie's on staff we've taken to referring to them as B1 and B2. Bernie has been a collector for many years. He has exhibited Queensland stamps and postal history as well as Tasmanian postal history and is busy forming other collections as I write. You may have seen his Tasmanian postmark collection in our last philatelic auction. He was recently elected to the Council of the Royal Philatelic Society and is a member of the Victorian Philatelic Council. Bernie started out with us very part time but discovered that he was enjoying himself more than he expected, and with so much to do, I'm delighted to say that he's joined us working full-time on cataloging.

With the input of our new staff and the other great people working with us at CLA - Max Williamson, Kylie Keyhoe, Andre Klein, Georgie McConnell, Patrick Kearney and our other consultants, we have been able to bring you an interesting public auction catalogue every month as well as one of our popular postal bid sales every quarter - that's 16 catalogues a year! It's been a hectic but we are looking forward to an even busier time next year. We already have some wonderful consignments, including the Nelson Eustis South Australian Postal Stationery (International Large Gold) collection, a magnificent Australian Aerophilatelic collection (no, not Nelson's!) which will be supplemented by Ed Druce's "Joining the Dots" exhibit, as well as a number of other collections.

I commend the current catalogue to you - with pre-sale estimates of approximately $550,000 there should be something for every collecting taste. Thankyou to our vendors for your continuing support; without you there is no auction. Thankyou also to our many hundreds of purchasers around the world. Please keep in touch, not just by sending your bidsheets (which we love!) but think about dropping us a line and telling us your news or commenting on what we do.

With our best wishes to you all for a safe and healthy 2003,

Charles & Annette Leski