Stamping across the Pacific Northwest

The UN produces postage stamps to send mail from its offices in New York City, Geneva and Vienna. In practice, though, most UN offices use metred mail, while its stamps are more commonly sought by tourists or collectors.

“Each year, the United Nations would send me their annual collection and I would mount them in an album. I began collecting in1951,” Cohene recalls. “Four years ago I read in their bulletin that they were looking for a sales representative in the Pacific Northwest. I figured I’m retiring and it would be a good gig.”

Cohene completed the application and was told there were several people vying for the position. He was invited down to California, where an upcoming, large-scale national philatelic show was scheduled. It was an opportunity to meet the chief of the United Nations Postal Administration.

“I met him and we had good chemistry. He had several people to interview. Our meeting was very casual,” Cohene recalls.

“He liked what I had to say and said, ‘I’ll get back to you.’ Two weeks later, he called and said, ‘I just have one question for you.’ I asked, ‘What’s that?’ ‘Why should I hire you?’”

Cohene told the philatelic chief that the answer was simple. “Not only do I live in the Pacific Northwest, but I know you don’t have a representative in Canada and, living in Vancouver, I could cover Canada,” he recounts.

“They have shows in Montreal and in Toronto. I said, ‘I’m from Montreal and I speak French.’”

The pitch worked, and Cohene was hired.

As the sales rep, he runs booths and sells the UN’s newly issued stamps on commission. Beginning in 2012, each year Cohene attends five or six shows national stamp shows throughout his region, including in Ottawa, Montreal, Portland, Ore., and Sacramento, Calif.

“The United Nations produces postage stamps the same way the Vatican does, the same way Canada or any country does. The stamps are designed for collectors,” he explains.

The UN often issues stamps in a series. “They don’t recognize individuals that much, like Canada would introduce a stamp recognizing the queen or a prime minister,” Cohene says. “They recognize global issues,” such as climate change or endangered species.

The stamps produced by the UN may commemorate historical events or honour communities, such as the recent release of stamps paying tribute to the LGBTQ community.

“When Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, the flooding that went into the United Nations building reached approximately two metres high and many of the stamps and much of the inventory was destroyed,” he says.

“That made those stamps quite valuable. Consequently, collectors are seeking those issues.”

Cohene observes that while most stamp collectors are older, some younger people are getting into the hobby.

Looking back

Cohene is originally from Montreal. After graduating, he was hired in Vancouver to work for a national department store to conduct a demographic study. This led to another opportunity to do demographic studies for a 56-chain-store operation.

In 1973 he took a year off to travel before establishing his uniform company in Vancouver, where he still lives.

There were two divisions. One was a retail operation, selling uniforms to the medical profession, and a second wholesale division providing corporate branding. This included apparel for restaurants, hotels, casinos and special events such as Expo 86 and the 2010 Winter Olympics.

In 1986 he sold the retail division. At that time, Cohene’s retail uniform company reached its peak as the largest sales volume medical uniform retailer in the country. He then concentrated on the corporate wholesale division. He managed Image Uniforms Inc. for 39 years.

Along with collecting and selling stamps, in 2009 Cohene began wood carving, producing birds, fish and First Nations-style carvings. He has won several best-in-show awards at various competitions in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.

He also does commissioned work for friends and clients. Recently he was commissioned to carve a Chinook salmon for a fishing lodge in Haida Gwaii, B.C.

While he’s planning a gallery show in 2017, Cohene is also readying for a part-time government job, setting up an electoral office in British Columbia over the next 18 months.

Looking back, Cohene says his four years in the commerce program at Sir George Williams gave him a solid business background. He learned about business development, risks and rewards.

He says the university provided him the tools he needed to start and grow his own successful enterprise. “The commerce program gave us a vision,” Cohene says. “That impacted me considerably.”

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