Count Gustaf Douglas presented “Sweden Number One & Subsequent Important Gems” in Newcastle on 28 July 2018. Photo: Claudia Maassen
The Financial Newspaper paid tribute to the death of the eminent Swedish entrepreneur and industrialist Gustaf Douglas with a five-page biographical special on 4 May. Douglas drew the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in Newcastle in 2018 and is the owner of perhaps Sweden’s most important philatelic collection ever assembled. He was made possible by a unique business career, and his interests extended far beyond philately. Douglas promoted philately to the best of his ability, for example in 2019 when he provided the Congress Centre for the staging of STOCKHOLMIA 2019 to mark the 150th anniversary of the Royal Philatelic Society London. He is remembered here once again.
Gustaf Douglas was born on 3 March 1938 to Count Carl Ludvig Douglas (1908-1961), a Swedish diplomat, and his wife Ottora Maria Haas-Heye (1910-2001) from Prussia. He studied at Harvard Business School in the USA until 1964, then worked in Sweden and became CEO of the newspapers “Dagens Nyheter and Expressen”, which he headed from 1973 to 1980. In 1984 he founded a company called Investment AB Latour, with which he took control of the security company Securitas AB, among other things. He later ranked among the eleven wealthiest people in Sweden, with a 2018 – according to Forbes – estimated fortune of around $6.4 billion. From 2001 he was a member of the executive board of a moderate party, for some time also a Liberal People’s Party, after which he joined more conservative currents with a keen interest in educational issues.
With his wife Elisabeth von Essen (born 1941), Douglas, whose ancestors came from Scotland four hundred years ago to support King Gustaf Adolf in his campaigns, has two children: Carl (born 1965) and Eric (born 1968). Both are now active in the family’s many branching businesses. The ties to the European nobility, especially to Germany (Gustaf’s sister Princess Elisabeth is married to Prince Max, Duke of Bavaria). Both he and his wife speak several languages, including fluent German.
Count Douglas came to philately as a teenager. In the 1960s, he appeared in the philatelic press with his first remarkable technical articles, also in the FACIT catalogue. In 1969, he published his first overview of the important rarities of Swedish philately, which also found its way into the FACIT catalogue a year later. In 1971 he became a member of the Royal Philatelic Society and from 1971 he exhibited his collections internationally – partly together with Tomas Bjäringer (among others with 10 frames “Classic Sweden” at IBRA 1973). In 1974 and 1986 he was a member of the exhibition committee of STOCKHOLMIA.
A phase of withdrawal from philately followed due to his job, but since 2001 – and literarily since 2005 – he approached philatelic research all the more intensively. Countless highest medal ranks followed for his various collections, as well as many lectures in Scandinavia, the USA and England. In 2013 he became a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London, in 2018 he drew the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists and already in 2015 he gave his commitment to sponsor STOCKHOLMIA 2019 as the main sponsor.
In philatelic circles, Count Douglas is highly regarded for his always friendly and helpful manner. He never puts himself and his “jewels of philately” in the limelight, which could also be seen at MONACOPHIL 2015. There he exhibited a Sweden exhibit and his undoubtedly most valuable piece, the unique colour misprint of the 3 skill. Banco, was so hidden on one side amidst numerous other stamps of the original sheet that one had to look closer to even discover this world rarity. On 28 July 2018, at a lecture in Newcastle on “Sweden’s No. 1”, he talked casually and cheerfully about the countless experts and connoisseurs who had often judged this rarity in completely different ways until – finally – a final finding of authenticity was reached. One sensed that although the stamp is close to his heart, the research and many other pieces of his exhibits are at least as important.
