It had been issued on January 2nd, 1913, by which time he had already ordered his personal philatelist to prepare for him a unique collection. It included the original drawings and artists’ sketches, the rejected essays, heads and frames, in black and in every other colour that had been attempted, samples of those colour trials, the final design and the projected but unadopted overprint for use in the Grand Duchy of Finland, then under the Tsar’s control. There were also the first prints of every issued stamp, in blocks of four.

The first guard commander for the Tsar, Tsarina and their five children at Ekaterinburg typified both the local feeling and that of the Bolsheviks who had erupted in hatred to overthrow three hundred years of blinkered, misguided Romanov rule. Alexander Avdeyev was a bully and a drunk, a former fitter in a munitions factory who insisted upon eating with the Imperial family and on one occasion elbowed the Tsar in the mouth, stretching across the table to seize some food. Pilfering the royal treasures had started before Ekaterinburg, at Tobolsk, but under Avdeyev’s command the stealing was allowed to go unchecked, at times even encouraged, like a game, because of the distress it caused the Tsar. But five weeks after their imprisonment at Ekaterinburg the stamp collection was intact; those who were stealing were peasants who wore rags and the fine linen and jewellery and silver and gold had more obvious value. Stamps were just pieces of coloured paper.

After three months, Alexander Avdeyev was replaced by Yankel Yurovsky, the regional commissar for justice and a member of the Cheka, the secret police force through which the Tsar had formerly controlled his country. Yurovsky showed the Imperial family more respect and stopped the guards making crude, sexual insults towards the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatania, Maria and Anastasia. The stealing he didn’t bother about.