‘khazana’ of priceless items that Mr Sharma has been collecting from childhood.
The Sharma family resides in D-403, Shubhkamna Apartments; the amazing thing about them – Pradeep Sharma, Poonam Sharma and their son Nabh – is the ‘khazana’ of priceless items that Mr Sharma has been collecting from childhood. Since few years the family has come together to organize the rare collection of stamps, coins and cartoon for display which has earned them the sobriquet of ‘The Collector Family’.
Recently, during the Meghdutam Festival people got the opportunity to see ‘Nabh Collection and Exhibition’ on display. On 23–24 December an exhibition was held in Army Public School Ambala, attended by almost a thousand people – students and parent. In mid-October, a week’s exhibition was held in Army Public School, Noida. During pandemic, a South Delhi school made a film of the collection and showed online to the students.
Though the passion to collect stamps, coins and cartoon was inherent in Mr Sharma but he started segregating them for filing according to theme, period, topic, etc. with the support of his wife and son, in 2016–17. But the impetus to exhibit the collection came when he was honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award by State Bank of India, on 01 July (Bank Day) in 2019. An employee of SBI, the bank had an in-house survey of employees who pursued hobbies/passion apart from regular job. Impressed by his collection, an exhibition was held in the SBI premises, New Delhi, in October 2019.
The stamps collection is from 1947 and categorized thematic and year-wise. The philatelist has a collection of rare First Day Covers and commemorative stamps that are not only informative but have rich history lessons embedded in them.
The coins collected are framed according to their period, the countries and their denomination. Their display is amazing and must be seen to believe!
Cartoons are classified and filed according to the personalities; the collection is 1980 onwards that numbers around 2 lakhs. For exhibitions the topic-based files contain variety ranging from endearing Dennis the Menace to the famous personalities, by renowned cartoonist in daily newspaper and periodicals.
Mr Sharma hails from Meerut; educated and brought up in Delhi, he joined SBI in 1982 and retired in 2019. His is a family of ‘bankers’ – daughter and son are both working in banks. Post retirement the Sharma family finds that their life revolves around organizing the treasure to exhibit the immense information, knowledge and history lessons contained in them.
