The 24th St. Justin’s Work stamp auction, which took place on October 18 and 19, 2024 in Fribourg, was once again a great success. This is a wonderful sign of solidarity in favour of our mission for the training of young people around the world.

Thanks to the ‘philately’ team, our staff and our scholarship holders, a nice result of 33,500 francs was achieved. This money will be entirely devoted to the training of young men and women from all over the world. This result is the fruit of a huge amount of work, throughout the year, by our team of volunteers who maintain contact with loyal donors, receive packages, collect, sort and classify stamps, banknotes, collections, paintings, watches, jewellery, coins, etc. For this year’s sale, as we received a lot of watches, our manager brought in a retired watchmaker with his equipment, to examine their condition and value and to put new batteries in the quartz watches so that they would give the cor- rect time again. Just magnificent !

SPECIALISTS FROM SWITZERLAND AND ELSEWHERE

Specialists from all over Switzerland, but also from France, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, came together in large numbers to discover and then bid on one or the other of the lots. A magnificent catalogue, written by Alois and Christian, was sent by post to more than 1,300 philatelists or associations to also allow bids by correspondence or e-mail.

This sale is only possible thanks to the loyalty of a team driven by a passion that goes beyond simple collection. By putting them- selves at the service of a social work dedicated to the training of young people, the volunteers give us a magnificent example of commitment. Ursula, Rita, Alois and Heidi, Bruno, Christian, not forgetting their husbands and wives as well as other philatelist friends such as Bernadette and René, Gezim, Thomas and Nicole, Jacqueline and Hans-Peter, Chantal, Claudine, Mohamad, Sima, Tanja and the Saint-Justin scholarship holders all participated to make the party a great one.

A little tear in the eye and a lot of emotion for Marco Cattaeno who was experienc- ing his last stamp auction as director of the Foundation Œuvre Saint-Justin. He will indeed retire in August 2025.