ARTHUR O'Hanlon is Oxfordshire's only stamp auctioneer.

And, considering stamp collecting is not quite the popular hobby is once was, he's doing pretty well for himself.

For the past 26 years he has run his business from a little shop on Park Road, Didcot, which bares its name above the door: Provincial Philatelics.

And last year, business was going so well, he built an extension to store all the extra stamps he is now getting through.

The reason, bizarrely, is eBay: the profits to be made through the internet auction site have created a huge market for dealers who have no interest whatsoever in stamps and every interest in making a quick buck.

If it all seems a bit unlikely, Mr O'Hanlon's story is all the more surprising given he never particularly wanted to be a stamp dealer.

He didn't even have a big collection when he was a boy.

Arthur O'Hanlon was born into an RAF family: his father served for 27 years meaning the young Arthur grew up on RAF bases around the world.

As soon as he left school at 16, he signed up himself.

He carried on the globetrotting family legacy, completing two tours of duty with NATO in Belgium and Germany and even spending one tour with his dad in Libya from '55 to '58.

He first came to Oxfordshire in 1980 and spent the last ten years of his service at RAF Benson, High Wycombe, Abingdon and finally Brize Norton.

He served his country for a total of 22 years and left with a distinguished legacy and the rank of Flight Sergeant when he was 40 years old.

All he had to do then was decide what to do with the rest of his life.

During the 80s he had 'dabbled' in stamp collecting and even ended up helping run a regular sale in Wallingford called the Phoenix Stamp Auction.

Eventually, he said, the man who had been running it 'sort of lost interest', and Mr O'Hanlon ended up taking over the whole operation in the mid-80s.

So, by the time he left the RAF in 1989, he was already running regular weekend stamp fairs, but he was aware he wasn't going to make a living out of it.

Then by chance he saw an advert saying that a stamp auctioneers business in Didcot was up for sale.

The name was Provincial Philatelics.

Provincial was owned at the time by a man called Mike Perry, who also at one time owned the The Beetle & Wedge Boathouse Restaurant in Moulsford.

Mr O'Hanlon ended up buying Provincial with another established stamper, Rosemary Morrison.

They ran the business together for the next two decades until she passed away four years ago.

That business which they bought together was not the office where Mr O'Hanlon now works: the value of a stamp business lies in the auction event itself, which has an established reputation, and in its mailing list.

Over the decades Mr O'Hanlon and Ms Morrison took the mailing list they inherited from about 650 names to more than 2,500: an invaluable resource of potential buyers and sellers.

One might, therefore, have expected the value of the business to be decimated by the rise of online auction sites like eBay, where buyers and sellers of everything from stamps to houses can find what they are looking for with the click of a mouse.

In fact, the opposite is true, as Mr O'Hanlon enthuses.

"EBay has made a massive and wonderful difference to the business: these guys messing around on eBay come to people like me because I'm a wholesaler – that's where they get their stamps from.

"I also get a lot of people getting in touch for valuations on material that an elderly relative has left them."

Even if the internet has not undermined the stamp auctioneer's value as an expert in his field, surely it has evaporated the necessity to actually hold auction events in the real world at village halls?

Again, not so.

Mr O'Hanlon still makes 100 per cent of his sales at the auction he holds every two months at Benson Village Hall.

Sending out 2,500 auction catalogues every eight weeks, he still gets people coming who he has spent years building a relationship of trust with.

Many bidders, if not the majority, still need to see what they are buying before handing over the cash.

And in addition to the 150-odd people who actually slog down to Benson in person, there are countless other bidders on the phone, internet, and who put in reserve bids.

Internet buyers, virtually non-existent ten years ago, now account for about 30 per cent of his income.

The most expensive single stamp Mr O'Hanlon has ever sold was a tasty little Edwardian number which fetched £12,000.

If that seems excessive, the most expensive stamp ever sold – an ultra-rare black British Guiana 1856 – fetched £6 million at auction in New York.

Now Mr O'Hanlon's son Mark, having recently quit his job with Thames Valley Police, is planning to start up a subsidiary of his dad's business selling Provincial Philatelics stock through online auctions.

But the old man is determined that as long as he is in business, he is going to carry on the old fashioned way: every two months, Benson Village Hall.

He smiles: "We're really well set here, we're in a very good position.

"The actions aren't huge money but it's kept me in business for the last 26 years."

Provincial Philatelics' 309th auction will be held at Benson Village Hall on Sunday, April 2.

Viewing will commence at 9am and the auction will start at midday.