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2012 News |
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Postcard Evening - 24 March 2012
Twelve members and dealers Rosa and Tony gathered at Bix to view nine displays of postcards. Themes included: · The British Museum. · Inter-war Aircraft including those that constituted early Czechoslovak Airways. · Railways at the sea – along the coast, to ports, to the end of piers. · Ocean liners and marine art. · Saucy postcards. · Elegant Edwardian ladies (actresses). · Scenery and local views from Ecuador. · Ancient artefacts. · Old Southern Nigeria – Lagos and Calabar.
Member Displays - 8 February 2012
Fifteen members gathered on a cold evening in warm Bix Hall to show one-panel displays on subjects related to the letter A. Items presented included:
· American early air mail covers. · Air mail Zeppelin flights from Germany to Rio de Janeiro and onward to Argentina etc. · Aden stamps issued during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. · Archaeology of the Aegean: Early postcards of Knossos etc. · Animals in definitive stamps including W. Australian black swans, Malayan tigers, Egyptian sphinxes, Sudan camels, Barbados horses, Australian kangaroos, Tanganyika giraffes, Nyasaland leopards and various sets from Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Northern Rhodesia and South Africa. · Alnwick 1815 stamps office records and associated correspondence related to the Stamp Act of that year. Also Albert (Prince, mourning stationery) and Victoria and Albert memorabilia and some exceptional Victorian stamps. · Aerial Philately covers included first scheduled British airmail (Hendon to Windsor). Railway Air Services (the four railway companies + Imperial airways which became BEA and then British Airways). Airmail letter from Birmingham to London via Cowes! 1948 helicopter air service in Norfolk. First air mail from India to UK. Australia to South Africa services in 1962. · Albania, Austria, Australia: cinderellas and postage stamps; also revenues etc from Alwar and elsewhere. · American president stamps on cover: a wide variety. · Aufstellungs (exhibitions in Germany): labels and notices including for a stamp exhibition. · African Artwork: full size designs and subsequent stamps for various Nigerian issues including International Hydrological Year and Drive on the Right Day. The latter (2 April 1972) was the day Nigerians changed to driving on the Right. The stamps were supposed to help (with diagrams) but were not issued until 25th June. · Aspects of Australia: included stamps issued the day after every Australian gold medal triumph; also two different post code systems in use at the same time. · Anilene dyes: history of production, including by BASF. Use on King Edward VII 1d, 1½d, 6d and 10d stamps. Fluorescent in ultra-violet light.
A Bonus extra (straying into the letter B – Belgium, Brussels, Baudouin) was an astonishing item rescued by a sharp-eyed member from a garbage/house clearance heap outside a house in Brussels. This was an immaculate album of mounted photographs, Christmas cards and correspondence written by or depicting members of the Belgian royal family depicting King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola, King Albert II and Queen Paola and their families. All photographs and handwriting of high quality.
Member Displays - 11 January 2012
Eleven members gathered at Bix to show nine one-panel displays from their collections.
Three members showed a range of very old (pre-stamp) mainly British material including: · London mail from 1680, relating covers to the mapped location of the receiving offices at which they were handed in; these included some at the office accepting letters from the King’s Bench estate, which included the prison, and other more commodious accommodation for convicted debtors. · Other covers, from those with Henry Bishop’s late 17th century small postmarks through many other pre-stamp envelopes. · A miscellany of old GB covers, assays for 1860s high value stamps, a large embossed trial for an unusual depiction of Queen Victoria, and a more recent letter (about stamps) from Buckingham Palace. · GB Queen Elizabeth II pre-decimal issues. · King Edward VIII GB and Morocco/Tangier overprints, including first day, abdication day and other covers. · Argentine stamps exhorting the public to healthy and sustainable life styles with full explanation of the themes concerned, including the highway code, saving water and energy, preventing AIDS and tuberculosis, protecting the ozone layer, etc. · New Zealand health, commemorative and definitive stamps of the 1930s. · Commonwealth definitives showing national emblems rather than just monarchs’ heads, e.g. from Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Guiana, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, St Vincent, Somaliland and Turks and Caicos Islands. · The stamps of Greece.
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