|
Society News |
|
Irish Stew by Peter Wood 11 June 2008
Peter Wood’s first display concentrated on postage during the period when Ireland was still part of Great Britain, starting with a letter, in old Italian but with a part translation, sent from Cork to London by an Italian merchant in 1591. Then collected and removed to Italy with other records when the firm left London before the Great Fire of 1666, and discovered in a twentieth century sort out of old papers sold to Robson Lowe.
The display continuing through the period when postage was paid by the sender and into that when postage was paid by the recipient, often in cash as well as with 1d blacks and reds or 2d blues, all illustrating aspects of British mail practice in general as well as various Irish particularities or eccentricities in post marks, interpretation of the rules, and levying of charges for postage due.
Other pre-1922 material included various political or other propaganda labels including the commonly used ones seeking Home Rule and produced by Sinn Fein. There was also an intriguing and plausible advert sheet by the American S Allen Taylor. It offered reprints or facsimile stamps, with proper ‘holes around the edges’, satisfactory for the many collectors who could not afford the real thing. As a member commented, most of the countries and periods concerned were those where most of the stamps otherwise available, then and now, are forgeries anyway.
The second part of Peter’s display started from Ireland’s independence including pristine mint examples of the GB overprints - which continued for the high values until 1937, and trials and essays for the first Irish issue, which included the 3d Celtic Cross, directly derived from a similar design used on earlier Sinn Fein labels.
The display concluded with a range of Irish pictorial stamps with cleverly related other material for each theme of interest.
Visit from Derek Harewood 14 May 2008
On a previous visit to Bix, Derek had intrigued us with a philatelic display concerning the Falkland Islands. This time he concentrated on the Antarctic itself – its geology, exploration, flora and fauna - illustrated by a wide range of stamps, covers, photographs, maps and explanations. The region was apparently first sighted by an expedition seeking the Spice Islands. Soon after, in three years of Pacific and southern latitude exploration between 1772 and 1775, Captain James Cook circumnavigated and defined the whole Antarctic continent. Thereafter, and particularly from the early 20th century, there were numerous expeditions from many countries. Of the many illustrated in Derek’s display, one can recall at random:
· stamps illustrating Shackleton’s most epic of all adventures by open boat to the wrong side of South Georgia and a photo, taken by his marooned crew, of their subsequent rescue, · a newspaper article openly reporting a British ‘secret’ naval expedition to the region to pre-empt enemy action early in World War II, · Fuch’s and Hillary’s mechanized teams that met at the South Pole in 1958.
Many team members were appointed as postmasters at the different outposts and the practice continues at the prolific number of stations remaining, currently about 67. General discussion concluded concerning the political status, tourism and environmental protection for the region.
Visit from Brian Sole 23 April 2008
Brian Sole kindly filled a gap in the society’s programme arising from a scheduled speaker having to cry off. Brian had come to talk to us previously in 1997 and 2002.
Since April 23rd is St George’s day and the birthday (and death commemoration) of William Shakespeare, Brian chose England in particular and Britain in general for his first presentation. Starting from a mint block and cover examples of the Britannia £10 stamps, he continued with a display of the various printer and portrait combinations of the 1988 and 1992 QE high value castles, then some attractive portrayals of English life, mainly from the late 1960s – depicting sports, seaside scenes and historic cities on covers and stamps and labels fashioned after current railway posters.
For his second session, Brian displayed Guernsey stamps and covers, starting from the period in the 1940s immediately after the German occupation of the Channel Islands. Owing to an initial shortage of ½d stamps, the penny values, at the time of the recently-issued attractive 1840 centenary two-monarch issue, were bisected for use on local letters. There followed sheets of the official issue for use during the occupation and some interesting covers of letters sent via the Red Cross postal system.
In 1969 Guernsey (and Jersey) became postally independent and the display was completed by various attractive pictorial issues and Guernsey Europa stamps depicting fairytales.
Competition Night 26 March 2008
Contributions included those from:
Mike Kitson Early postal services in Jamaica
Ian King Simon Bolivar – his place in Argentina’s history and stamps
Bob Clements Victorian GB medley including 1/2d half-size stamps, 2d blues, a Jubilee set and two superb £1 brown-lilacs
Tom Carpenter German Empire 1884 to World War I
Anne Stammers Discovery and mining of gold
Malcolm Gascoyne The Inca trail – post carried mainly on foot between Bogota and Perus in the 1820s.
Brian Moore Covers of early air mail services in the United States
Visit from the North Berks Philatelic Society 12 March 2008The first presentation concerned the stamps of Latvia during that country’s brief independence between World Wars I and II. There was evidently a shortage of paper, even for producing stamps, in 1918 and 1919. Wendy showed a complete set of those issued on the back of German military maps. Besides a variety of thick and thin, lined, watermarked and transparent papers, the backs of beer mats and fruit wrappers were used from time to time during the turmoil caused, after independence, by an aggrieved Russian army and some equally perturbed German-speaking inhabitants. Even so, the authorities somehow afforded to produce triangular air mail stamps in 1921 although only 180 postal items were apparently carried in one year by the sole Riga to Berlin air service. This was followed by what can only be described as a fascinating range of Chinese stamps including: · the first Chinese dragon stamps – large in 1878, and smaller (to save paper) from 1885, perhaps initially mainly for the use of Irishman Sir Robert Hart’s Imperial Maritime Customs Service; · a wealth of overprints whilst there was a delay in producing new stamps in Japan – which finally emerged as the Imperial Chinese Post issue of 1897; · some high value revenue stamps, later in huge demand by Chinese philatelists; · and possibly the last extant cover sent from Chunking in 1949, 10 days before the Chinese Nationalists finally lost their hold on the mainland. After the coffee break there was a thematic display, with stamps depicting early illuminated manuscripts (pages - better suited than pictures to stamp-size reduction) followed by the history of printing, libraries and books. Caxton’s contribution was in bringing printing techniques to Britain and, as a publisher, in effecting standard spelling. Reference was made to the Korean alphabet – it looks like Chinese or Japanese but is in fact letters, like ours, and not word symbols. The last display was a miscellany of mostly oriental items - stamps, ‘tourist sheets’ sold at ports, bus tickets, a costly customs duty bill, makeshift bank notes and equivalent credit notes for Chinese clubs. Especially attractive were some event posters in English or Chinese and a fold-out booklet of expertly forged stamps from the first Japanese issues. A very enjoyable evening of intriguing history and philately with lively audience participation.
|
