The Great Britain Philatelic Society
Press Release FORTHCOMING MEETINGS Saturday 30 September 2023 - Stampex MeetingThe first meeting the new season of the GBPS will be on Saturday 30 September 2023 at Stampex in the Business Design Centre, Islington from 2:00pm. The society meeting room will now be on the “Village Green” area (the area you first encounter in the hall when entering through the main doors from the BDC foyer and where the Welcome Desk is situated). At this meeting John Copeland FRPSL will be giving a display entitled “Bells – A Photographic Postcard Publisher 1902-1957”. John says, ‘’The display is an account of the history of the Bells’ Photo Company, Limited and its postcards. This company was a significant producer of topographical photographic picture postcards of Great Britain with these appearing under their own name, without a publisher’s name and a few under the names of other businesses from the early 1900’s to the mid 1950’s. Up to about 1920 they also produced a number of postcards showing ships of the Royal Navy and other naval topics, while just after World War II they produced some comic postcards. The display includes examples of all of these and also postcards and other documents which throw a light on the business and the production of its postcards.” Saturday 28 October 2023 – All Day Meeting (partly over Zoom) The GBPS meeting on Saturday 28 October 2023 will be held at the Royal Philatelic Society, 15 Abchurch Lane, London EC4N 7BW from 11:00 a.m. The morning session will consist of a display from Hugh Feldman RDP FRPSL entitled “The Mail Coach Age in Britain”. This will consist of an initial PowerPoint presentation available live via Zoom (and recorded for later offline viewing) followed by a traditional room only display. Hugh says “The Royal Mail, from its inception by Royal Proclamation in 1635 employed a network of “Post Boys” riding horse to carry the mails between London and the provinces and on cross post roads. The transmission of letters was limited to an average speed not much faster than a brisk walk and the mails were not secure. The post boys were frequently robbed of their pouches, or they themselves absconded with the mail as some mails carried either financial instruments or valuables. In the early 1780s the former theatre owner, John Palmer of Bath proposed the use of coaches to carry the mail. He suggested, in 1784, to William Pitt the Younger, the recently installed Prime Minster and Chancellor of the Exchequer that an experiment be conducted on the Bristol to London Road to prove the effectiveness of this form of transport. The first Royal Mail coach left Bristol on 2 August 1784 for London taking just 15 hours for the journey compared to the 48 to 60 hours taken by a horse rider. Palmer was appointed Controller of the Post Office and within two years had established a network of mail coach routes. For the next 50 years Palmer’s system carried securely an ever-increasing volume of mail, the coaches being accompanied by an armed guard. With the establishment of the railroads the mail was gradually moved from road to rail with the last mail coach being retired in 1857. The display illustrates the carriage of the mails on the principal post roads to and from London between 1784 and 1840.” The afternoon session starting at 2:15pm will be a display from Dave Simmons entitled “London District Postal History”. This will be a traditional two-laydown display. Dave says “My display is for the postmarks used in the London Districts - oval cancellers with the numbers in circles, from 1844 to the 1900’s this seems a long period, and it is, but the variants in canceller is quite interesting. I think so anyway! The collection starts with the 1st series and, to some, the best. These were first issued on the 20 May 1844 and continued for a long time for some offices (the latest I have seen used is 1889 of Bow12), there were recuts of these cancellers with some striking differences and other times subtle differences. There was a transition from the 10 rides or routes to the division of London into districts in 1857 and this gave rise to the use of district initials when addressing a letter. Then the 1861 series and the introduction of the letter B to the office numbers and generally these were all sub offices, their parent office holding the 1st series canceller. Finally, we lead to the 3rd series - vertical ovals, which in my opinion are much understudied and just as scarce as the earlier issues. As a conclusion there are examples of town office cancellers which are different in format so can be regarded in a different light also, unusually, some of these offices were issued duplex cancellers.” Full details of the Great Britain Philatelic Society can be found at www.gbps.org.uk For more information about membership, go to: http://www.gbps.org.uk/join
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1. How did you get into the hobby? My first job after college was working shifts in Dover Docks. Being a lazy teenager all I did until it was time to go and work was lie in bed! I needed a change and Richard Kennedy, now owner of Folkestone Stamps said there was a job going at Benham. I was interviewed by Tony Buckingham and a lady called Sherry but by the time I started, a month later, she had told Tony where to stick his job; I was thrown in at the deep end and here I am nearly 40 years later. 2. What do you like about it ? It is a corny answer, but I think every day you discover something new, and not just a cover you have not seen before, it might be a signer for one of our covers or, more recently, learning about the ins and outs of our new website and how to get the best out of it. 3. Tell us your best stamp related memory / story ? I think I will split my answer in two. With new issue covers, and because it is local, I would say carrying lots of the Channel Tunnel covers on the first journeys. On one day I delivered covers to the Royal Train at Waterloo via dropping covers off to Major John Howard who took Pegasus Bridge during the raids on D-Day. On the older covers, we were offered our best ever collection just coming out of lock down. We did not make our fortune, but nearly every cover in it was the best one for that particular issue. 4. What is your favourite thing about Stampex? I always look forward to meeting our customers, some of them I have known since my first Stampex at the Horticultural Halls in the mid-1980s. I am always interested to see what they have been buying around the hall, I think it gives you a good feel of current trends. 5. Do you collect? If so, what do you collect & what is your favourite piece ? I have been in trouble for this answer before, but no not stamps, I don’t think you can be a dealer and collector, or at least I can’t, I need to keep things black and white. Personally, music is my passion and I have a wall filled with CDs and am never happier than cuddling a warm pint at the back of a strange gig. In stamps, I am very interested in the life of postmark collector George King from South London. It is not about listing all the postmarks he did, as there would lie madness, I am more interested in him. For example, I have been given access to the letters he wrote to his parents during World War I. I can only work on it as time allows, but I would love for it to become a book or website at some point. 1. How did you get into the hobby?
I got in the hobby a little over 4 years ago, when I started working here at HipStamp. I had family who collected before that, but working here got me much more immersed into the community, where I was able to grow and find more of a passion for philately. 2. What do you like about it? My favorite thing about the hobby is the way it connects people from all walks of life. There's something for everything in stamp collecting, no matter who you are or what your background is. In one day of my job, I can connect with members of the philatelic community in Australia, Singapore, Japan, France, and then with PTS in the UK. Stamps have a unique way of bringing people together and I appreciate that. 3. Tell us your best stamp related memory / story? I got married in 2021 and had the best time purchasing stamps to use on the envelopes. I decided to get topical stamps to use on invitations that were hyper-specific to each guest being invited. It was a fun way to share philately with my friends and family and personalize our letters to them. For example, I have some cousins with younger children and I used Sesame Street and Disney stamps on their envelopes. I was told the kids absolutely loved them! 4. What is your favourite thing about Stampex? Recently I had the pleasure of attending virtual Stampex. I really enjoyed the Roundtables hosted by various PTS members! The ability for everyone to gather and have stamp-related conversations in a virtual setting was great. Each person had a voice, and I appreciated the opportunities for conversations with people that I otherwise would not have had. I would love to see more of this in the future. 5. Do you collect? If so what do you collect & what is your favourite piece? I do collect! I am mostly a topical collector, but I also dabble in some of the more Classic US stamps as well. My favorite piece changes over time, but I really love a new addition to my collection I got, a ballet topical stamp, from Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet," a MNH Sweden #1141 (1975). It's nothing particularly valuable or expensive, but it's such a beautiful stamp! In this new regular feature. We ask PTS Members to choose three of their favourite things from their websites and why. Here Brian Austin, from Buckingham Covers shares his: 1. First, I need to choose a Buckingham Cover, which is tricky, I like it when everything clicks into place. So for the 2020 James Bond Issue, we worked with 007 Magazine and George Lazenby was our main signer. Getting people to agree to sign is incredibly difficult, and there is always a great buzz round the office when we get a yes. Via signers we have raised over £850,000 for charity since 2001, it would be great to get over £1,000,000 in the next few years. https://www.buckinghamcovers.com/james-bond-signed-george-lazenby 2. I like a mystery…who produced these illustrated covers? They’re always unaddressed with the Preston Brighton CDS. The covers are from Sanders, but whoever did the Brighton postmark knew what they were doing, but only seemed to do the Wilding issues. Why did they not do other covers? Not sure if I want to find out or not! https://www.buckinghamcovers.com/080254-9d-10d-11d-illustrated 3. With a new set of stamps every month, don’t forget the older issues. This is a lovely clean cover for the 1973 Parliament issue with a special postmark and just great value at £10, so half the price of a new cover. So, I won’t say it is my favourite but a great example of everything being right, including value and if you could get the Prime Minister to sign it, it would be worth £50 - £75.
https://www.buckinghamcovers.com/1973-parliamentary-ldn-sw1-pm |
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