Lanarkshire Philatelic Society

"Cinderellas" ~ Mr Sam Sankus

"Scottish Castles" ~ Mr. John Potter

Two society members entertained us with material from their collections at our latest meeting. 

Sam Sankus undertook the first round one with his collection of "Cinderella" material. Sam started with "Airport Tax" labels from Australia, followed by other "revenue" labels  such as fishing & duck hunting licences from the USA. Hollywood film star labels issued in support of the WW2 US war benevolent fund featured together with Military Stamps printed, during WW1, by the Parisian, Delandre which featured (amongst others) UK, Russian, Italian and Scottish Regiments. Railway stamps from Lundy Island (it doesn't have a railway!) along with local stamps for Soho (London), Herm and Pabay Island, followed by baggage labels for such exotic destinations as Western Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand. Specially printed labels for business promotions/exhibitions featured, these coming principally from the USA & UK. Sam's final board showed an array of labels from Airlines, Motoring Organisations & Hotels followed by a few "banknotes" with stamps in the designs.

After our break, John Potter then gave us his display of "Scottish Castles". He showed us 80 sheets of Postcards, along with mail showing the appropriate cancellation marks, but only managed to get as far as the letter "D" in the alphabet! (We wonder how many cards and related cancellations John's actually collected!) Amongst his display John showed cards, for all of which he'd written a brief history, from Balmoral (the only Scottish Castle to have its own postmark), Blair Castle, with a pictorial of the Athol Highlanders (Britain's only private army), Cadzow Castle (Hamilton), Dumfries, Cambusnethan and Culzean.  Other castles to feature were Aboyne, Craigmiller (Edinburgh), Castle Milk (Glasgow), Dornoch, Dunvegan and Dunure. One interesting item of mail was a Victorian letter from Bothwell Castle addressed to the "Inspector of Poor" at Neilston.

Dr Brian Dow, in proposing the Vote of Thanks, complimented both gentlemen on the amount of work and research they'd done.