Lanarkshire Philatelic Society

Visit

by

Old Eastwood Philatelic Society

Four members, Douglas Arthur; Ray Glanville-Jones; Norman Riley & James Mackay of Old Eastwood Philatelic Society took time out to show us their displays at this meeting.

Leading off was Douglas who gave us an in depth study of the De La Rue printed "Key Plate" issues of Kings Edward VII and George V from Fiji (which, of course, are of particular interest to your webmaster!) which included examples from the two plates and of the various shades, and colours, used at the time. He followed with display sheets of the King George VI definitive series (Fiji's first pictorial definitives) showing plate & imprint blocks, varieties (of which only some are listed by Gibbons) and the, rarely seen, "Specimen" perfins.

Following Douglas was Ray with a philatelic tour of British Empire Africa and the Middle East. Starting with the Arab Dhows issue of Aden, Ray took us through the many and various, but principally, definitive stamps of Kenya, Nigeria (a particularly prolific stamp issuing country), to Nyasaland, Rhodesia & Gambia. Ray concluded his "tour" with stamps from Natal, Cape of Good Hope, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Zululand and South West Africa (South African stamps overprinted) which included the rare "Missing Jubilee Line" error.

For the second round Norman took over with an amazing display/collection of Australian stamp books. He explained he's tried to limit his collection to books issued pre-2000, but was still collecting them to this day!  Amongst these many books were issues for both rugby and cricket world cups, HM Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday and her Golden Jubilee. 

Finally James Mackay, the renowned philatelic writer, gave us a display of German local issues of the 19th Century. These included covers, postcards, postage dues and even overprints. He explained how the system worked with different companies having different coloured letter boxes and how some postal stationery even had posting instructions included. Some of the companies plagiarised stamps of other countries. Postal authorities represented included Munich, Hamburg and Münchengladbach. Other areas represented included Danzig, Strasbourg, and Stettin (all of which were, at that time, part of Germany).

The Vote of Thanks was given by Brian Dow.