Lanarkshire Philatelic Society
Mr Sandy Forbes
"Aspects of Australia"
Retired architect Sandy Forbes, currently President of the British Society of Australian Philately, gave a most interesting display on his subject at this meeting.
His first round was a display of King George VI definitives and early commemorative stamps. He showed the original definitives along with overprints, coil stamps (from vending machines) and even the re-entries (where worn plates are re-cut for continued use). His comprehensive display of commemorative included (amongst others) the Centenary of the First Postage Stamps; Australian Imperial Forces, Opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge, Peace Issue; Kingsford-Smith (pioneer aviator); Silver Jubilee of King George V & Queen Mary; and the Opening of the submarine telephone cable to Tasmania. He also included various colour shades, papers and perforations associated with these issues.
His second round consisted, principally, of a study of the King George V "Heads " definitive issue. He explained how he'd bought a "sack load" of these stamps, spread them out on his dining room table (resulting in he and his wife eating in the kitchen!) and had reconstructed each of the 8 printing plates used for these stamps. He then explained through meticulous drawings (easy for an architect!) how he'd positioned each, and every, stamp and had catalogued their (sometimes minute) flaws as well as their various shade differences. To conclude his display Sandy showed some early Queensland stamps, again showing variations in watermarks, dies, and colour shades along with some early South Australia, which actually stated life as a private company, showing stamps with colour, watermark variations as well as material with some glaring spelling mistakes; eignt instead of eight, suoth instead of south and austrlaia instead of australia these being the result of the private company producing their material as cheaply as possible.
An most interesting evening's display was accorded a warm vote of thanks by Ian MacPherson.