Lanarkshire Philatelic Society

"My Collections~~Old & New"

Mr. Jim Fulton

Members of the Lanarkshire Philatelic Society greatly enjoyed a ‘confused’ evening at their meeting last Friday! (10^th March) 

LPS member Jim Fulton, of Coatbridge, presented his display of ‘My Collections Old and New’.

He began with a display of Hungary and with stamps and postcards illustrated the beginning of the postal history of this country – beginning with the first stamps issued after Hungary became independent from Austria. These were issued on 1^st May, 1871 and showed the face of Franz Joseph 1. Stamps issued through the years were shown and these included War Charity stamps; Airmails and, in 1926, the issue commemorating the 250^th Anniversary of recapture of Buda from the Turks.

Salonika (now Thessalonika) was next and postcards and stamps outlined the course of the War between 1915-1917 when the Allied Force of British, French, Greek, Italian, Serbian and Russian contingents fought in the Salonika Campaign against the Bulgarian, German, Turkish and Austro-Hungarian Armies - to oppose Bulgarian advances. An interesting set of postcards showed the national dress of each of the Allied Force (including a Scot in a kilt!)

Greece proved to be in a very confused postal state during the Balkan Wars – continuously being defeated and the victorious country would then overprint the Greek stamps with new names and new currency. Over the years stamps were overprinted by France; Bulgaria; Egypt; Turkey; Hungary; Germany; Italy; Russian Levant – and also GB (British Garrison in Crete). There was a great display of all these stamps presented with much humour! 

Jim then continued with another display from Hungary – post WW1 - and illustrating the difference between Hungary pre-WW1 and its much decimated state after the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.

Interesting stamps issued by the Czechoslovak Army in Siberia for use on Military posts and on the Siberian Railway were examined with interest, as were the stamps of ‘The Chainbreaker’ symbolising the Liberation of the country after WW1.

The display ended with a ‘straightforward’ view of annual stamp issues from Spain. Jim had decided to end this collection with the 1939 issues – and ended his wonderful display at this point too.

Mrs. Sheila Sinclair led members in thanking Jim for giving such a ‘confusing’ and yet most humorous and immensely enjoyable display.

Our next meeting in the Caledonian Bowling Club, Motherwell Road, Hamilton, is on Friday, 31^st March, 2017, at 7:30pm when members are asked to display ‘8 sheets or pay 50p’. 

Anyone with an interest in stamps, postal history, postcards etc is very welcome to attend.