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Winter 2010 Newsletter
THE BANANA EXPRESS
Sandra Poole
The advantage, they say, of being untidy is that you are constantly making new discoveries. And so it was with this card that I came across amongst some of my philatelic paraphernalia. To continue the banana theme from previous newsletters, I went to Wikipedia and some tourist travel sites to see what I could find out about the ‘Banana Express’. Before the advent of well-maintained access roads, narrow gauge railways were widely used by South African farmers etc to carry produce from their large farms to central sorting and packing points. From there.linked railways transported it to the coastal ports.
The Alfred County railway line in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal, brought wood, sugar cane and bananas grown in the Harding District the 76miles to Port Shepstone. It opened in 1917 and operated steam locomotives until the mid-70s when they were replaced with diesel. The line closed in 1986, but with a change of ownership, the line reopened and the tourist passenger train was also revived, continuing to operate until 2004. Patons County Narrow Gauge Railway was then granted a permit to continue running it from Port Shepstone to Paddock- just 24 miles. Once again, with its varied scenery of coast, banana plantations, sugar fields and forests, it became popular with tourists until it was suddenly closed down in 2006. Since then, a storm destroyed railway bridges and it is unlikely to reopen. The end of a legend!
Unaddressed philatelic cover, with 1983 South African stamp showing steam locomotive.
Date-stamped 9.11.88. Port Shepstone 2 ring cancel on reverse.
And still counting- there are now 9,097 banana labels on Becky Martz’s website www.beckymartz.com . She is always grateful for donations and I will pass them on. Thanks to those who already give them to me on a regular basis. Stick them in empty stamp booklets for best results.
FROM AN ARTICLE BY DAVID HORRY- Elders and Fyffes
Elders and Fyffes had a small fleet of banana boats- some 24 boats being built in the 1920s to serve both the West Indies and Canaries trade. They were also licensed to carry mails between the West Indies and Bristol. Banana production peaked in the early thirties: by 1936, British goods were barred from direct trade with Nazi Germany, which led to a further decline in trade as Germany set up its own company for the importation of tropical fruit In 1937, the import of bananas from the Canary Islands ceased due the Spanish Civil War. By 1939, the fleet stood at only 21 ships- some having been sold or scrapped after the depression. By 1945, only seven boats survived. SS Carare was mined in the Bristol Channel en route to Jamaica at the end of May 1940 with the loss of ten lives. SS Camito was torpedoed by a U-boat a year later in the North Atlantic. SS Cavina survived the war and was re-named Catusha in 1957 and scrapped just a year later.
In December 1945, SS Tilapa arrived at Avonmouth with the first cargo of bananas since 1940. The SS Ariguani arrived in Bristol in September 1946 from Port Antonio, Jamaica, with 130,000 bunches of bananas and was duly put on passenger duty to Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica. She was joined in 1947 by the SS Bayano which had taken child evacuees to Canada in August 1940, despite having been condemned for salvage the year before The Bayano was re-fitted and ran until 1952 and was finally scrapped in 1956.
(I was kindly given permission to reproduce the above by the author, David Horry, and the editor of Gibbons Stamp Monthly. It was taken from a longer article entitled ‘The Maritime Postmarks of the British West Indies 1937-1955’, which appeared in the September 2009 copy of the magazine. David Horry is the author of ‘The Encyclopaedia of British West Indies Postmarks-King George VI’ a copy of which we have in our Society library, Ed.)
A QUESTION OF NUMBERS
Sandra Poole
The tax disc shown below is from a 1922 De Dion Bouton Tricycle. It is apparently just one of over 120,000 collected by Neil Jones, 36, of Suffolk. This is a world record, accredited by Guinness World Records. (From a recent news item spotted in The Times) Eat your heart out, Chris!
A member asked me what he should do with 1,500 copies of the same stamp. Give one or two away and donate the rest to a charity, I suggested. Since then, I noticed another news item in one of the stamp magazines, regarding a collector who had studied two and a half million examples of just one stamp- the King Edward VII 1d scarlet. He is looking for plate and printing flaws, broken pins and perhaps other things as well. I am not a GB specialist, so don’t know how many plates were used. But 2 ½ million stamps- isn’t that just a tad excessive? And how on earth would you keep track of all the flaws you spotted and record which stamp had which flaw in the first place. And who on earth has the time to actually count to 2 ½ million. The mind more than boggles!
WRITING IT UP WITH IT
David Shipstone
In 2008 I committed myself to giving a display which entailed writing up my accumulated material on the Arctic, thematically. Short of time (as always!) I made two fortunate decisions: to mount my collection on plain A4 card and, most importantly, to write up using my computer. The experience was so good that it is only fair to share the technique that I developed.
A basic approach
Writing up on blank card involves marking the positions of the stamps, covers and so on before mounting them, so the first step is to produce a meaningful scale on your monitor screen. For this you will require a drawing package. I have Microsoft Word which includes one and with that I was able to construct a pair of metric rulers, set at right angles, as shown in Fig.1(b). I have explained how as a footnote.
The 6cm ruler in (a) is divided into 2mm intervals and can be used to make measurements accurate to 0.5mm. I have found a 6cm x 6cm pair large enough for use with stamps but you will need one measuring 18cm, or possibly more, along one side if you plan to mount covers. Before you can use these rulers they must be calibrated, so produce a rectangle on your on-screen page, as large as possible within the limits of your rulers, and print it out. Measure the lengths of its sides to the nearest 0.5mm with a real ruler. On screen, drag your ruler pair up to the rectangle and expand or contract the horizontal and vertical rulers, separately, until they give those same measurements.
To conclude, label the rulers using text boxes, remembering to ‘Group’ these with the arrays of lines
You are now ready to start setting out your stamps. Mounting them within borders looks good and on a commercially-produced set of sheets in my possession the boxes are larger than the stamps by 3.0 – 6.0mm, giving borders from 1.5 – 3.0mm wide.
A rewarding extension
My thematic collection tells a story about the Arctic and its exploration and I found it extremely useful to be able to set it out in finished form, all its eighty-odd pages, on my computer before mounting anything up. To do that I prepared images of the stamps, covers and postcards that I was planning to include, using a scanner, and stored these on my computer. If you do not have a scanner you could use a digital camera instead.
With an item carefully measured and a box of appropriate size prepared on the page I fitted a text box over that, selected ‘No fill’ and ‘No line’ so that this additional box did not itself appear, and inserted the image. (I find that inserting the image alters the size of the text box slightly so it needs readjustment at this stage.) Next I added the caption in a separate text box and grouped the whole lot. I was then able to drag the image, together with its caption, into a suitable position on the page and arrange the text around it. In this way it was possible to view the whole page exactly as it would appear when printed off and mounted up. For a thematic collection the opportunity to reflect on this and ‘tweak’ the layout is a tremendous bonus. When all was ready I ungrouped each item and deleted the image before printing out.
There are several other advantages to this approach. It is very easy to modify a page to include new material that turns up. It is possible, even, to have a change of plan for the collection as a whole without that involving an inordinate amount of work and wastage of materials. Lastly, errors are very easy to correct – and they are so easy to make! It is difficult, for instance, when writing up a large collection, to maintain consistency. In my writing,, I referred at several points to the North West Passage . How many ways can you think of for writing ‘North West’?
One word or two? With or without a hyphen? With or without capital letters? I was astonished just how many variants occur in the literature on the Arctic and how many of these I had used by the time I reached the end of my write-up. But at least it was easy to put the matter right.
Footnote
To produce the ruler shown in Fig.1(a), first draw vertical lines of three different sizes, holding down the ‘Shift’ key in each case to make sure the lines are truly vertical, then copy and paste these lines to produce the desired numbers of each. Drag them into the approximate positions needed to form the ruler and select the whole set. Click ‘Draw’ followed by ‘Align or Distribute’, ‘Align Top’, ‘Distribute Horizontally’ and ‘Group’ in turn. Holding down the ‘Shift’ key, draw the horizontal line across the top and ‘Group’ this with the array to complete the ruler. Copy and paste this to produce the second, identical ruler and rotate this through 90°. Drag and ‘Group’ the rulers to form the composite instrument shown in (b). To avoid possible problems in compressing text boxes it is best not to label the rulers until they have been calibrated.
MISCELLANY
AN OPPORTUNITY LOST: George Kirkham
You may recall that I had to drive a local builder about. What I didn’t realise was that he had a heart condition that made it inadvisable for him to drive; he only made out he couldn’t drive. I had to take him to see the local M.F.H. about some work on the man’s estate. Naturally, I had to sit in the car and wait. Fred wasn’t one for talking, so generally I hadn’t to wait long. I had no sooner settled down to listen to the ‘Navy Lark’ when a maid came to say that Master wanted me (yes, this house had maids). I was conducted to his presence. The exact words escape my memory, but the gist of it was that he had got a block of 4 £1 U.P.U.C and I could buy it for the sum of £30. Mrs Kirkham didn’t raise no fools. I knew that I could buy one for £5.00. That made a block of 4 worth £20.00. Who did he think I was, a mug or something? A few years later, a similar item would have paid off the mortgage on house and gardens. Even if I wasn’t a mug, I was certainly a RATHER large tea-cup!.
ITALIA 2009: Allen Wood
In October, I was able to visit the above international Exhibition in Rome. The exhibition was held in the centre of Rome, with all its traffic congestion. The display frames started at 1001 and ended at 6069 (with a few gaps.). Even in 3 days it was not possible to see and study everything. Suffice to say there were some brilliant displays. If London 2010 is anything like it, we are in for a surfeit of quality material and it should not be missed. It also gives ideas on how to improve one’s own presentation. The dealers- a number from Germany who offered material that we would not normally see in the UK. Good for postal history, but nothing less than 1 euro. The Italian dealers tended to have the more expensive material. I did find a few bargains, but when I found an Ethiopian cover with an express stamp, which I had not seen before, sadly for me, the asking price was outside my budget. All in all, a very pleasant trip.
WIGHTPOST- Sandra Poole (revised Spring 2010)
I was interested to hear that a new private post was to be set up in the Isle of Wight. At present, when mail is sent through the usual channels, i.e. Royal Mail, it is taken over to the mainland for sorting and then returned to the Isle of Wight for delivery. Peter Camplin, trading as Wightpost, was granted a postal operator’s licence on 15 September 2009 to run a new local postal service on the island. I visited his website to find out more. He states that they ‘are a local company set up by local people to supply a local service’. They ‘provide a local same day postal service for letters and small packets posted by midday within the Ryde area, and will expand to the rest of the island by way of franchises’. The idea is to use electric scooters for delivering the mail so as to be ‘green’! I don’t know whether they are operational yet- I have tried to contact Peter Camplin on several occasions- left a message on his website, emailed him three times and left a further message on his phone I have not had a single reply. I wanted to find out the really important thing: has he issued stamps yet?! I was pleased, therefore, when I heard that David Shipstone had arranged a short holiday there in March and grateful that he was willing to make a few enquiries on our behalf. On his return, he reported that he had been told that Wightpost was a strike post in 1971 and that it had issued stamps when there was a concern there would be a strike there. He was also informed that around Christmas 2009, an opportunity had been seen to operate another strike post. When this didn’t materialise, neither did the new post As all my enquiries remain unanswered, I have no way of checking whether the information that David received was correct, but can only assume that this was so- unless YOU can tell me otherwise, of course.
( A photograph of a Wightpost stamp issued during the 1971 postal strike can be seen in the Winter 2012-3 Newsletter )
DO YOU NEED TO BUY NEW CATALOGUES? : David Ball.
Whilst recently having to conquer my inability to master the world of the internet, I registered on a website for one of my other hobbies and found it so simple to use that it gave me thoughts of what is available in respect of stamps. Having purchased early in 2008 the Philex catalogue for Belgium, I found this only went up to October 2007, leaving the problem of finding newer issues with no Gibbons Benelux or Philex being published and Stamp Magazine invariably needing updating. However, after trial and error, I discovered the following, which may assist members, but not all countries are covered by the WNS Participating Stamp issuing authorities. Go on to the Internet, type in the following: ‘All registered stamps issued by (country of choice) in 2008’ (or year of your choice) within Google. You will get Page 1 with the coloured stamps of that country issued which you can print off. Below the last issue on page 1, there will be a row of numbers, which are the other page numbers available. Place the cursor on the page required and click on Most European countries and others such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand appear to be available. Therefore, as the heading states, do you really need to buy an updated catalogue each year, even considering that printing is not entirely cheap? Whilst writing this, the thought occurred to me that other members might have similar advice on philatelic websites that would be beneficial to other collectors.
MEMBERS' DISPLAYS TO THE SOCIETY
On 20 November, Doug Stubbings gave a presentation entitled ‘Canadian Airmails and all Things Military’. Flight covers from around 1918 to 1971 showed flight routes, cachets and slogans, also the individual stamps issued by the different airways operating in the earlier years. This was followed by a military miscellany of stamps and illustrated covers.
4 December- Tony Sibley’s ‘Hotchpotch’ was a miscellany of covers dating from 1816 and covering a variety of subjects- these included worldwide postage dues from 1929-1955; zeppelins with photos, postcards and poster stamps; the Siege of Paris 1870/1 and the ‘Ballon monte’, and material covering airmails in general from the early days to 1950.
18 December – Christmas Meeting and Social. 16 members provided one sheet displays on the usual wide array of subjects. Thanks were given to Maddy Tennant who had prepared all the food and to Allen Wood who had seen to the drinks. The evening raised £75 for The Great Ormond St. Hospital for Children.
OLD MONEY : Sandra Poole
If, like me, you thought that once the euro was introduced all stamps bearing previous currencies would be invalid for postage, you would be mistaken. It is certainly the case for Ireland and Austria, but Belgian stamps from 1962 and Dutch stamps from 1976 are still valid. There are other countries where the old currency stamps may be used, so if you are visiting a European country and have loads of unwanted mint stamps, it might be an idea to check at a post office whether you can still off-load them on to postcards home!
RECORDED DELIVERY: Royal Mail seem, once again, to have an excessive stamp programme for this year, but one fairly recent issue should be welcomed- the stamps incorporating the recorded delivery fee. For once, stamps are replacing unsightly labels rather than the other way round. They look just like the normal 1st class Machin (standard and large letter size) but with ‘RECORDED SIGNED FOR’ inscribed on a yellow background down the left hand side.
MORE GIMMICKS: a friend in Australia reports that he has been sent a miniature sheet from France smelling of chocolate (ok, this has already been done by Switzerland), but he has also received a 3D dinosaur sheet from South Africa. Also included were special glasses with which to view it! Things get sillier all the time.
UNIVERSAL MAIL: All first edition stamps were sold out before the end of 2009. New stamps showing scenes of London have now been produced, along with issues for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and different regions in England. The stamps may now be bought online. Minimum order is 50.
DISCLAIMER: While every care is taken during the production of this newsletter, neither the editor nor the Society officers can accept any liability for views, opinions, or unintentional publication errors that may occur.
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