(Page 2) Winter 2020 Newsletter
SOCIETY AND OTHER NEWS
Happy New Year and welcome to the New Decade.
Congratulations to Minou and Bryan Button who celebrated their Diamond Wedding on 18 August 2019.
Thanks to Bill Whitaker who is our new Packet Manager. One packet has completed the circuit and two more are in circulation. More filled booklets are now needed. A few empty booklets are available at meetings.
Anyone wishing to join the circuit, please see Bill.
Members displaying to other societies: on 12 Nov, Mick Inger presented ‘Collections, Selections’ at Chesterfield and the next day Bill Whitaker displayed ‘WW2 Censored Mail and POW Mail’ to the British Society of Australian Philately, London. Alan Squires gave a display entitled ‘British Antarctic Territory’ on 19 Nov at Coventry and Sandra Poole showed a frame of Scandinavian Revenues to the SPS on 30 Nov. Mike Siverns displayed ‘Elephants’ on 14 January at Leicester PS.
Forthcoming Displays at our Society
7 Feb Cinderella Miscellany Sandra Poole
A moment with Mickey Maddie Tennant
21 Feb Animal, Vegetable or Mineral Members (10 sheets max)
29 Feb Annual Auction at Ruddington Confirmed
6 Mar New Zealand Andrew Dove
18 Mar Annual Dinner at Ashmores Radcliffe-on Trent
20 Mar The Boxer Rebellion Mick Britton
3 Apr Trains, Boats or Planes Members (10 sheets max)
17 Apr AGM and One Sheet Displays Members
Forthcoming Displays at the Greater Nottingham Co-operative Society
12 Feb Members’ Evening
11 Mar Commonwealth Antarctica Brian Clayton
8 Apr To be notified Maurice Garton
Forthcoming Displays at Derby PS
13 Feb The Committee Display
12 Mar USA Confederate States Patriotic Covers, Part 2 John Walker
9 Apr Visit from Loughborough PS
Forthcoming Displays at Radcliffe-on-Trent PS
13 Feb New Zealand 1d Universal Post Brian Clayton
27 Feb Postal History of Oundle Richard Capon
12 Mar GB KGV Sea Horses Mike Kentzer, Slania’s Engravings Terry Wragg
SOCIETY AUCTION UPDATE: Auction will take place on 29 Feb at Ruddington. Tables to be set up 9am, lots to be there at 9.15am. starts 12.30.
Annual Dinner: Radcliffe-on-Trent PS is celebrating its 40th anniversary in March and they would like to share the occasion with Nottingham PS. A joint annual dinner has been arranged at Ashmores Restaurant in Radcliffe-on -Trent on 18 March, 6.30 for 7. Price: £22, payable in advance.
SUCCESS AT PHILACUENCA 2019
Congratulations to Oswaldo Ponce who was recently awarded a bronze medal in the thematic class for his exhibit entitled ‘Maps on Stamps’ at Philacuenca 2019 in Ecuador. This was the first time he had competed in a national philatelic exhibition; perhaps others will be inspired to do the same.
DISPLAY REPORTS BY DOUGLAS HARVEY
Across the Middle East by Air and Land (1918-30)- Laurence. Kimpton, 1 Nov 2019. After the end of the First World War, Iraq was under British occupation, but the postal service was unsatisfactory. The RAF commenced aerial post flights in 1918 providing a connection between Baghdad and Cairo. By 1921, postal communication between Iraq and Britain took 17 days using airmail services. A competitive service using overland transport commenced in 1923. Initially, cars were used, but later a weekly bus service was established. To distinguish between the two services, envelopes had additional labels indicating either Air Mail or Overland. The RAF service was replaced by Imperial Airways in 1926, but Nairn Eastern Transport continued the bus service in to the 1930s. The introductory talk by Laurence Kimpton gave a full account of the development and included some splendid photographs of the aircraft used, together with superb postal documentation.
Competition Evening- 15 November 2019. Bill Whitaker repeated his success of last year by winning both the Traditional and Thematic competitions. The Traditional entry was the Kangaroo and Map Issue of Australia and the thematic entry was entitled ‘Australia at Leisure’. Chris Tennant also repeated his Open Class win with ‘Great Western Railway Letter Stamps’. Mike Siverns won the Postal History Class with ‘North West Frontier’. The other competition entries were from Mick Inger (Traditional- ‘Norway Numerals’ and Thematic- ‘The Zeppelin Story’); Mike Siverns (Traditional- ‘Belgian Congo’) and Richard Capon (Thematic- ‘European Orchids’). Richard was also awarded the Novice Cup as this was his first main competition entry. Noncompetitive displays were also contributed by David Shipstone, Chris Tennant and Bryan and Minou Button. The meeting was chaired by Bill Whitaker, who also presented the trophies. Allen Wood and Alan Squires judged the event.
An Evening Abroad- Frank Broad, FRPSL and Jenny Broad, 6 Dec. 2019. In 1918, part of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire was reorganised to form Yugoslavia. Hastily-produced overprints of Hungarian stamps were issued in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina, whilst Serbia already had stamps available. The port of Fiume was under Italian administration and quickly replaced the overprinted Hungarian stamps with new designs. Fiume was incorporated into Italy in 1924. The other states introduced their own stamp issues using printers in the region and elsewhere. This gave rise to a large selection of colour and printing varieties. To meet the demands of collectors, forged overprints of the Hungarian stamps were made. National stamps for Yugoslavia were finally issued in 1921, bringing an end to the issues from the individual states. In the display, a detailed analysis of the overprints and early issues was presented, with examples from all the states and identification of the printers used. The forged overprints were also displayed. The collection was assembled by Frank and Jenny Broad over a period of time and is now almost complete.
Members’ Evening- Something from the 1940s, 3 January 2020, Ten members presented items from the 1940s. The non-philatelic displays ranged from personal items, wartime letters, official Christmas cards and family heirlooms to licences and taxation documents and labels. Stamps from Australia, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands were on show. An interesting coincidence was the display of items from the Channel Islands, including stamps, undercover mail and covers from occupied Guernsey and Jersey, taxation stamps from the islands and taxation permits from the Isle of Man.
The President Entertains and Celebrates- Bill Whitaker, 17 Jan 2020. Our President, Bill Whitaker, has become an octogenarian and he invited members of the Society to this celebration. A collector since the Silver Wedding issues of 1948, he has specialised in Australia. The first part of the display showed his collecting interests, ranging from the censored wartime mail, through undelivered to missent mail to old maps on stamps and incorrect postal usage. In part 2, a thematic look at the development of Australia through philately included natural scenery and wildlife. The celebration included a splendid buffet. Vice President Brian Clayton and Hon. President Allen Wood gave the Society’s thanks to Bill for the presentation and Chris and Maddie Tennant for help with the buffet.
SPECIALIST PHILATELIC SOCIETIES
ALAN SQUIRES
If you collect a specific area of philately there is a good chance there will be a specialist society which covers your area of interest. Some of these societies become very specialised and can be off putting for the average collector who merely wishes to obtain more information on what is going on in their area of collecting.
I have been, and still am, an active member of a number of societies. Some did not fill me with enthusiasm as they were concerned with fine detail in the printing of one particular stamp or issue. I have no problem with people who go down this route, but it is not for me.
I have access to information from a wide range of experts in the areas that I specialise in. I gain from their acquired knowledge and the books and pamphlets that they produce. My library, which started when the only philatelic book I knew was Gibbons Catalogue, has now expanded beyond belief. I admit I have not read all of them, and the ones I have read have faded from my memory. They come in useful because I know I have the information I need, somewhere. Societies often produce a regular magazine which can enhance your knowledge and understanding of the area you collect. I have often read about a scarce cover or newly discovered flaw on a stamp and gone to my albums with bated breath to check. Only to be disappointed when I discover mine is the usual variety.
I recently read a series of articles spread over three issues of Polar Post, the magazine of the Polar Postal History Society of Great Britain. It was about the issue of stamps for the Tenth Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty and their use on First Day Covers. Apparently, there had not been any Crown Agent FDCs for Halley Bay, or none that could be found. There were only four covers known from Halley that had First Day Cover stamped on them. Of course, I had to check. I was convinced I had such a cover. Even when I found it, I was still not sure. The authors were asking for scans or information on any FDCs for Halley Bay with this issue. It took several days of agonising before I apologetically sent them a scan of my cover as I was still not convinced it was what they were looking for.
Two e-mails confirmed I had such a cover, now one of five known. Fame and fortune at last. Well really just another cover in my collection that needs to be re-written so I do not forget why it is so important to about two dozen people worldwide!
The cover is an unaddressed plain envelope as can be seen below. I bought it as long ago as 2015, probably from a stamp fair, for a few pounds not knowing how important it might be one day. Of course, there may be hundreds of collectors out there thinking just like me, and it ends up we all have these FDCs without knowing that they may be important.
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Midweek Fairs at the Nuthall Temple Centre- Nottingham Road, NG16 DP: 12 Feb, 8 Apr. 10 June, 12 Aug, 14 Oct, 9 Dec.
Advance Notice: London 2020- 2-9 May 2020 at the Business Design Centre. To maximise frame use, exhibits will be swapped on 6 May. This is one not to miss. Further details: www.london2020.co
Spring Newsletter- please send or hand in photos, comments, articles (must be original), reports or other philatelic items before the end of March or email the editor: sandy.poole@ntlworld.com .
A 61-year-old Japanese postman has, allegedly, recently been discovered with 24,000 undelivered items of mail at his house- these have built up since 2003, apparently. It is said that he couldn’t be bothered to deliver them and didn’t want to lose face with his younger colleagues.
AUSTRALIA'S POST AND THE 1941 WAR TAX
DAVID SHIPSTONE
The George VI definitive stamps that were around in Australia at the beginning of December 1941 have been classified into two sets in the Stanley Gibbons British Commonwealth catalogue. The small format stamps of the first of these, SG164-175, were perforated 13½ x 14 in the sheet and proved difficult to separate. New perforations, 15 x 14, were adopted to resolve the problem and these distinguish the stamps of the second set, SG179-192, which will be our main concern.
The 1d green and 2d red stamps illustrated below, redrawn versions of their earlier, unpopular equivalents, with improved lettering and solid backgrounds, were issued in 1938, little more than a year after their predecessors. New plates had been produced in the process and, for technical reasons, proved to be necessary for all of the denominations before the new perforations could be used. It was November 1940 before the next stamp was issued, the 3d bright blue. This was followed in March 1941 by the 1/- grey-green Lyre Bird stamp (not illustrated here) and the 1½d maroon that November. The 3d and the 1½d were both short-lived. The 1/- stamp played no part in the changes that followed but the 5d Merino Ram from the earlier set did..
Australia’s Budget for 1941 included provision for a rise of a ½d in the general postage rates as a ‘war tax’. Obviously, this would have resulted in a huge demand for the ½d orange Kangaroo stamps if no action had been
taken, but the Postmaster-General announced on 19 October that some new stamps would be made available. The seven stamps illustrated on p. 9 were all issued on 10 December 1941, although only four of them, the 1d, 1½d, 2d and 3d stamps in changed colours, are included in the second set. The other three, SG200-202, the provisional stamps with overprinted values, appear as a separate set, later in the catalogue but with the same date of issue. There a footnote explains that these ‘were prepared in connection with the imposition of a ½d ‘war tax’ on most postage rates. So were the other four. There is, therefore, a sound historical reason for departing from the catalogue order and mounting all seven of these stamps together.
The colours of stamps which paid the basic rates for international postage conformed with the agreement reached by the International Postal Convention. The 1d stamp which had previously paid that rate for sending printed matter to countries outside the British Empire had to be green, under that agreement, and so did the new 1½d stamp which served that same function. Similarly, the old 2d and new 2½d stamps had to be scarlet (postcard rate to foreign countries) while the old 3d and new 3½d stamps (paying the corresponding letter rate) had to be blue. Preserving the association, wherever possible, between the colours of stamps and their postal functions was desirable for the work of the sorting offices in any case. Since plates were already available for printing 1d, 1½d, 2d and 3d stamps, as we have seen, it was a simple matter to print these in their new colours. There were no plates available at that time for printing 2½d, 3½d and 5½d stamps, however, so existing stocks of 2d scarlet, 3d blue and 5d purple stamps were surcharged. Two of the stamps deserve special mention. Neither the 1d maroon nor the purple-brown 3d stamp resulted from the addition of the ½d tax to an existing postage rate. There had never been a ½d rate in Australia since the end of the First World War and the new 1d stamp was introduced to pay the Armed Forces letter rate, which was exempt from the tax in any case. The purple-brown 3d stamp was a replacement for the 3d blue and was needed to pay the fee for either registration or internal airmail. Both of those fees were unchanged because the ½d War Tax was payable only once on each item posted and so did not affect ‘extras’ such as these. The new 1d and 3d stamps were therefore additions to the prevailing scheme. In all other respects the relationship between stamp colour and function was preserved.
Designs for new royal portrait stamps with Australian symbolism in their borders had been put in hand in November 1940, more than a year before the War Tax was imposed. These, SG203-208, gradually replaced all of the December 1941 issue except the 3d value which, because of the wattles in its borders, fitted very comfortably into the new scheme.
Most of these new stamps were issued during 1942, but none of them before supplies of the corresponding earlier stamps were becoming scarce. Mounting this set beneath the December 1941 issues shows very clearly how the colour scheme was carried forward. The 5½d Emu stamp is the odd one out, slate-blue instead of purple, because the purple 5d Merino Ram remained in use.
The eventual removal of the ½d War Tax on 1 July 1949 had no philatelic consequences because the postal rates to which it had applied were simultaneously increased by ½d. From that date on, all of those ha’pennies simply went into the coffers of the Post Office, rather than to the Exchequer.
I am grateful to Bill Whitaker for providing information on Australia’s postal rates over this period.
PARCEL LETTERBOXES
SANDRA POOLE
After successful trials in different places across Britain (Nottingham was not one of them), Parcel boxes sprung up all over the place. But they weren’t new boxes, they were just the old boxes for pre-franked mail given a new name and a coat of paint. Here’s a local one. The parcels have to be pre-paid, so you have to buy postage online or at the post office. To do it the modern way, you go to Royal Mail online, type in weight and measurement of the parcel and check the requisite postage. I was ok so far. Then you have to print a postal label. Print a label? No problem- there was a link to a video on You tube, giving you step by step instructions. I didn’t watch it to the end; as a dinosaur, I think affixing my ready-made stamps is a lot quicker than printing my own!
The new model (left) and the original box for franked mail (right)
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Once again, Royal Mail is on the ball: This arrived on 1st December:
ROYAL MAIL LABELS AND MARKS
S AND R POOLE
This cover has been a bit of a puzzle to decipher. It is the standard prepaid envelope, a little larger than A5, that DWP clients are given for sending in their documents without charge. I have had to crop the full handwritten address to the job centre in Nottingham, but below this is a postal barcode, ‘Freepost’, printed address of the job centre on Parliament St., Nottingham, and then that of the post-handling site in Wolverhampton. Why would these two different addresses occur together? And why were there two signed for labels? These would have to have been paid for before the parcel was accepted, so why was an additional ‘postage due’ label later applied?
It’s quite simple when you know the answer.
All these covers are sent directly to the post-handling site in Wolverhampton, where they are dealt with.
The one-line address above this identifies the job centre that it has been sent from. The small barcode under the ‘1’ in the illustration above shows that the item originates from the Department for Works and Pensions. When scanned, it reveals the number 662416.
The client had a pre-paid envelope but decided that he would pay for ‘the signed for’ service, and the red and white label was duly applied; that should have been the end of the story and a far less-interesting cover. The person who sent the letter originally added his name and address at the top of the envelope (only the last line is visible) and forgot to cover the Wolverhampton address. The people at Wolverhampton assumed that the letter had to go back to Nottingham and paid for the ’signed for’ service, hence the Horizon label’ Unfortunately, they didn’t pay for the postage for its trip back, hence the ‘postage due’ label. The postage due label is interesting in itself. It shows a sketch of a parcel, with ‘Fee to pay*/ £1.32’ below, followed by ‘Item underpaid/ *incl. £1.50 handling fee.’ How can £1.32 include £1.50? The fee, as from Nov 2015, should be £1.50.
The part cover below is also interesting and also comes from the DWP. In this case, the employee had unthinkingly enclosed this large envelope, c. 30 x 22.5cm, folded in two and with his own name and the job centre’s address on it, in another envelope, which he then sent to the client. The client then returned his documents as requested. Unfortunately, the prepaid postage on these envelopes is only valid from the DWP, not to it, hence the postage due labels for unpaid postage.
There is still one puzzle left, however: the white label to the right of the cover was applied on 2 July 2019 and the red label shows the date ‘22-7’ in script. (20 days later.) It is normal practice to hold an item awaiting collection for 18 days, but it also states that the item was ‘not called for’, and here it is on my desk, given to me by the person to whom it was addressed! In fact, if an item is not collected or if payment is refused, it is returned to the sender. No payment was made for this item and, ironically, it reached the destination for which it was originally destined free of charge!
(Left) Prepaid first-class postage, cropped from top right.
Right) Additional label explaining sender had not paid the full postage. The label was affixed to the top left side of the cover. An identical label would have been attached to the card sent to the addressee notifying them of the item with unpaid postage and making it easier to find when collected.
The yellow postage due labels were introduced in the early 1990s; before this, of course, there were postal charge marks going back to the year dot and postage due stamps that were discontinued, probably, soon after the yellow labels came into use. At first, there was a charge for the deficient postage and a fixed handling fee. The lowest I have (and I don’t really collect them, just don’t throw them away) is for 50p, followed by 80p and then £1. (See below). The labels are pre-printed with the most usual unpaid amounts, but others are left blank so figures can be added by hand, as is the case with the first two stamps shown here. In the case of the 4th stamp, the figures have, presumably, been added by machine and not too accurately! When ‘pricing in proportion’ was introduced on 26 August 2006, the number of underpaid items, unsurprisingly, increased.
In 2015, a flat fee for unpaid and underpaid items was introduced. Instead of charging a fee for the amount of unpaid postage plus a handling fee, there would just be one fee: £1.50 for an underpaid letter, standard or large, and £2 if no postage had been paid. In the case of a small parcel, a fee of £3 would apply whether the postage was insufficient or unpaid. There was a change of design as would be expected.
The following items are more unusual. The first, dated 1996, shows that someone has checked that the postage paid is correct. The second, sent in November 2006, warns that the item has been underpaid, shows the rates increased in August that year and does not charge the offender. WOW!
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More gifts received at the 2nd World Cinderella Stamp Congress at Stockholmia 2019.2
FATHER CHRISTMAS MAIL
SANDRA POOLE
At a quick glance, this could be a real Post Office letterbox, albeit decorated, but the ‘Letters to Santa’ collection plate rather gives the game away. It was spotted on Bridlesmith Gate at the beginning of December. I wonder how many letters were received in these days of e-mail.
The letter above and the brightly illustrated envelope in which it came was sent from Iceland to England in 1983.
Christmas is over, the days are getting longer and Spring is on its way!
DISCLAIMER: Whilst every care is taken during the production of this newsletter, neither the editor nor the Society officials can accept any liability for views, opinions or unintentional publication errors which occur in this newsletter.