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Winter 2012 Newsletter

A RARE BARGAIN FROM EBAY!

S.POOLE

Some better local post items have been going for way above their catalogue prices, so I was amazed when I bought this cover for peanuts. I am not pretending this is a rare or valuable cover, but I do think it may have gone for more had it been listed under GB rather than ‘byposts’. I have been charged, in the past, around £30 for a normal Norwegian letter with additional Christiania ‘bypost’ mark for final delivery by the official local postal service. And this one does have a GB 6d stamp, nice postmark and other markings. I reckon £8.75 plus postage was a bargain. Pity about the address being upside down, though!

ANDRÉ BUZIN AND THE IDEAL CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

Minou Button

I wanted to give my husband the ideal Christmas present and as heavy hints were dropped by him about Buzin I looked. André Buzin, born in 1946 in Dinant, is a Belgian painter of birds and flowers, and other subjects, well-known for the definitive bird stamps series of Belgium.

His first stamp designs were designed for Zaire in 1984. It is a stamp I am very fond of as my father died very near and I was born fairly near the Parc de la Garamba.

For Africa, he also created later some stamp series for Mauritania, Rwanda and Sénégal

In the 1990s Buzin began designing stamps about flowers for booklets and he has also designed stamps with insects, dogs and other subjects; they are always characterized by a great fineness and accuracy. His philatelic endeavours have been rewarded by about twenty philatelic artistic prizes in Belgium, together with the prestigious "Prix du Roi" in 1995.

In 1984, he prepared some paintings of birds that were accepted by the Belgian postal authority. This led in 1985 to the issue of the first stamps of the Bird series for which he is best known and which are still in use more than twenty-five years later.

For Luxembourg he designed a delightful Christmas stamp in 2008.

The bird designs have been used on postcards, and even the label for a wine bottle. He has designed some 300 stamps to-date and counting. He must be doing something well, as some forgeries have been attempted. And.... to commemorate 20 years of this successful series, Belgaposte, the Belgian postal system, has made available a limited number of boxes - 5000 of them. Each box contains A4 size drawings of each of the birds used on the definitive stamps up to the date of the launch, about 100 drawings, and includes a frame allowing the lucky recipient to display the bird he fancies and change it whenever he chooses. One of these lucky Christmas recipients is called Bryan; you may know him.

As to the other Christmas present - I did indeed say presents - well, he received a promissory note for “a can of worms”.... I kid you not - but that is another tale and I do not intend to bore you with it now.

CAMPIONE

Douglas Harvey

If you stand in Lugano and look across the lake, you can see Campione. It is a small Italian town, entirely surrounded by Switzerland. Campione can only be reached from Italy by entering Switzerland or by a boat trip on Lake Lugano. When I visited, the bridge across Lake Lugano had recently been opened, which makes Campione more accessible, but at the time of the Second World War, the Italian community was completely isolated from Italy. Postal communication with Italy was intermittent and in 1944, the town issued its own stamps, which originated in Switzerland. The first day cover is dated 8 September 1944. The stamps were valid for use in Campione and for all destinations in Switzerland. The currency of these Italian stamps is Swiss francs.

PENNY BLACK & RED MATCHED PAIRS

Dennis Boot

The reason the Penny Black Stamp was only printed for nine months was because the stamp was cancelled by a red Maltese Cross. With the sorters working by gaslight and wick candles, it was sometimes difficult to see if a stamp had been reused. In those days, the Post Office was obsessed that a stamp could be reused; a solution to the problem was to print the stamps in red and to cancel them with black ink.

The Penny Black was printed in eleven different plates and of these, seven plates were also used to print stamps in red. A matched pair is the same stamp from the same plate with the same check letters printed in black and red.

This matched pair was from plate 2 and lettered G-K. Plate 2 was registered in black on 22 April 1840 and the first red stamps were delivered on 27 January 1841, Plate 2 was withdrawn from the presses on 23 March 1841 and the plate was destroyed on 19 November 1841.

Pause for thought-The cost of sending a letter remained one penny from 1840 until 1918.

THE YELLOW FLEET & THEIR CINDERELLAS

Tony Marshall

In 1967, a convoy of cargo ships from eight countries, including Britain, were trapped in the Suez during the Six Day War. They were to remain there for eight years, becoming covered with windblown desert sand, giving them the nickname ‘The Yellow Fleet’. For the crews involved, this was often a dangerous but exciting time, which was described as the best of their sea-faring lives.

One of the ships, the UK’s Agapenon, was heading home with a cargo of plastic toys destined for Woolworths, while the Port Invercargill and the Scottish star were laden with apples for Tasmania. The voyage had been uneventful until the morning of June 5th 1967 when the fourteen ships lay at anchor in the Bitter Lakes to allow the southbound convoy to pass, heading towards the Red Sea. Most of the crew were on deck that morning when they suddenly saw Israeli jets streaking out of the rising sun towards Egypt. An electrician on the Melampus was up a mast fixing a light, when he glanced down and saw Egyptian soldiers dug in along the Canal banks and pointing their guns at him. The Israeli air-raid had begun and they crossed the Canal at mast height, en route to bomb the Egyptian airbases. As the war continued, Egypt decided to close the canal by sinking ships at both entrances. It remained closed even after the war ended, trapping the ships and their crews. After a while, men were allowed home and relief crews arrived, but the war rumbled on. The ships’ crews decided to swap cargoes and have parties; they even organised football tournaments and held mini Olympics. Ships from both East and West took part, despite the ongoing cold war.

As they had no postage stamps, each ship produced its own, covering events and anniversaries associated with sports and annual festivals. These were stuck on to letters with glue and the ships’ company agent took them ashore to have appropriate local stamps added.

It is a pity I only have copies of these stamps!

Stamps depicting sailing events on the Bitter Lakes:

Mail posted on board ships caught in the Suez Canal Bitter Lakes during the Israeli/Egyptian Six Day War:

RARITIES

Sandra Poole

I expect you have all read about a Japanese stamp issued in 1875 being discovered in a worldwide job lot that had been purchased in Scandinavia. What amazes me is that this ordinary- (to most people) looking stamp was recognised as an item of value, even if it did take a year. It would probably have slipped through my hands and ended up in a circuit booklet for a few pence. What did interest me was the fact that it is now one of 7 known copies and probably worth a quarter of a million euros. I recently bought a rare Danish local post cover front from a respected specialist in that field who wrote that, to his knowledge, only 5 letters with that stamp had been recorded. A complete cover was catalogued in 1996 at a mere10,000 Danish kroner, which was about £1,000 at the time. Even though it is an old catalogue, prices I’ve paid have been similar or lower (apart from on Ebay!). At around the time I bought this cover, I saw another of similar stated rarity, with the same addressee as that on a cover I already owned. What I am wondering is is mine one that was already recorded before being sold to me.or have I made a new discovery? More and more people seem to be turning to Cinderellas, so I can’t wait until someone recognises its true value and I make a similar return to that made on the Japanese stamp!

But it is not just stamps that fetch high prices- a railway ticket was sold in November for £3,872. The way train fares keep on rising, you might think it was a current one, but in fact it was a hundred years old. and used for a forty mile journey costing nine shillings and fourpence..

MEETING REPORTS

Prestige Lecture: The Large Hermes Heads of Greece, John Kane. Report by Adrian Ritoridis

(This is a second report of the meeting. The previous report was in the Autumn 2011 Newsletter)

Πρώτη φορά φέτος, τα μέλη της ΕΦΕ και οι συνδρομητές της Φιλοτέλειας καλού-μαστε να διαλέξουμε το καλύτερο άρθρο της χρονιάς, στο συγγραφέα του οποίουθα απονεμηθεί το Βραβείο Στέφανου Μακρυμίχαλου. Είναι μια σπουδαία ευκαιρία να ρίξουμε μια ακόμη ματιά στα έξι πολύ ενδιαφέρο-ντα τεύχη του 2011, ώστε να δικαιολογήσουμε απόλυτα την επιλογή μας. Εξάλλου,από φέτος και για τα επόμενα χρόνια, η καθολική συμμετοχή μας θα στηρίζει και θαενδυναμώνει το θεσμό του βραβείου και, το κυριότερο, θα τιμά την προσπάθεια καιτη συμβολή όλων ανεξαιρέτως των αρθρογράφων του περιοδικού

(Adrian thought it would be fun for members to see the Greek version of the first part of his report as it appeared in the Journal of the Hellenic Philatelic Society.)

On October 28th, the Nottinghamshire Philatelic Society was proud to host a special evening celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Large Hermes Heads of Greece. We welcomed 35 members and visitors from the Hellenic Philatelic Society of GB, who travelled from as far as London to see Dr John Kane, also of the HPS of GB, put on a magnificent display of 180 sheets on the issues of the Large Hermes Head. Dr Kane’s display, an ongoing work of 30 years, was very much a research display, rather than an exhibit and, as such, gave our members the opportunity to study the development of the printing of Hermes, the shades and control figures. Most interesting was Dr Kane’s section on the printing technique of using an underlay to produce the fine relief of the Paris print. This was illustrated with a series of Barre’s Ceres stamps with sections originally cut out by the printers to form the specially prepared découpage. The display also included a section on the postmarks used on the first Greek issue, including the very scarce ‘101’ lozenge of the post office of Ibraila in Romania. In what was a most erudite talk, Dr Kane’s depth of research and knowledge was matched by the impressive quality of the Hermes stamps on show The Hermes Heads were not the only taste of Greece of the evening, and all present enjoyed plenty of Greek food and wine, along with much discussion surrounding the first stamp of Greece. During the interval, a raffle took place with the new stamps and FDC issued by the Hellenic Post Office for the 150th anniversary given out to a few lucky winners. A most successful and enjoyable evening closed with the vote of thanks from the Nottinghamshire Philatelic Society’s president to Dr Kane for a splendid talk and display. Tellingly, as a mark of gratitude and respect towards Dr Kane and the occasion, the customary judging of the display by members in attendance was not carried out.

MISCELLANY

Is this the biggest auction lot ever? According to Stamp Magazine (Feb), Spinks has recently sold for £97,000 a lot comprising 20 million USSR commemoratives from 1963-91 with a reported estimated catalogue value of £8.5 million plus. The mind boggles: who looked at them, sorted them, counted them and (over)valued them? And how long would it take the purchaser to dispose of them profitably- there must be a terrific amount of duplication and the stamps would require some storage! For those who haven’t done the maths, the estimated average value of each stamp is 42.5p and the price realised per stamp is just under half a penny! There must be easier ways to earn a living!

The President’s inaugural Egg-Cup competition on 16 December 2011 attracted 15 entries on as many different topics. Members then voted for their preferred display, which was the secretary’s spoof on ‘Machin Varieties’. Maddie Tennant and Steve Speak were runners-up. The competition was followed by a feast of festive fare provided by those

attending.

Comments and suggestions from members concerning Royal Mail services and their employees have been omitted from the archive.

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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