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Summer 2013 Newsletter

THE BELGIAN CONGO MASK WITH HORNS

Bryan Button

While recently visiting the Central Africa Museum in Brussels I took a photograph of the mask with horns. This iconic mask was one of the three designs used for three of the eleven masks of the “Masks and Carvings” stamp series of the Belgian Congo. The series includes fifteen carved statues of four different designs, which were issued from 1947 and used until 1960.

The stamps were printed by the Institut de Gravure of Paris with 12.25 x 12.5 perforations using photogravure with 50 (10 x 5) stamps printed per page. They were inscribed "BELGISCH CONGO & CONGO BELGE" or "CONGO BELGE & BELGISCH CONGO". Some of the stamps that appeared on the market were from printer’s waste.

Can you solve the puzzle of this magnificent enigmatic Luba mask? Because nothing is known of its provenance, iconography or use, nor how it got found in Tabora in 1899. All that is left is to speculate about this mask and hypothesize about its meaning.

Two keys to understanding the mask are its horns and the bird on the back of its head. The latter has been broken off and dissociated from the mask for so many years now that most people familiar with it are not aware of this significant feature. One educated guess is that the bird is a drongo, striking for its jet-black plumage, which is associated with the clan of Mbidi Kiluwe, where “black” is a powerful symbol of the clan. Another guess is that the mask’s bird might be an oxpecker. This might explain the positioning of the bird on the back of the neck of the mask, head down, as though searching for ticks on the neck of a buffalo.

Is the mask a representation of a ram or a buffalo? Both animals are associated with the Mbidi Kiluwe. Luba and neighboring peoples consider a giant, black, winged ram named Nkuba to be the origin of thunder and lightning. The butting of heads when rams are in rut probably gives rise to the analogy with thunder. The buffalo is the emblem of the Mbidi. Red and black buffalo lived together in the forested savanna that was the Belgian Congo. Often the bulls are almost coal black and mostly nocturnal, active at dawn and dusk. Although enormous animals they are able to virtually disappear during the daylight in thickets. People fear their apparent invisibility and so they are doubly dangerous. Buffalos are black or red, docile or aggressive, visible or invisible, in water or in mud, active at dawn and at dusk. They have been the basis for suggesting a metaphorical bridge between buffalo and human beings.

Based on information given in the museum.

FORGERY, FRAUD OR COLLECTORS' FOLLY?

Alan Squires

I bought this cover because it appealed to me and I thought it would fit nicely in my collection. It is obviously a philatelic piece, but I liked the fact it had a number of the low values from the QEII set. At first glance it seems to be just a cover with a selection of low value St Helena stamps from the 1953 to 1959 set. These have been cancelled ‘ST HELENA / MR / 2 / 58’ and that seems to be it.

However, on closer inspection one of the stamps, the 3d black and brown, was cancelled ‘ST HELENA / JU / 5 / 57’ and part of the cancel is missing. Also the cancel on the 2d black and claret disappears under the 3d stamp and is just visible in the torn part of the 3d.

I am left wondering why this was done. Was it some unscrupulous dealer or simply a collector wanting to add an extra stamp? Either way I think it is far more interesting with the addition of a wrong ‘un. .

IT'S OFFICIAL

Sandra Poole

At the last meeting of the Letter Box Study Group held at the British Postal Museum and Archive, I notified the experts of various letter box changes in Nottingham and returned home as official surveyor of the city- or, at least, part of it. The last survey of Central Nottingham was done in 1998-9 and that was the area I offered to do. Somehow, I was also sent lists of three other postcode areas, which I foolishly said I had started to look at.

Every new member is issued with a load of publications, which include hints on surveying, a register of box types (32xA4 pages) and a letterbox guide of 124 pages. The easy bit is the cylindrical pillar box types- A, B and C, which simply refer to circumference- A to the large boxes, B to the slim ones and C to the double boxes. Wall boxes are the same- A, B & C for small, medium and large. Also easy are the identifying letters which precede the numbers: PB (pillar box), WB (wall box) LB (lamp box) NSB (non standard box) and so on. (These refer to register listing) More difficult to assimilate are the numerous features on which the box identifying numbers are based. I have not studied all the pages yet, but here are just a few examples of what may have to be taken into consideration: body shape, aperture size and type, positioning of cipher, is it flat or curved, large or small and does it lean to left or right; door strip or no door strip; pull or no pull; manufacturer’s name and its positioning; rims, rings and flutes. Well, I could go on for another 150 odd pages and I haven’t even come to the difficult part yet, like identifying the wrong door on the right body. Simpler to notice is the wrong cap on a box (ie a replacement from a different manufacturer):

All letterboxes are listed in the Group’s directory and have their own personal number eg 1031776. and a master type ref. no, eg 1041/1. Royal Mail have their own location lists which are now available to the Group, but these, although useful, do not have the detailed information on each box that we require. Members. over the years, have gone on surveys to record this information. Most, but not all, areas have now been visited, but some surveys are already out of date and that is where I come in. It is easier for a rookie like me to have had the groundwork covered by another- bit like proof reading rather than writing a book-but there have been quite few changes, a couple of corrections to make and new boxes to report on. Taking a clipboard and membership card has made it easier, as people see you as an official at work, rather than a mere eccentric.

Responses from friends I have bumped into and odd members of the public have been rewarding, particularly from the Rastafarian who came chasing after me, dreadlocks flowing and piercings flashing, just to find out what was going on. Another reported that she had seen blue paint, where the red had come away, and was quite excited when I informed her it was not the undercoat that she had seen, but the original paint, and that the box was formerly a special blue one used just for airmail letters. (There are no unusual letterboxes in the centre of Nottingham, but I recently saw a fluted box in Malvern. Hexagonal Boxes are also making a reappearance elsewhere in the country, but beware of replicas!)

The survey has ……been tedious at times and type recognition not always easy but I shall continue with the other postal districts and, hopefully, become quicker and more expert with time.

THE COST OF USING THE MAIL SERVICES

Alan Squires

The Royal Mail, still often referred to as ‘The Post Office’, complains about a lot of things. Not enough people sending letters now the internet has everyone communicating almost instantly through e-mails. Add to this the ease with which we can text each other and we have another reason letters are not being sent. Competition from other commercial carriers is another of their worries.

Though some of this technology is beyond me I do try to embrace the modern age. I’m not really a Luddite, but I can sympathize with older people who find instant communications a minefield. My mother, at 90 now wants to join the revolution and has announced she wants a mobile phone with a camera. This is her carers’ fault as they will insist on showing her photos on their phones and telling her how easy it is. Her mobile doesn’t even do text messaging, she tells me after several failed attempts to explain how to read texts and send them. This included written, idiot-proof instructions (well written by an idiot, me), which she lost.

I now handle all her mail after a number of letters were sent back as they had no postage stamps on them. ‘I know I put one on,’ she told me, ‘as it took a lot of licking to get it to stick.’ She still hasn’t got the hang of selfadhesives, which she cuts out of the booklet with scissors. She also has complaints that the postman never gets to her house before lunch-time, and it’s all junk mail, which she saves for me to read in case it’s important.

I would have thought, though, that ‘The Post Office’ would be benefiting from the internet with millions of us using eBay and Amazon to do all our shopping. They must be handling far more parcels these days than they used to. They have competition here of course, but I’m not sure how severe it really is.

My younger daughter is living in Canada for a year. She took all her ski and winter gear with her, but then needed summer clothing for a new job at an eco-tourist centre. (Don’t ask, it’s complicated!) Could we make up a parcel and send it to reach her before the middle of April, she asked in the middle of March? We weighed the parcel in at a whopping 4.3kg. Using the internet, (I said I wasn’t a Luddite) we found DHL and UPS could get the parcels to destination in time, but wanted approximately £140 for their services. I suggested I take it myself and get an extra holiday, but her indoors said no.

Back to the internet and Royal Mail’s website. They offered so many variations with such a wide range of prices that I was tempted to deliver it myself after all. Signed for, tracked, untracked, insured up to £100, 3 day delivery (oh yeah? To Canada?), etc. Confused, I took the parcel to my local post office. ‘This has to be in Canada in 2 weeks by the cheapest, safest method possible.’ I said. After weighing it and without batting an eyelid she said that would be tracked, 5 days and £75. I told her I was out of work and living on state handouts, (or, as my wife prefers, retired and on a pension), but this didn’t help. £75! That’s a lot of postal history I can’t buy now, or even another set of stamps. Still, on the bright side, it was about half what the competition wanted. If anyone is going anywhere near Vancouver Island in the next week or so, I still have a pair of walking boots that my daughter forgot she needed until the parcel arrived!

The Post Office at Nottingham: Sandra Poole

The Post Office was refurbished in November and some of you may have noticed that, on completion, the indoor letterbox standing just inside the main entrance had disappeared. A few months ago, I asked the counter clerk where it had gone and was told that it was probably in the back room and that both staff and general public were unhappy about its disappearance. When I was doing my survey, I went in once again and got chatting to a post office employee and, amongst other things, asked again what had happened to it. He replied that it had been taken away by those contracted to do the refurbishment and that the public still missed it, as they preferred to just nip in and out to post their letters, rather than fight their way through the congested areas to the new wall box at the far end. I agreed that it should be returned. Just a few days later, I went back inside and couldn’t believe my eyes- there it was, standing proudly in its original position. We are always quick to criticise, but I think on this occasion the P. O. deserve some Brownie points for its response to the public’s wishes..

MISCELLANY

Welcome from our President for the Centenary Year, Professor Brian Clayton.

Society Competition Evening: Dennis Boot won the Postal History Cup for his display on Victorian Postal Stationery (postcards). He was also the winner of the Traditional Class (The 2d Blue Issues) and Douglas Harvey won the Thematic Cup with ‘The Engraved Stamps of Pierre Gandon’. Doug Stubbings was the only Huston entrant and his Graf Zeppelin exhibit was approved for submission to the September Huston Competition

Congratulations to Chris Tennant- on gaining silver at the 13th NZ National Philatelic Literature Exhibition at Palmerston in March 2013 for his book on Tax Discs that he co-authored with Ed Hitchings.

Phoenix Competition- Congratulations to Wendy Orr, who won the thematic class with her entry on St. George (82%). Sandra Poole was joint 2nd (85%) in the traditional class with her exhibit on Danish local postal stationery

Moving the Mail weekend 10-11 Aug, Bucks Railway Centre, Quainton.

The TPO Group has a TPO sorting carriage and stowage van, both dating from the 1960s. The latter contains wall posters telling the story of the carriage of mail by rail since the 1830s. On 8 August 1963, the Up Special TPO was stopped and robbed of about £2.5 million in what became known as the Great Train Robbery. The BPMA is providing a display telling the story of the robbery and the Post Office Investigation Dept. There will be relevant Power Point presentations on both days. The Post Office Vehicle Club is holding a rally at the Centre on the Sunday and will give a talk on 1963 PO vehicles. The TPO and Seapost Society will also be in attendance and the Letter Box Study Group will be having displays on both days Younger visitors will enjoy meeting Postman Pat and his cat. After its involvement with celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the London Underground, the Centre’s Metropolitan No 1 loco will be hauling passenger rides at the Centre on both days, with interesting historic vehicles, as will a replica Met. Brill No. 1.(taken from their flier. For more info go to www.bucksrailcentre.org or contact TPO group secretary sheila@lobley.net ).

Congress 1927- Sandra Poole:

I recently attended a Cinderella Stamp Club meeting. The morning sessions were devoted to displays by visiting members of the Exhibition Study Group and these, despite my early misgivings, turned out to be extremely interesting. The afternoon displays were, as usual, provided by the hosts. When we have a specialist Society come to a meeting, our displays have to be on their speciality subject- obviously, ‘exhibitions’ in this case. It always amazes me that our members are able to rise to the occasion and produce some fine displays. One such (less surprising) was Francis Kiddle. He had brought along part of his collection on Congress, which he is donating to the Royal Philatelic Society, as he believes that it is the history of philately. And what is interesting to us is that one frame of it was devoted to the 14th Congress hosted by Nottingham in 1927- see the banquet invitation below (Francis kindly photocopied this for me after the meeting, along with the Post Office handout shown on the next page.)

Invitation to the congress banquet sent by the secretary C. H. Frettingham. He was later President, both in 1935-36 and 1943-44. He had a collection of Norway, which in 1958 was auctioned by Robson Lowe in 234 lots President at the time was N.Nevin, FRPSL, who was president 5 times between 1917-1952.

Library Update: Sandra Poole

As you must all know by now, we are selling off most of the Notts Philatelic Society’s library. I have now stripped 3 bookcases bare, sorted, checked, ticked off and put in order over 500 books and numerous journals. Books that members expressed an interest in were then kindly valued by John Jackson, an expert in this field, and most of these were duly purchased at what I considered a fair price to both Society and members. The few that were turned down were returned to the main stock, which was then packed into boxes, ready for collection by Cavendish on 17 June. Quite a big task, but no problems. Allen Wood kindly offered to deal with those books that Cavendish did not want and all unsold lots, which was certainly a weight off my mind. Having got rid of them all, I certainly did not want them back again! The date of the auction, which still has to be confirmed, will probably be 11/12 Sep. Sheffield P.S.’s library is being sold off as well. Hopefully, members from both Societies will be there. I shall miss some of the books, but have no doubt that this was the right decision. One of our more valuable books- Nissen’s ‘Plating of the Penny Black’, 1922, I have been told, has already dropped significantly in value since it was published online a few months ago. I had fun taking one last look at the books and managed to get sidetracked more than once when I discovered an interesting item, such as the following article in The Midland Philatelist, vol 1, No 2, 30.6.1881

A few years ago, there died in the neighbourhood of Paris an old man by the name of Lemieux, whose eccentricities had long been a source of wonder to his neighbours. He was wealthy and lived in a solitary old house of the suburb, attended by two servants. M.Lemieux had once been a connoisseur of paintings, a large collection of which he sold several years previous to his death.

What reminds us of him now, however, is the increasing mania in this country for collecting postage stamps of all nations. This was the special hobby of M.Lemieux in his latter years. One large room in his house was entirely papered with postage stamps from floor to ceiling. They were artistically arranged so as to represent forms. One piece showed the first Napoleon, life-size, the various coloured postage stamps being used to represent the proper tints. On another panel of the wall, the Marseillaise Hymn was given, music, words, and all being composed of stamps. There was another apartment in this old oddity’s house garnished entirely with cigars, which were glued to the wall in various grotesque patterns. One book caught my eye-Stamp Collectors Who’s Who by R.Bateman and whilst I flicked through the pages, a name jumped out- our own Derrick Avery. I am sure members will be interested in what I read- ‘Societies: Notts PS (past-president) Covers and Postal Stationery Exchange Club (Sec). Collection is of Canada- stamps and postal stationery, specialised British West Indies p.s., world TPO and paquebot postmarks. Main discoveries have been in Canada 1911-25 series. The first is a re-entry on SG202, wet printing, die 1, with doubling visible in the top L. spandrel, crown and frame, the bottom L. maple leaves and numeral 2 and the bottom R. frame line and value tablet… Publications as founder-secretary of now-disbanded Postal Stationery Society of GB, he published 29 bulletins.’

I then went through it carefully to see if there were any other names that I recognised. One such was A.W.G. Hall, born 1893, who will be remembered by us mainly for having written ‘The Post Office at Nottingham’ which I have kept in our much-reduced library. Another name that you’ll know because of the Huston Trophy Competition is that of Captain C.Huston, born 1889, member of Leics PS and founder member of Loughborough and District P.S.. Also featured was ‘G.R.Tuck, born 1912, NPS and Herne Bay PS. Four vols of Romania, all issues but specialising in 1866-72 litho issues’. He collected other countries as well: GB, German States, British Colonies. Pages from his collection have regularly been shown to us over the years. And, of course, there was an entry for L and M. Williams, their name familiar to all Cinderella collectors. Each entry included the collector’s address and the aim of the book was ‘to allow specialists to contact others to find and/or to exchange information and to help Society Secretaries looking for lecturers’. Giving details of subjects’ addresses and collections would also provide burglars with a lot of useful info!

From Steve Speak, Retiring Society Treasurer: Dear Fellow NPS Members, due to my domestic circumstances (I am trying to move to Cheshire to be closer to my daughter and family), I have reluctantly had to resign as Treasurer. Thankfully, ex-President Doug Stubbings has kindly agreed to take on the role. He is devoted to the Society’s well being and I know you will find him reliable and responsible. Thank you for your co-operation and help during my brief but interesting time as Treasurer. Best wishes, Steve Speak

SOCIETY MEETING REPORTS

'Allen Wood Entertains’, 7 June 2013

Part 1 consisted of South Africa covers, mostly 1st day, from 1952; Libya in the period 1953-8, also on covers, and a small selection of stamps of Italian Somalia.This was part of a recently obtained collection, which included some rare revenue stamps of the country and Eritrea, overprinted during the British occupation Members enjoyed South African wine and fruit juice, which Allen provided, during the viewing period. Part 2 opened with a display of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. This comprised covers and pieces illustrating the usage of GB stamps before their postal independence, plus some Channel Islands occupation issues. Also in this part, a colourful collection of Cameroun stamps was shown, illustrating the fine-engraved stamps issued in the French colonial period and the early independence issues including two gold stamps.

Chile: Martyn Cusworth, 19 July 2013

Martyn Cusworth showed an impressive display of Chilean stamps, being only the third speaker on South American stamps in the last 100 years! The 1st issue was printed in London in 1853 by Perkins Baker & Co., followed by local printings in Santiago in 1854 and Desmadryl’s litho printings. These were of high quality for litho stamps and compare favourably with the original recess printings. However, by 1860, the printing quality had deteriorated due to insufficient cleaning of the plates. In the 1881 war with Peru, a few Chilean stamps had Peruvian cancellations. In 1910, Dr. Hahn reprinted the 20c stamp from the original plate in new colours. Some rare Victorian British stamps from a Valparaiso post office were shown with ‘C30’ cancellations. The display also included a variety of fiscal stamps with their original documents and postal stamps used fiscally. Overall, this was an outstanding collection of rarities and some unusual covers.

DISCLAIMER Whilst 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 which may occur.

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