Embedded Files
Spring 2009 Newsletter
HAVE WE ALL GONE BANANAS?
Sandra Poole.
It all started innocently enough with a request for information regarding a past president of the Notts Philatelic Society from a former member now living in New Zealand. In an exchange of e-mails, we ascertained I collected local posts from NZ, he collected Nottingham postmarks and, by the way, could I also send him banana labels for a friend in America. Banana labels? (Disbelief on my part.) But, yes, it was those sticky things that he wanted, and perhaps other members would also pass them on. This was met with hilarity as, after all, we are a society for SERIOUS collectors, but they are trickling in. Friends and family, already used to saving stamps and empty envelopes for me don’t see any difference in adding a few sticky labels. Members have been contributing and my greengrocer is quite happy for me to remove stickers from bananas that I’m not buying. It’s just the man in the white coat that I’m worried about. People were apologetic when passing me their offerings, ‘they’re all the same’, they’d say. But, in fact, they’re not. If you look at the samples shown, you’ll see different countries listed, the lettering (in one row or two) is in different sizes, the shapes vary, as do the shades. Anyway, I thought it was time for some serious research, so where better than to start than with Fyffes. Edward Fyffe was born in 1853 in Gloucestershire and later went into the family tea business. When his wife got TB, he went to the Canary Islands for her convalescence and discovered bananas. He decided that England was ready for this exotic fruit and in 1888, E.W. Fyffe & Sons changed from tea to bananas and the rest is history as they say. Go to their website and you will see 4 varieties of their banana label, including the 1929 prototype. A booklet has even been produced in which the history surrounding the introduction of the famous blue label is recorded. My word, this is a serious business! Time to click on, I think, to the Rebecca Martz website-www.beckymartz.com She is the doyenne of banana label collecting and it is to her that our labels are being sent. She has been collecting since 1991 and she has 8,307 stickers, which include more than 1,400 brands- pretty impressive! She does admit that she has had problems with what to do with all the surplus bananas! She trades with about 50 other collectors on a regular basis and with another 50 or so less frequently. They also have meetings and conventions.and the labels are listed in Gerri’s banana label catalogue.
In all seriousness, I do recommend that you visit her excellent website, where her collection, listed alphabetically, may be viewed. I clicked on Z-wouldn’t be many brands there, I thought, and in fact there were just 5. X revealed one, namely ‘Xtra Bananas’, but there were 4 varieties. There were 90 brands starting with the letter A and nearly as many under D. I decided to limit my ‘surfing’ to the labels illustrated here. There were 13 different countries for Fyffes and there were 6 varieties shown of the Savid label, all Dominican Republic. Clicking Chiquita brought up 20- plus categories. I went for slogans, as I like the philatelic equivalent: ‘Good nutrition pure & simple,’ & ‘Go Healthy, go Chiquita’-amazing what you can get on to one small banana label! Who said they were boring? Honduras, Guatemala, Australia, Nicaragua, Philippines and more- no one country collecting here. And they also come in sets (read thematic!)- 24 sports illustrated for the Lake Placid Olympics, for example The Chiquita label shown here is equivalent to our definitives there were over 50 varieties in this collection and there were nearly 130 labels similar to these Delmonte labels, including, one in blue and a few rectangular copies with bar codes- now that’s something we haven’t seen on stamps yet! (I don’t count margins.) There were other pictorial issues, and Turbana and Dole continued in the same vein.
And so we come to rarities: Chiquita issued a set of two labels to commemorate the 1980 Olympics. The US pulled out and the labels were never used on bananas, but a few sets escaped destruction. The most valuable banana sticker realised $25,280 at auction in 2006- it had been mistakenly stuck to and printed on a $20 bill during its minting. The note with the imprinted banana label was originally found when a student withdrew money from an ATM! If you are looking for something a little less expensive, you’ll find plenty on Ebay. If after all this, you are still not interested in banana labels, how about broccoli and asparagus bands? Becky also collects these, and yes, her collection of these is also on her website to view.
DID YOU SPOT THE ODD ONE OUT? Amongst the illustrated banana labels, there was an interloper. The ‘label’ in the middle of the bottom row is actually a stamp from Tonga. You see, there isn’t really that much difference!
Postscript -John Waller writes: ‘Some folk here (New Zealand) have tried using banana labels as stamps, and there does seem to be a moderate chance of sneaking them through without being detected.’
MORE BANANAS: Wendy Orr
I am writing to you following your recent and earnest appeals for ’banana labels’ for your distant friend in a faraway place. Such collectible items do not appear to be so readily available these days. Still, I have kept my eyes well and truly ‘peeled’ and have hunted and looked in vain for a prime example of the required item until my ’skin’ has ‘yellowed’ with exhaustion. Then came the day when my search was rewarded and bore ‘fruit’. I found a ‘beautiful specimen’ in ’mint condition’ and with ‘full gum’. I very nearly ‘slipped’ and missed it, but there it was, a pristine example. Now I must ‘hand’ it over to you for safe keeping for your friend because DELMONTE he say yes!!!
Yours truly,
Wendy,
Your friend the fruit-bat
STAMPLESS MAIL FROM THE GALAPAGOS
Sandra Poole
I recently received a postcard from Post Office Bay in Floreana, one of the Galapagos Islands, bearing a GB second class stamp. The sender’s message read as follows:
‘If this ever gets to you, I will be astonished. No stamp required. Delivered by hand!!! Service started in 1793. PS. Thanks to who delivered it.’
I was intrigued, particularly when I noticed the person who had affixed the stamp had also added her name and e-mail address. So I e-mailed her, requesting more information and this is what she wrote:
‘The postcard was left by the sender in a barrel at Post Office Bay on Floreana Island in the Galapagos. The origin of this tradition is that sailors in the 18th to early 20th centuries used to do the same and then the next passing ship would check through the barrel, take any post to their destination and then forward it when they arrived. The tourist version today is that visitors write a postcard, leave it in the barrel then the next group of visitors checks through and can take any for posting onward when they get back home. The system is just for fun and relies on someone forwarding the cards and paying local postage. We picked up 2 for the UK, one of which was for you.. We added the stamp and posted them when we got back as we thought it would be fun for the recipients and sender to know the quirky system had worked.’ L.Dawkins
Barrel post box. Photo J.Maxwell
My friend was at first, absolutely amazed and delighted I had received her card, but was disappointed when she heard it had been posted in England. According to her guide, the mail should be hand delivered. She, herself, had searched the barrel for Nottingham bound cards, but the nearest she found was for Coventry. Cards had been left there for many years, so I was extremely lucky to receive this unusual item, even if rules had been slightly bent. Incidentally, if it had been sent from the mainland (Ecuador) via the regular postal system, it would have cost the equivalent of £2. (Is this the most expensive letter rate in the world?)
Photos by Judy Maxwell, who sent the postcard. The one above shows the ‘post office’, with the sign towards the bottom left corner.
In the photo on the left, the guide is demonstrating the franking of the mail with an old bone.
MISCELLANY
FIRST PERFORATIONS ? : Jackie Benham
The letters were written, the envelopes sealed. Then came the difficult part…stamping them. Cursing silently, the man sitting in the London pub, looked for his penknife with which to cut a stamp from a sheet of about 20. But he had left the knife at home. Henry Archer, sitting opposite him, watched with interest as the letter writer drew a pin from his coat lapel and began to perforate the area round each stamp so that they could be torn apart easily. ‘Ingenious,’ thought Archer. ‘Perhaps I could invent a machine to do the same thing.’ That was more than 117 years ago. By 1848, Archer had patented such a machine and by 1854, all postage stamps in Britain were perforated. Other nations followed suit. Henry Archer certainly saw the point of a pin.
(They say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Jackie recently found this item, which probably dates from the 1960s, but is not sure of its provenance, so I am unable to acknowledge the writer. Ed.)
RESCUE AT SEA- SAVE OUR STAMPS: Leslie Sutton
When assembling a group of mint stamps to stick on a GPO printed paper wrapper to convey my copy of a stamp magazine to a collector in Malta, I saw what I thought were damaged perforations. Part of the group consisted of a vertical pair of each of the 46p and 54p values. It was only when I attached them to the wrapper that I noticed that the vertical edges’ perforations were regular and even, while those of the horizontal ones were to a pattern of dots and dashes representing the international distress signal- S.O.S. in the Morse radio alphabet. Collectors of GB stamps receiving single stamps or stamps on cover or piece may, like me, have thought they were damaged.
SECURITY FEATURES ON MACHINS: Sandra Poole
I expect those who tried to soak off the low value Christmas pantomime stamps for their album pages, were frustrated at finding how difficult this was and how thin the paper was at the end of their efforts! Probably fed up with the re-use of unfranked stamps (apparently they are for sale on Ebay), the Post Office has now introduced further security measures, this time for the 1st and 2nd class machins These feature 2 large oval cuts- if you try and soak off the stamps, you end up with two oval holes. (I’ve also been told that this can happen with new stamps, if you are not careful when removing them from their backing, but I haven’t put this to the test.) When you look closely, you’ll also see ‘Royal Mail’ written many times over the stamp, not only on the background, but also on the royal head.
VISIT TO AN AUCTION: Allen Wood
As I travelled from Melton Mowbray towards the A1 at the Ram Jam Inn and noticed the snow on the road was starting to freeze, I began to wonder whether this was a wise trip. This was my first visit to an Alliance Auction, which is held at Stansted on the first Tuesday in the month. The venue is compact, and once you have understood that the code letter after each lot signifies the viewing area it is easy, helped by efficient staff. My reason for the trip was the large selection of World Postal History, by country (437 lots). Of the lots I viewed, just 3 were, in my opinion, worth the estimate. I bought all 3. One is, in my view, worth ten times the price I paid. Another of the 3 was Notts Postal History. This I handed over to someone else to see if he wanted any particular item. Within 3 hours, he was on the phone with an offer to buy the whole lot. What had caused such excitement? Three of the entires had very early marks including, I must admit, a fine strike of Basford and a lesser one of Mansfield Woodhouse. As for myself, I purchased a collection of Italian Colonies, described as ‘stuck down mint and used collection’. Partly true, but a little care reveals that many can be successfully retrieved. At the point of my departure, the auctioneer had despatched 1045 lots in 48 minutes! Will I be able to emulate this on 28th February? Was it worth the trip? In this instance, definitely yes. I will not always be as lucky and they do supply free tea, coffee and biscuits. In addition, behind the curtain, they supply more serious food and drink.
LORD DEARING:- Brian Clayton
Many members of the Society will have noted the death of Lord Dearing on 19 February. Those of us who attended his presentation on 2 November 2007 will have special memories of a wonderful evening.
Lord Dearing, or Ron as he preferred to be addressed by friends (which meant everyone with whom he interacted), left lasting marks on British society as a civil servant, an industrialist, an expert on accountancy standards and, most notably, as an educationist. It was in the last activity that I first met him face to face and immediately one felt in the presence of a great man who could put one at ease from the moment he smiled and spoke. As Sir Robin Mountfield, a colleague civil servant, wrote ‘…he was the most kindly, gentle and unassuming of men. He was a man more unchanged by high office than anyone I have ever known.’ But, at the same time, he was a man of great intellect and tenacity when seeking the truth in order to arrive at the best solution to a difficult problem (successive Governments gave him plenty of these!) The University of Nottingham had the splendid foresight and luck to be able to appoint Ron Dearing as its Chancellor for the period 1993-2000, which coincided with my election to Dean of Engineering and subsequently my appointment as Pro-Vice-Chancellor. I was able to provide him with my views and experiences in educating university students as well as wider issues involving Polytechnic/New University developments, the teaching of school mathematics and university education and he was kind enough to publicly acknowledge these contributions as he said he would.
Professor Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, said recently: ‘Ron Dearing was a wonderful Chancellor of our University. His insight and judgement were genuinely intuitive and he had a unique capacity to put all around him at ease. (BRC Note: The way in which he conducted the Degree Congregations and swept away nervousness and tension at the start of a somewhat imposing occasion became legendary.) Whether people knew him well or not they trusted him, which is pretty unusual. It was a privilege to work with him- his influence on our University will be long lasting and fondly remembered.’During casual conversation, Ron & I found that we were fellow philatelists and he was, of course, chairman of the Post Office 1981-87. On most occasions that he visited the University, we would each bring along some part of our collections and spend time over lunch in the Vice- Chancellor’s office discussing them. I am not sure that Sir Colin Campbell could quite understand the reasons for our animated conversation and so left us in our world! Ron and I kept in touch after he retired from the Chancellorship but this was interrupted by my period abroad heading the University’s Malaysia Campus.
When I was elected VP of the NPS in 2006, I asked him if he would be prepared to give us a presentation of some of his collections. He was prepared to do so but was really concerned about whether the material was good enough in quality or interest and would he have the knowledge and expertise to make it interesting. Wow! He brought holdalls of albums etc to a Nottingham meeting and I spent many hours of wonderment going through them, finally suggesting a full display of the best, but still having to miss out a lot of his accumulations. The outcome was that most memorable of evenings in November 2007 when we saw a superb display of QV stamps, covers and labels and KGV fabulous sea horses etc. It was all delivered in Ron’s unique style of relaxed humour and assuredness including many anecdotes and recollections of embarrassing moments, especially as Chairman of the PO. He encouraged everyone to engage in discussion with him as we moved down the panels and many people came up to me afterwards and said how great it was to talk with Ron without feeling in any way nervous.
That evening, my wife prepared a meal at home for us all before the presentation and he returned to stay overnight with us before returning home the following day. Sonia, particularly, enjoyed talking to Ron about family history as both were engaged on searching for ancestral details. Sonia and I have said many times what a privilege it is to have met and known Ron and many members of the NPS will say ‘Aye’ to that.
HOW STAMP COLLECTING HELPED SIMON WIESENTHAL CORNER WAR CRIMINALS.
David Bond, Submitted by Eric Croft with permission from Stamp Magazine.
With the late Simon Wiesenthal’s collection recently being auctioned, I wondered whether your readers were aware of how he came to start stamp collecting? The story goes that in 1952, the strain of chasing Nazi war criminals was getting on top of him and he was becoming depressed. A doctor advised him to take up a hobby, such as stamp collecting. Apparently, Wiesenthal took this advice quite literally, but he found that his hobby and his work were not mutually exclusive as he had expected. At one war crimes trial, he was able to point out the date of issue of a Polish stamp on a letter sent home by an SS soldier, thus disproving the man’s alibi that he was at home in Germany at the time of an atrocity in Poland. Wiesenthal’s biggest coup from philately, however, came in the search for Adolf Eichmann. In Tirol in 1953, a fellow collector showed him a cover he had received from a former soldier now living in Argentina, and allowed him to read the letter inside. Wiesenthal could hardly believe it when he read: ‘Imagine who else I saw…that awful swine Eichmann. He lives near Buenos Aires and works for a water company.’ Wiesenthal played it cool, but memorised as much detail as he could and passed it on to the World Jewish Congress in New York. Although he was living under an assumed name, Eichmann’s whereabouts were eventually discovered and in 1960 he was captured and put on trial. Were it not for Wiesenthal’s hobby, this might never have happened.
LAMENT FOR LOST LOLLY- George Kirkham
‘Oh mother dear, I am bereft
There is nothing of my fortune left.’
‘Never mind, sit down my dearest son
And tell me where your money’s gone.’
‘Not on parties or boozy binges.
No, I’ve blued the lot on stamps and hinges.’
‘Never mind, my son, here’s what we’ll do.
We’ll sell your penny black and tuppenny blue.’
‘Oh, mother dear, you don’t understand,
These are stamps from a foreign land.’
Oh my God, that means plan number two.
Take the lot to Notts for them to view.
Maybe they will cheer and clap
And you will think you’re a clever chap.’
Cheer and clap is what they did
And I quite forgot my twenty quid.
Twenty quid may not seem a lot
But it darn well is when it’s all you’ve got.
(George recited this poem at the end of the display he presented to the Society on 20 March 2009)
Members’ Displays to the Society
On 16 January, Tony Sibley gave a display, which proved to be a serious postal history study of the second World War period. Steve Speak’s Presidential Evening on 6th February comprised a display of Australian stamps from the kangaroo issues of 1913 up to 1980 This was followed by a social. Two weeks later, Geoff Taylor, gave a presentation on Gibraltar, a specialised study of plate flaws, colour shifts and early postmarks. On 20th March, the inimitable George Kirkham gave a display on Yugoslavia, mainly covering the period from 1919-29, with stamps from Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia etc and continuing with issues from the unified country. Last, but not least, was Allen Wood’s presentation on Ethiopia showing stamps on and off cover from the first issue of 1894 up to 1986, accompanied by early postal stationery cards, including die proofs.
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 may occur.
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