PAST EVENTS
The Aylesbury
Philatelic Society
As the Chairman is
a Fellow and Member of the Council of The Royal Philatelic Society
London, the Society is able to ask some of the foremost philatelists in
the country to come and give displays at Aylesbury. This was
demonstrated at a couple of the meetings which were held towards the
end of last year.
In October 2005 the
Society was given a display of European Postal History by Gavin Fryer,
who is a past president of The Royal and the winner of a number of gold
medals in international competitions. His display started in 1840 with
Penny Blacks and Twopenny Blues and included many unique items from the
countries of Europe issued during the 19th
century.
In December 2005
there was a special Christmas meeting at which Alan Griffiths (a Fellow
and Council Member of The Royal) who was awarded the Congress Medal
earlier last year for his services to philately gave a display
of items from his collections of Prince Edward Island and Queensland.
These covered a period from around 1840 to 1912 and represented the
results of a collection, which was started more than 40 years ago. It
was a fascinating and entertaining evening.
The Society
has continued to enjoy a programme of excellent speakers during 2006.
Susan Oliver came to see us in May and gave a display on the stamps and
postal history of the Faroe Islands, which have fascinated her ever
since she was a schoolgirl. The mystery speaker scheduled for July
turned out to be Giles du Boulay, who arguably has one of the most
extensive collections in the world of the stamps and postal history of
Danzig. His display commenced at the start of the First World War and
ended in 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland.
The meeting in
September was devoted to Local Postal History. This was a splendid
evening when members brought along items from their collections from
the 1750's up to the current day. A number of unique items
were shown which included rare mileage marks of Aylesbury which were
used in the early 1800's.
Michael
Lockton FRPSL
entertains
The members of the
Aylesbury & District Philatelic Society turned up in force at
their November meeting to enjoy a display of GB Postal History given by
Michael Lockton who is a well known figure in the philatelic world.
Michael divided his
display into two sessions which were in complete contrast to each other
and demonstrated the wealth of GB material which is available to the
postal historian. The first session concerned the postal history of
Exeter and ranged from the earliest known letters sent during the
1500’s up to the present day. His display covered the
pre-stamp period with a number of unique items from the Corsini
correspondence and the introduction of Uniform penny Postage was well
illustrated with a penny black on a letter posted in Exeter during May
1840 and some Mulready letters.
Michael’s
second session was designed to demonstrate that the postal history of
tomorrow can be found in the wastepaper baskets of today. The display
concentrated on the use of Queen Elizabeth Machin stamps to pay the
postage rate for which they were issued. This meant that each cover
displayed only had the one stamp which was the correct rate for the
service being used. Michael’s display covered every value of
stamp issued since decimalisation from the halfpenny to the
£10 value and showed that a fascinating display can be
produced at a relatively low cost from contemporary material.
The construction of
a display of this nature requires a sound knowledge of all the postage
rates in operation and of the services being offered by the Post
Office; this includes Air Letter Rates, Forces Mail, Printed Matter,
Registration, Recorded Delivery, European Rates and the Inland Services
within the UK. It also needs considerable dedication to seek out
examples of every rate which has operated during the past 40 years and
it was clear that Michael’s family were under strict
instructions when away from home to retain any envelopes Michael sent
to them.
Peter
Lister Displays GB Internal Airmails
The Aylesbury
& District Philatelic Society made an excellent start to the
New Year by inviting Peter Lister to give a display from his collection
of GB Internal Airmails which covered the period from 1911 to 1939. It
was evident from the start of the display that we were listening to an
expert on the subject of airmails and that the display being given was
a representative selection from a huge collection which has been built
up during the past 40 years.
Many of the early
letters were philatelic and designed to demonstrate the capability of
aircraft as a method of transporting letters, but a number of flights
which had been planned were delayed or abandoned as a result of bad
weather and it was clear from Peter’s narrative that bad
weather was a recurrent problem during the early days of flying. Peter
showed many items which were unique and would be virtually impossible
for a new collector to obtain unless an existing collector decided to
sell his collection, but Peter pointed out that while many of the items
on display were scarce, they were not expensive because there is a
relatively small number of collectors interested in aerophilately
compared with other branches of the hobby.
As the use of
aircraft for the delivery of mail increased some airlines produced
their own stamps and the display included the largest known blocks of
GWR Airmail stamps. The display contained a wonderful selection of
photographs, numerous letters and even a silver cigarette lighter
presented as a memento to one of the pilots who flew the first Aerial
Post from Windsor to London on 16th September 1911. Peter was warmly
applauded for an excellent presentation on a subject which introduced
most of the audience to an entirely new field of philately.
John
Tingey -
The Human Letter
July 8th 2009
John Tingey started his display with some self composed poetry about a
Gentleman by the name of Reginald Bray. The display that followed was a
life history of this remarkable man.
Mr Bray was an accountant born in 1876 and spent much of his life
"experimenting" with the Royal mail. He would send any type of item
through the post including such things as a Bee and Himself, On the
first occasion he realised that by just posting himself, he had no
evidence that it took place and so on the second time of posting he had
himself "Registered" Mr Bray tested the postal service by
writing the address in the form of a poem or writing it backwards or in
the form of a picture quiz.
Members of the Aylesbury Society wait in anticipation of the
evenings events
An embroidered letter sent
by Mr Bray
"Reginald
Bray"
Johns display included many Letters
Postcards and items such as
addressed shirt collars, that had been through the post, and
many autographs collected by Mr Bray who at the time owned the larges
collection on record.
John Baron -
History of the Lottery
July 8th 2009
Members were surprised when john informed them that there was a lottery
in Britain as long ago as 1560 but the most documented was the Lottery
of 1736 which offered a prise of an Annuity, In 1780 the prize was a
staggering £20,000 a huge sum of money for the time, A ticket
cost the punter Half a guinea and involved much postal history as a
receipt was issued to confirm your winnings or not even if it was to
inform you that you had drawn a blank. The lottery in Britain finished
in 1826 but a ticket for the Frankfurt or earlier Hamburg lottery was
available.
The modern lottery has raised over 300 million pounds for good causes
to date and Johns material covered all aspects from the 1700's to today
including a cheque from Lottery HQ.
John
shows one of his more ornate lottery tickets
Hugh V Fieldman
-
Mails by water in America
October 14th 2009
This evenings subject started in 1824 when the first contracts were
issued to carry mail by riverboat in the United states of
America, The longest rout being 28 miles of the Hudson River,
Hugh Feildman presented his display on the Society boards but gave his
presentation via a computer generated "Power Point" onto a screen which
gave the audience a readable image,
Hugh started collecting River Mail in 2002 and has built up an amazing
collection mainly of covers which included Name of the boat cachets,
other items included early maps and routes for mail by boat,horse or
wagon.
Unfortunately no records were kept of routes between 1875 and 1914 but
by 1887 steam boat mail had virtually ceased although mail is still
carried by boat to this day,
Hugh also brought along some copies of his book U. S.
contract
mail routes by water - Star routes 1824 - 1875
Hugh
shows one of the
boats used for river mail and freight.
Geoffrey Eible-Kaye:
Inflationary
Issues
November 11th 2009
Geoffrey opened the evening by demonstrating how inflation affected the
postal system with familiar British stamps and followed through with
inflationary issues from around the globe, One of the most striking
periods was demonstrated by the German Issues of the early
1920s
when postage was increased by thousands of millions of marks.
Geoffrey also demonstrated the confusion caused by increases of postage
from one day to the next with first day of new postage issues on cover
which showed some interesting cancellations.
Geoffrey
shows members the
first sheets of his display
A visit to
Leighton Buzzard
January
20th 2010
Four members traveled to Leighton Buzzard to entertain
members of
their neighboring society to a variety of displays .
John Powell showed a good selection of Victorian material
from
the Gold Coast While Michael Pitt-payne explained with his exhibit the
postal system between the United Kingdom and France between
1798
and 1890 with its very complex rates between the two countries, Graham
Aylet showed Denmarks first stamp with 14 sheets of variants while
Cyril Parsons gave his display - 50 years of G.B. postmarks which
included examples from canceling machines, automatic letter facers,
Slogans and examples of the two tier 1st and 2nd class system.
A Visit from Maidenhead Philatelic Society.
March 10th 2010
Three
members of the visiting Society gave a
varied display of General Philately starting
with Tony Stanford with a fine example of the stamps and history of
Zululand from 1888to the 1894 De la Rue Isse including post cards and
postal stationery. Following on Edie Spicer displayed the history of
the Man comien airmails of Colombia distinguishable from the
large and small "C" postmarks, After the break Anthony Simmondes gave a
varied display including The Turkish Empire,including Crimea war
material, Registered mail of Nigeria and George V booklet panes.
Tony Stanford concluded with Military and army Telegraph
stamps
of Sudan 1884 - 1902 Including telegraph forms and hand stamps.
Michael Pitt-Payne rewarded each visiting members of the Maidenhead
society with a bottle of fine wine and a enthusiastic round of applause
from the Aylesbury society members.
Gavin
Fryer F.R.P.S.L. George VI. World War II.
July 14th 2010
Gavin began his
display with a cover which included four 1d scarlet definitives
postmarked 9th May
1937 1 day before the official issue date,Heavy cancellations were
applied in an attempt to disguise the mistake, Evacuation
letters telegrammes and wreck mail were displayed dating from1939 and
following on from this Internee mail from many foreign army and navy
personnel in Britain.
British stamps of King George VI were displayed on mail sent from
abroad
including such countries as China sometimes without success.
overall there were almost 200 sheets of material on show,
including some rare and some unique items.all giving evidence
of
what went on with mail in the era of King
George VI.
Gavin shows Air mail leaflet indicating postal rates
Gavin
with heavily
canceled cover from 1937.
Christine
Earle FRPSL The Post Office went to War.
October 13th 2010
Christine shows a Booklet from 1995 featuring R J Mitchel and the
Spitfire.
December 8th 2010
Colin Such from the well known auctioneers Warwick and Warwick was assisted by his wife in giving a display of Postcards accompanied by stories of life as an Auctioneer.
Following this Seasonal celebrations were shared by all those present.
February 9th 2011
3 Members of the Leighton Buzzard Society came to display items from their collections pictured here are Rory Morrisey with a display of Thailand and John Hossack with his display of Sierra Leone. More information on the Leighton Buzzard Philatlic Society web page here
April 13th 2011
Visitors from Hertford in April. Joe Neumann, Susan McEwan and Alistair Kennedy
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