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8th November 2017: Simon Richards, Dominica

The Island of Dominica is one of the Windward islands of the Caribbean and Simon showed us a superb and comprehensive display of material form the Island.



starting with the first known letter to England dated 1763, After the break Simon Showed six topics each consisting of around fifteen sheets covering George V, Leeward Islands generic stamps of 1890 1903, Censored covers, Pre paid letters and cards, Postmarks form the villages on the Island and to finish postcards of the Island.

October 11th 2017

A visit from the Hemel Hempstead Society.

Colin Peachey opened the evening with his display focusing on the 2012 Olympics and the part played by the post office. Items displayed in full were Stamps, Covers, Postmarks, Booklets, Sheets, and publicity items.



After the break Keith Wright showed a contrasting display of post and covers from and to Bristol mainly from the pre-stamp period up until the early Victorian Issues.

September 13th Chairman’s evening

Michael Pitt-Payne FRPSL gave a splendid evening of his collecting interests. Michael started with his pre stamp Letters starting from the 1700s, A great deal of research was required by Michael to write up the history of the letters, The person who sent it and the person receiving it, Many well-known people of the time were mentioned to tie in with his exhibits, After a refreshing cup of coffee we were treated to a showing of Michaels stamps, Just to prove to us that he did collect stamps.

July 12th 2017 - Dr Geoffrey Eible-Kaye FRPSL

Dr Geoffrey Eible-Kaye FRPSL

India 1750 to 1857

Geoffrey made a welcome return to the Society showing how the mail was sent between India and Great Britain at a time when the distribution of mail was not very efficient to say the least. Many letters took months and some well over a year to reach their destination and so unsure was the sender that often two identical letters were sent on separate routes to have a double chance of reaching their destination, In the early days mail was sent via the Cape but when the Suez canal was opened the route became much shorter. most went part sea and part overland.



Geoffrey’s display was presented via power point with the items themselves shown on our display boards.

10th May 2017 Togo overprints on Gold coast stamps

Malcolm Nichols and Chris Jackson together arranged for us a most interesting evening starting with Chris describing how the German country of Togo was taken from the Germans in 1914 at the outbreak of the first world war. Togo was sandwiched between the British Gold coast and French Dahomey and could have been used to the advantage of the German navy as it had a coastline of around 26 miles. After his talk Chris showed us how they overprinted stamps of Great Britain rather crudely and with many variations for use within Togo.



The splendid power point display was produced by Malcolm and Chris’s impressive display of sheets and blocks of overprints with all of their variations, were shown to members mounted on our display boards.

April 12th Carl Barnes – Cape of good hope.

Carl Barnes gave a splendid display of Cape triangles on cover. The first use of these stamps was 1st September 1853 and although a first day of issue would be impossible to find carl did show a cover cancelled on 7th September . which considering the stamp saw only four months use in that year a rarity indeed. Carls covers included a combination of stamps to make up the 4d postal rate including blocks of 4 x 1d to supplement the single use 4d stamp.



For the second half Carl showed Pre stamp material which included ships letters and Town postmarks represented by a numbered cancel.

March 8th 2017.

Andy Harris- Italy and Italian states.

Italy was united as one Kingdom in 1861 and before that date Naples, Modena, Parma, Sardinia, Sicily and Tuscany Issued their own stamps .

Andy’s display covered the complete history of the Italian postal system including the Vatican. A most enjoyable evening.