On Tuesday 3rd January a good turnout of members attended the meeting which was a New Year Social and the opportunity to display “Recent Acquisitions”.
We started off with a collection of Austrian Diamond Jubilee postcards which looked all the same but, on the reverse, had the inscription in different languages showing how diverse the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in 1908. This was followed by a scarce French Postage Due acquired following the sale of a Swedish collection and then a letter written in Croatian from a POW camp in Fiume
We were then treated to an extract from a Gold Medal display on the 1890 Post Office Jubilee showing numerous commemorative envelopes. The highlight, however, was a passport issued by the 2nd Earl of Grafton to allow Frederick Baines (who was a key individual in planning and organising the celebrations is 1890) to travel.
This was followed by a pot-pourri of San Marino, France, a lovely collection from Hawaii including portraits of the Hawaiian Royal Family, a sheet of numerous War Tax stamps from across the Empire and a block of 30 1966 World Cup stamps.
The next items were all from Malta but showed German POWs during WW11. It was interesting to see the difference between how the ordinary soldier was treated (billeted in tents) and the officers who had much better accommodation.
To close the first half, we were treated to a superb collection of entire sheets from Bahamas with the 1492 Landfall of Columbus overprint.
After a break for festive refreshments the second half was opened with 2 Presentation Folders from the Postal Union Congress in Paris in 1947 showing items from Bahamas followed by several unusual overprints “Alleghany” which are thought to have been added on the SS Alleghany of the Atlas Steamship Company that operated between New York and the Caribbean. In addition, we were shown the various Foreign Air Male routes from Florida to both the East and West coasts of South America.
The last display showed various items from the Royal Naval camp at Blandford which was where a contingent of surplus Royal Naval staff were trained to be soldiers in support of the war effort. This division consisted of 2 brigades serving in Antwerp and Gallipoli.
The next presentation evening will be a visit from Leamington Philatelic Society on Tuesday 17th January 2023 at 7:30pm at the Hanwell Fields Community Centre. The Banbury Stamp Society is on-line at ‘www.banburystampsociety.co.uk’, or contact John Davies on 01295 255831.