On Tuesday February 6th, Banbury Stamp Society met with members displaying material around the ‘Letter L’.
Members are always creative about finding material related to the letter, and so there were only two ‘L’ countries on display: an air mail set from Liberia and a very unusual sheet of stamps from Latvia after the WWII when scarcity of paper meant that the stamps were printed on the back of German military maps.
‘Letters’ were a popular second choice. These included an interesting letter posted from Malta in August 1849 and arriving in Italy in July 1849 as the two countries were using different calendars. We also saw letters to the Bahamas from philatelists asking for letters to be put on first air mail flights and a letter from Uruguay to London.
Local posts provided a surprising amount of material for one collector ranging from the well-known Lundy to the more obscure Sealand in the North Sea. We had lions on the King George V Downey head issue, the Guildhall Letter card produced in 1890 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of uniform penny postage. The card was pre-paid for 1d postage but cost 6d to buy, with the difference going to the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund. Lewis Carrol provided the ‘L’ for one collector who showed the Wonderland Stamp case produced in 1890 and followed by Wonderland labels – stamps as they might have been used in Wonderland.
Next meeting will be a visit from Stratford Philatelic Society at 7:30pm on February 20th at Hanwell Fields Community Centre. The Banbury Stamp Society is on-line at ‘www.banburystampsociety.co.uk’, or contact John Davies on 01295 255831.