Stamps on display

Members of the Scarborough Philatelic Society gave short displays at the August meeting. In spite of the low attendance, a wide variety of stamps were shown, some very rarely seen.

Robin Stenhouse started with a display of stamps illustrating the achievements of an ‘august’ personality, Fridtjof Nansen, polar explorer, scientist, diplomat and winner of the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work in the wake of the First World War.

Les Jones showed colourful British stamps depicting flowers.

Chris Phillips showed definitive stamps of Bolivia produced in the 1930s, including varieties and errors. Bolivia is not a popular country with collectors, but Chris showed interesting, attractive and well produced stamps. Chris also showed a range of the very well designed stamps of Eire.

Ted Lunn brought some very unusual stamps produced by many of the native states of India between 1850 and 1900. These were produced for use within the state concerned so the designs and lettering are unintelligible to us. Some of the states produced only one stamp to cover all their postal services. Ted also showed the early stamps of France, also fakes and forgeries of stamps of Zululand and Transvaal. He finished the evening, appropriately, with a display of Finish stamps.

The society’s next meeting, on September 1 at Scarborough Library, will be an auction of philatelic items. The room will be open from 6.45pm. Visitors are welcome.