Recent meetings

The now annual auction took place in November. This time it was a room auction with lots of bargains available on the night and an added cabaret from the two auctioneers. The Xmas social had displays from Gwen (balloons) and Diane (meter-marks) before the usual food.

We have now got to the letter "Q" in the philatelic alphabet. This brought some Fiji place names. QE II from New Zealand and GB, Queen Margrethe of Denmark, Queensland, Qatar, Quadropeds, Queens of the Cunard line, Queens from Europe and Qing (somewhere in China).

I missed the social philately experimental competition but my entry of the Swedish American Line just scraped the prize. The other entries were Pop Art, Monmouthshire Post Offices, The Summer Islands, British Antarctic Bases, In Times of war, Art Cover Exchange and Bizarre Gallery. The rules appeared in the November 2001 newsletter but the judges admitted that they found it rather difficult to apply them.

The 5 sheets or 50p certainly showed how mean stamp collectors are: all bar one brought along displays.

Roy Hollis provided what has now become a regular annual dealer's evening with his Cover Love stock. The name says it all really! I, for one, found lots of unusual items to add to my collection. Roy has a lot of stock and it takes an evening to go through it.

One of the highlights of the season proved to be Alistair's Antarctic Odyssey. This was a display of philatelic material and related slides from his recent voyage to the southern continent

The annual competition night attracted several late entries but we could have done with more: only one in the GB class (QE II Printers and Printing Processes). The other classes fared better with postal history having five entries (Post Office on the Kungsholm, Gibraltar - George VI Mail, First World War Correspondence, GB Registered Mail, PANAM). Both the general class (Gibraltar Postal Cards & Faroes Philatelic Firsts) and the thematic class (In Defence of the Rock & Antarctica - Defining the Continent) had two entries. Five entries went forward to the South Wales Federation Convention on 4 May.

Due to last minute problems at Bridgend, Newport members rallied round for an impromptu evening at the beginning of April. For the next visit we welcomed visitors from Barry: after the display by Alun John, I now know the difference between an emblem and a symbol. Austin Meares then provided a memorable evening on the life of Napoleon at the beginning of May.

Stamp fairs

Barry Philatelic Society is running its annual stamp fair at the Memorial Hall, Barry on 1 June 2002.

Chris Doble's fairs are at the Jury's Hotel in Cardiff on the first Friday of each month (next one is on 7 June).

The next South Wales Federation autumn day is to be run by the Swansea Philatelic Society on 28 September 2002 at the British Legion Club, Newton Road, Mumbles, Swansea from 10 am to 4.15 pm.

The Cardiff Stamp Fairs at the City Hall are now run by AMP Fairs. Future dates for 2002 are: 15 June, 10 August, 26 October and 7 December.

Federation News

The Annual Convention coincided with the FA Cup Final that was taking place in Cardiff on 4 May 2002. For those of us travelling from east of Cardiff, this made for an interesting journey. A 9 a.m. start and a detour through Newport avoided the congestion and we were in Port Talbot when the stamp fair opened (at 10 a.m.). The Faroes Philatelic Firsts won the general philatelic prize. The club got two other silver medals (for the Victorian Registered Post and the Post Office on the Kungsholm) in the postal history class. Not much of a chance of a first prize here against a display of pre-stamp entires from Mauritius by Geoff Cooper of Swansea! We also got bronze medals for the two Gibraltar displays (In Defence of the Rock in the thematic class and Postal Stationery Postcards in the general class). The sun shone on an enjoyable day for those members who braved the football traffic.

Part 2 of the judging seminar organised by the South Wales Federation that was scheduled for 16 March had to be cancelled. The Federation is hoping to re-arrange it but no date has been fixed as yet. The aim of the seminar is to get more qualified judges for local and federation competitions.

Here is advance warning of a visit to South Wales by Pat Grimwood-Taylor of Cavendish Auctions. Pat has been invited by the Federation to talk about Social Philately. It looks likely to be on 8 May 2003 (that is a Thursday) but the date is still to be confirmed, as is the location).

If anybody else would like to be added to the Federation list of speakers, please tell me. You will need to have your own car.

Newport area postmarks

Here are copies of the Benham postmarks for the British Waterways issue of 20 July 1993and the Roman Britain stamps of 15 June 1993 mentioned in the last newsletter:

Here also is a copy of an interesting postmark from 25 February 1980 for the first journey of the royal Mail Bus service from Abergavenny to Skenfrith. I had not seen this before. 

I have added all of these to the list of Newport and Gwent postmarks in the history of the club.

Odds and ends

Linns Stamp News reported on 18 February that some Harry Potter "labels" had been advertised for sale on ebay. hey purported to come from Tajikistan but were not authorised. They were quickly removed. Nevertheless, New Zealand has issued a set of stamps officially for Lord of the Rings, so official Harry Potter stamps cannot be far behind.

Bernie Riff is a member of the Art Cover Exchange Club. ACE is a group for collectors who enjoy decorating envelopes (drawing, painting computer graphics etc). Bernie will be entertaining Newport members at the AGM at the end of May.

Computer world

More of our members are now on the web. I send emails round occasionally to provide information. I will also email non-members but only on request and I do not pass on email lists.

Here are some interesting links .....

In my opinion, the best auction site Ebay (auctions): http://pages.ebay.com

The best way to find sites of interest: http://www.execpc.com/~joeluft

The UK philately site: http://www.ukphilately.org.uk

The Stamp Café: www.stampcafe.com

The Stamp Core site: www.stampcore.com

The Valley Connection (for everything South Wales): www.valleyconnection.co.uk