05. 15th November 2017 – “An Australian Sandwich” – Sandy Forbes

Today we had our first guest speaker outwith the club today namely Sandy Forbes, a well known speaker on the Scottish scene.
The title of his subject fascinated members but it was simply what was sandwiched between  east and west of Australia, namely South Australia.  He started collecting after seeing letters belonging to his father that was sent home from Australia from his uncles. Uncle John sent letters regularly, eh well ONE a year if you can call that regular. His father went to Australia to meet his brother 50 years after he left England to go out there, they started talking where they left off 50 years earlier so his mother said.
He has written a book on KGV stamps which took him 10 years to write, never again. He displayed some of his KGV stamp sheets he used in book, Scottish placenames are prevelant in Australia so he showed them as well as postmarks on covers. Trees are another topic he is fascinated by and again many were displayed. He showed Simpson and his Donkey the ANZAC stamp issued by several countries. South Australia, many different variations, in perforations, papers, forgeries, plate proofs,watermark large star paper. All states in Australia were seperate and issued own stamps until 1901 when Australia was formed. 1913 was when first Australia stamp was produced. His talk was fascinating well worth seeing and hearing. Many thanks Sandy.