On Wednesday 21st January our President (Tommy Manson) was the first foot at the club.
His topic was Evolution of the stamps of Papua and New Guinea. From the Colony of Queensland stamps being used in Papua 1885-1901 until just after Independence in 1976. As he said not all areas of stamps would be covered as many stamps are so rare it is impossible to get or show them apart from a facsimile in some cases. He showed British New Guinea with B.N.G. cancels, lovely Lakatoi stamps with various faults/errors, he has not been collecting this area for very long so says he is not got much faults/errors on stamps to show us, but what he had was fascinating and enjoyed by a healthy audience of members. For postcard collectors he brought a few fairly modern ones to keep them happy. lol. He had a fascinating collection of VMail all from one soldier in New Guinea describing his hope to see his new daughter among other things, and Tom managed to research the family and found that the daughter he spoke about had died in 2013 in the USA. A good afternoon was had by all and vote of thanks given by the secretary and members thanked the President individually.
