Vol.46 No 5 June 2007

1 June Meeting - Please note date and venue

The next meeting of the Society will be held in Lower Hutt and will be a joint meeting with the Hutt Valley Philatelic Society on Tuesday June 5 2007 at 7.30 pm in the Horticultural Hall Supper Room (side entrance) alongside the Town Hall, Laings Road, Lower Hutt.

Programme: Welcome – Business – Inspection of Sale Material – Items of Interest

Speaker: NZPost – Ivor Masters will be introducing their new Sales & Marketing Manager, James Te Puni. The topic will be the upcoming stamp programme and current events relating to the stamp business.

Sale of Philatelic Material

(If anyone has a special question for NZPost please advise the office by email, fax or phone.)

2 May Meeting

Brian Vincent welcomed about 13 members and asked for items of interest. Peter Goodson had a selection of souvenir Tarapex 86 items. John Kersel showed some airmail covers that flew England to Australia, then by sea to NZ. He also had some WW2 covers between Auckland and Sydney.

Adam Miller had a commercial tape letter, being a specially made carton holding a small tape reel. This one additionally was marked “Forces” and was from England to Changi Base, at a 6d rate. He also had an Ellerman Lines pack of cards with the Ace of Spades marked up with 3d Playing Card Tax. An EKKO stamp on letter from the 1930s was part of a scheme for publicising early radio stations.

Des Hurley showed some NZ postcards of the Upper Wanganui, plus some POW photographs realting to a French POW in Germany and mail from various camps in the UK.

Bob Watson had information on the late recall of the UK’s “Isle of White” stamps. He showed a FFQ cover from the John Woolf auction, used as a newspaper wrapper – actually for “2 papers”, which turned out to also be “Ex Stanley” and the one illustrated in Volume 7.

Geoff Rickards showed a Japanese double lined cash mailing envelope from the 1960s, with two flaps plus two enclosed adhesive seals for added security. Doug Tennant showed a GB 2/6 Seahorse with the “SUTTON READING” perfin.

Finally Brian showed recent French Rugby World Cup items, and a cover he had sent to Colin Meads, bearing the Meads private post stamp, which Colin had kindly signed and posted back.

Speaker Richard Smolnicki on Perfins commenced his talk by explaining that the display was largely confined to UK items with a New Zealand connection. He had brought along some literature, including a volume from the UK catalogue, noting that there were now some 25,000 different patterns known and the complete catalogue would stack feet high!

John Sloper had the patent from 1858-1872, and the original intent was to deter low-grade fraud, whereby staff could take the odd stamp back to the Post Office for a refund. The Post Office would not take perfinned items back. Slopers would either perfin stamps for you, or sell you a machine. Most used simple combinations of letters, but some went for designs such as shields. Items on a proving cover are especially sought after and earliest/latest dates for a design are catalogued.

BNZ and NZ (High Commission) are quite commonly found here and Richard has quite a few pages of variants of these.

As well as stamps, Richard showed a perfinned parcel label and postal stationery. As sheets of stamps were usually folded perfins are found in a variety of orientations. One variant was a coil-dispensing machine that punched the stamps as they were ejected. The same pattern could be used by different companies, making the proving covers more important.

Most countries in the world used this method, with a drop off in usage seen during the depression, and later as meter franks gained popularity.

Adam Miller gave the vote of thanks.

2 Chalon Book Refunds

We have sent members, who ordered and paid for the “Chalon Book” through the Society, a cheque refunding the money plus a small amount of interest.

3 Volume IX

The Postage Stamps of New Zealand Volume IX is selling extremely well. Price for members is $140.00 plus P & P.

4 May 07 Postal Sale

If you were one of the bidders in the Postal Sale thank you for your bids, which have made the sale one of the most successful ever – initial sales in excess of $28,000. The Prices Realised List is on the website and members are welcome to place bids for any unsold items they may have overlooked. Thanks also to all who sent in Lots but a special vote of thanks must go to our Sales Manager, Doug Tennant, and his helpers who put so much work into making the Sale so successful.

6 MANAWATU CONVENTION 2007 - Saturday 30 June

The Annual Manawatu Convention will be held again at the Palmerston North Community Leisure Centre at 569 Ferguson Street, Palmerston North on Saturday 30 June.

7 STAMP EXCHANGE

Nikolay Kolev from Bulgaria, but presently working in Libya, wants to exchange for used stamps from New Zealand. If interested contact him by email: kolev_stamps@yahoo.com.

Professor Arik Gefen, a collector of Israeli stamps would like to exchange for stamps from New Zealand. His address is 46 Ruhama St., Ramat-Gan, Israel 52354 or email: agefen@netvision.net.il.

The newsletter is always happy to publish any items of interest you may have so please either fax material to the Editor on

04 971 8537 or email to the Society’s office. As usual, we reserve the right to publish.