FOOTBALL POSTCARD COLLECTORS CLUB

"KNIGHTS of FOOTBALL"

FPCC No. 4 Limited edition of 1000

This was the fourth postcard published by this collectors club. I decided to show it here because I have previously shown two postcards which were signed and which had between them the signatures of Sir Stanley Matthews and Sir Alf Ramsey and both of these 'Knights' appear on this design.

Depicted in total are;-

SIR MATT BUSBY - Knighted 1968

SIR BOBBY CHARLTON - Knighted 1994

SIR STANLEY MATHEWS - Knighted 1965

SIR ALF RAMSEY - Knighted 1967

SIR WALTER WINTERBOTTOM - Knighted 1978 

The artist was Stuart Avery

LOS ANGELES OLYMPICS 1984

This is one of  large series of official Los Angeles Olympics postcards from 1984. This is the mascot for this years olympics 'Sam the Olympic Eagle'.

This is a privately produced advert postcard by a dealer who was selling the paostcards from the series from which the above postcard came. On the front of this card they have used the same image as from the above postcard only printed in black and white. Rather perversely this black and white postcard is far more scarce than the card from which the image was taken. I also like the fact that he was selling Disney Epcot Center postcards, 17 views for $5.95.

They were selling 20 of the 1984 Olympic postcards for $16.50, which was not even a complete set as I have 28 different cards from this series and am not sure that even this is a complete range.   

This is the reverse side of the above privately produced black and white postcard. This has a pre-printed 'Robert Morris - Patriot' 13cents U.S.Postage stamp printed directly onto the card. For those who are unaware any postcard which has a pre-printed postage stamp on it is called a 'Postal Stationary Card' and these were in fact the very first forms of postcards that were issued when postcards were first invented.

WARHOLE

MARILYN MONROE

I suspect that Marilyn Monroe is the most collected actress on postcard. I myself have a fairly large Monroe postcard collection and it is not one of my main themes. There are some early ones which are quite expensive but even today new related postcards appear. This one is a free advert postcard for WAR HOLE - NEW VARIED EDITION - by K-GUY. K-Guy is apparently represented by London Westbank Gallery (these details are recorded on the reverse side of the postcard).    

COMPARE.THE.' MEERKAT'.DOT.COM

At first appearances this looks like a bit of a boring piece of unsolicited mail, the type of stuff we get in magazines and through the post on a regular basis. This was in fact posted and has the 2nd class Pre-Paid Postage Indicator top right and was delived by the Royal Mail. This side just has the postal address and a couple of lines of text which advertise the insurance company Compare.the.market. com. .....     

......but check out this side. Here we have all the stuffed toys for all the Meerkat characters that appear in what has now been a very long running television advert campaign. The main character is Aleksandr Orlov, an aristocratic Russian meerkat. He is assisted by Sergei, Orlov's sidekick although I see him more as a general dogsbody but in recent adverts he has gained some stature of his own (dating Nicole Kidman for a start!!).

With the amazing popularity of these advert characters the company started issueing these stuffed character toys to people who have taken out insurance with them (I myself have an Orlov and a Sergei stuffed toy). These have been extremely well received and sell well on the second hand market (a postman was in fact arrested and convicted for stealing these from those addressed to houses on his round and then selling them on an internet sales auction site for over £20 each).

Believe it or not the original campaign was launced all the way back on the 5th January 2009, thats seven years ago!!!!

What more could I want? Television related. Free, and unusual...........Simples     

PUBLIC LIBRARY, SOUTHEND

SB SERIES POSTCARD

This building is now the local Southend Museum but I am old enough to remember when it was still the library. When I was a child my mother took me here and it was the first library I was a member of, all be it only as a child member, and I took a book out of here on my first visit, it was a Pinky and Perky storybook (as you can see my interest in TV started young - for those too young to know or remember Pinky and Perky were two puppet pig characters who had their own TV series and released a number of records). This was my library for most of my youth before the library moved next door to a purpose built modern building (it has recently moved again further into the centre of the town near to the college).

The building looks much the same although the fencing and shrubbery out front has all gone now and there is an extended pavement, the trees have also gone. I think this image is around 100 years old. The card is used but I can not make out the year - it was posted on the 23 JUL but the next bit is faded. The two stamps used are King George V Halfpenny values so assuming the card was posted during his reign, by no menas certain as it could have been posted later but I strongly believe it was'nt, it was posted between 1910 - 1936. I have used a magnifying glass to look at the date cancel and it looks like this could be either 1915 or 1919 but I feel confident with the 191...          

SOUTHEND-ON-SEA

HORROR-ON-SEA FILM FESTIVAL 2015

This was the postcard issued in 2015 to promote the 2015 HORROR-ON-SEA film festival which ran between 23rd and 25th January. This horror film fest has become popular and is on again this year for the fourth time (22/01/16 to 24/01/16 and between 29/01/16 and 31/01/16 - so two weekends which is double the length of last years event). I have seen flyers for this years event but no postcards, which is a shame (this years A5 flyers depict the same image). This postcard from last year has a cracking image of a sea monster approaching a bikini clad female in distress (the standard format for many horror movies). But what I liked was the pier extending out into the sea which is supposed to be Southend's own record breaking pleasure pier (and it might even be a photograph upon which the rest of the illustration is placed). As this was a free postcard it was a bargain.    

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY - AUTOGRAPHED POSTCARD

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - AT WORLD'S END

This postcard was published by 'artcard' a company who number their postcards and also date them so we know that this is number 0882 from Mar 2007. The card is a pre-publicity postcard for the third film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. This was the last of the films (to date) to have Keira Knightley in it. Through the first three films Knightley played the character Elizabeth Swann although the scene stealing main star Johnny Depp is more memorable as the mainstay character Captain Jack Sparrow. 

This third film was first shown in the Disneyland resort on 19th May 2007 but had its general American release from 25th May 2007. The date at the centre bottom of this card is 24 MAY 2007 which leads me to believe, along with the reverse vertical layout, that this card is from the Asian continent or Australia.

The front of this card bears the signature of Keira Knightley in black pen.

If you are interested the film grossed $963.4 million at the box office from a believed budget of $300 million (making it at the time the most expensive film ever made). Despite mixed critical reviews it was the most successful film of 2007. 

VISIT OF THE FLEET TO SOUTHEND-ON-SEA 1909

In one of my first blogs I mentioned this event and depicted a card which related to the event although it did not make mention of it. Well here is the polar opposite of that card as this card proudly celebrated the fact that the fleet was in town.

This is an artist drawn design which incorporates an image of battleships on the Thames and a view of the Southend pleasure pier (which has received a previous mention but gets depicted here for the first time - it is the worlds longest Pleasure Pier). No publisher or printer is listed although there is every reason to suspect that this was locally produced and quite clearly locally sold to the many people who visited during the Fleets visit (as it was a drawn image it could have been prepared in advance and be ready for sale as soon the Battleships attended). This copy here is unused but someone at the time clearly wanted to remember details of the event as they have written in pencil on the reverse side the following:-

'1909 - July 17th to 24th - Visit of Fleet off Southend'

This is a lovely card and fits nicely into my local history postcard collection. 

STAR TREK : THE NEXT GENERATION

I did not think these would scan as they are printed by a process called Holography for a company called 'Applied Holographics Corporation, Oxnard, California' by a printer called 'Holographic Label Converting Inc' based in Minnesota.

This first design has a shiny silver background and blue letters. They work like a mirror and if you look down into them you can see your face reflected back at you from behind the USS Enterprise spaceship.

These are very collectible cards as Star Trek is a very popular thematic and related postcards maintain their value. 

On this design the reflective background is gold in colour and the printed letters are black.

TRAINS AND BUTTERED TOAST

John Betjeman

Advert postcard for a book which collected some selected radio talks by John Betjeman. The book was published by John Murray in June 2006 (so logic states that this card is from around the same period or even just before as a prior promotion for the release). Further text states that this was in celebration of Sir John Betjeman's centenary year.

Card Printed by 'Unique Cards'  

GEORGE V SILVER JUBILEE STAMPS

This was a free postcard isued to promote the LONDON 2010 FESTIVAL OF STAMPS (a week long International Stamp Exhibition held at the Buisness and Design Centre in Islington. I attended this event every day and obtained some nice postcards and stamps for my collection).

"Portrait of George V by Vandyk, with 1934 essays using this and alternative portrait by Mackennal, which was eventually selected".

This postcard was number 5 in a series and was limited to 5,000 copies (which is actually not that limited really which is why copies are readily obtainable).

I have always been interested in stamps and whilst at Junior school I was one of the many kids that collected them. These days I only collect Television themed stamps (this sits with my TV cards collection and my many TV related books). But it seems sensible to me for a postcard collector to have some knowledge, and/or interest in stamps as the two items are intrinsically linked. In my collection I have postcards which are worth a few pennies but the stamp that is on them is worth many pounds. My knowledge of stamps as helped me realise this. As an example I have a Hitchcock Royal Mail PHQ Stamp Card in my collection from 1985 which is probably on its own worth 50p (possibly less) but on the back of it it has two Hitchcock matching stamps but with the variety where the silver Queen's head has dropped from above the value to below the value (thus it is known as the 'Dropped Head' error). Individual copies of this stamp are valued around £40. On my card there are two in a gutter pair which have been cancelled first day of issue with a simple 'Southend-on-Sea' circular first day of issue hand stamp. I have been offered £140 for this single card but imagine if I had never noticed the error? Because I could have as it came in a batch of PHQ cards which I bought for just a few pounds.     

WELSH FOLK MUSEUM

No./Rhif 341

Mid 18th century men's clothing from Tredegar Park, Gwent and Penlle'r-gaer, West Glamorgan.

Dillad dynion o ganol y 18fed ganrif, o Barc Tredegar, Gwent a Phenlle'r-gaer, Gorllewin Morgannwg

These two fine dressed men look to be gentlemen. Clothing is an unusual theme and many museums and historic building have issued such costume cards. I do not specifically collect these but these two examples seemed worthy of a place in my miscellaneous collection (this is my 'Catch All' category where I put postcards I like but which don't fit into any of my main themes)    

No./Rhif 343

Crinoline wedding dress, c. 1855-60 formerly worn at Ystradmeurig, Dyfed

Gwisg briodas a sgert crinolin, tua 1855-60, a wisgwyd yn Ystradmeurig, Dyfed

WORLD WAR ONE

LL card number 381

"GUERRE 1914 -1915.- L'Artillerie lourde anglaise en action dons le nord de la France. Canon de 18 pouces"

"Royal Field Artillery in action in Northern France with an 18 pounder gun concealed"

Contrary to what some non collectors might think postcards of WW1 are quite common and many, many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) were sent by soliders whilst resting behind the front lines. Many can be bought for just a single pound (and sometimes just 50p for the many images of ruins in the various areas where the war hit hard and often). But this does not distract from their interest value and any story which might circle the image, the sender or the message written. 

This card came from my local stamp club auction - it was lot 108 and cost me £1.00 

Soldiers on the front line and fighting, and those in the areas behind the lines, were allowed to send their postcards free of charge (no stamp was required). All they had to do was write 'ON ACTIVE SERVICE' across the card, normally across the top (as with this example) and then sign the card to confirm this (see the signature to the left side of CARTE POSTALE at the top of this example). Postcards then had to go through a Censor and be stamped. This was normally a red coloured stamp which gives the message PASSED BY CENSOR with a pictured crown and the Censors number - in this case No 1491. No details of units or areas were given as this could pass information to the enemy of mail was intercepted. This means that knowing which unit the sender was attached to can be difficult to work out without expert help (and this is not within my area of expertise). I can make a guess that the sender was with the Roayl Field Artillery, or similar as his message reads "This is another of our guns. The 18 Pounder". The messages are often short and to the point because the soldiers were restricted with what they could say so with no mention of where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, what was happening war wise and and specific unit details they must have struggled to find things to say besides the normal family and friends pleasentries (even mentioning the weather could give details of their location). Once censored and placed in the mail system there was then a FIELD POST OFFICE cancellation applied - this one is dated 21 Feb 1915 - often over the censor mark as here.

The sender appears to be either a WS or a WJ and as this was just the second year of the war one immediately wonders what happened to him as by Feb 2015 the war had only been runing for six months. 1918 was a long way away.   

BOEING 737 - 500

LOT POLISH AIRLINES

BEST EASTERN EUROPEAN AIRLINE 1999, BUISNESS TRAVELLER AWARDS 1999

There is a dedicted group of airline company postcard collectors who seek out the cards officially released as promotional items by the airlines of the world. Once these were quite common but these days they are thin on the ground so it is good that we have these older cards to seek out and this one is a cracker. .   

PICTURE POSTCARD MONTHLY

As this postcard states this is 'The Magazine for Postcard Collectors'. It has been going for some years and is probably the best source of information for people like myself and I have been reading it for over thirty years. Coincidentally I have also been writing a regular monthly coloumn in PPM (as Picture Postcard Monthly is affectionaly known) since 1992 (over 23years!!!!!! that number even surprises me).

This was the standard promotional postcard for the magazine for many years. 

This postcard depicts the cover for the January 2000 issue of PPM which had a painting by artist Brian Partridge (I have an original painting by Brian which was commissioned for an official National Postcard Week design which I assisted with the production of - I also have a large number of Brian's many issued postcards as his designs have always appealed to me).

This is a lovely picture and displays nicely Brian's way of combing lots of subjects within one image so that the design would appeal to many different collectors. With my Television head on I can tell you that I noticed that the girl is wearing a Captain Scarlet Spectrum badge and a Star Trek comms badge (yes, I know I am sad).

This was another official promotional postcard which was sent out by the then editors Brian and Mary Lund and which was used for most of that year and beyond.  

STAMPEX 2016

Advance publicity flyer

17th - 20th FEBRUARY 2016

This is my first mention of STAMPEX but will not be my last as I attend most of the shows (I think I have missed one in the last 10 years). There is a spring and an autumn show, so its a bi-annual event. Although it is a stamp related show I have never failed to pick up postcards for my collection from this event and for many years now they have also issued an exclusive postcard for each event which is free to all visitors. They also produce nice postcard sized flyers as well.    

LYNMOUTH FLOOD 1952

In the 1970's my family regularly used to holiday at the Butlins camp in Minehead. One of the places we would allways drive out to was Lynmouth and I have visited here a number of times since as an adult and it is a lovely location. Tragically over the 15th and 16th August 1952 a storm of high intensity broke over the south-west of the UK. It deposited 229 millimetres (9 inches) of rain within 24 hours on an area of Exmoor which was already waterlogged. As a result water ran off the northern escarpment of the moor in floodwaters which became debris-laden with rocks and boulders. These flodwaters then converged on the vilage of Lynmouth causing devastation. This was made even worse by a dam of fallen trees and debris which built up the water level before breaking sending an even stronger wave of water into the village. It was described by someone staying in the villages Lyndale Hotel as "...just like an avalanche coming through our hotel, bringing down boulders from the hills and breaking down walls, doors and windows". Eventually the water reached the second floor level of the hotel. Over 100 buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged and 28 bridges were washed away (there was only 31 bridges in the area to start with). Apparently 38 cars were washed away into the sea by the torrent of water and sadly it killed 34 people and left around 420 homeless. The seawall and its Lighthouse initially survived the force of the water but the Lighthouse was damaged and it eventually fell into the sea the next day.

Postcards were issued quite quickly and were popular in the area for many years although the early original photographic designs were the best and convey the extreme effect of the flood better than many subsequent commemorative issues.

This card was published by Harvey Barton & Sons Ltd, Bristol. It was sent almost a year after the flood (4th Aug 1953) but the effects must still have been evident as the sender wrote "Just returned from here. The place is certainly broken up".

Collectors quite often keep any penciled price on the back of postcards they buy as it is a reminder of what they paid for it. I know I do this. But I bought this one on eBay for what I thought was the extremely reasonable price of £6, especially as it has a previous penciled price on it of £16.50.              

10/01/2016

KEEP CALM AND SEND A POSTCARD

Is anyone else out there secretly a bit sick of all the hundreds of different versions of the KEEP CALM poster which have come out in the last year or so? I think just about every type of activity that a human being can take part in has been 'KEEP CALMed'!! So inevitably sending a postcard was due an appearance, and here it is.

Published by DEAN MORRIS CARDS (www.deanmorriscards.co.uk) this card has the reference number DPO 14 (and was sent to me by David Rye who I have previously mentioned)    

FINDING NEMO

DISNEY CHANNEL

I first came across one of these postcards early in 2015 and since then, through individual eBay transactions, I have obtained four different designs which appear to be from some sort of set. All four cards have been posted and have Swedish stamps and cancels (one is from Stockholm). The cards were posted between the years 2006 and 2009 and have two lines of text on the reverse side which appears to be Swedish and which promotes the www.disneychannel.tv website. Interestingly Disney appear to have been the publishers of these cards as no other publisher or printer is mentioned.

Now although I collect Disney as a seperate theme I fully admit that it was the TV sets and the mention of the DISNEY CHANNEL which really drew my attention to the initial, and the subsequent cards. The first card I found was priced around £4 which went up to about £5.50 with the postage added. Probably if it had not been so TV orientated I would not have paid this for the card. But as it features a TV set and the channel is so prominently mentioned I kinda had to have the first one. Then of course a second card appeared and that also had to come my way even though it was around the same price. Subsequently two more turned up and I clearly needed these to add to the two I already held. Again they were around £5 each which I fully admit is the top line price for these (and almost certainly more than the catalogue price would be....if they had such a thing.....as they do not I am putting forward the idea that the catalogue price should now be £5....as if anyone would listen to me, he laughs!!).

What ever their true value they are delightful designs and I expect would grace any Disney collection.    

This image includes the forgetful character Dory within the design. But I do wonder if she does not have a card within this series of her own?  Does any reader out there have a full Dory version?

This one showing Nemo himself was actually the very first of these cards I bought

This card was the second card I bought and features my favourite characters from the film - the seagulls. Around the time shortly after the film had been around for awhile I was sat at the back of a coach which was packed with colleagues awaiting deployment. It was around 2am in the morning and we had been sat here for some hours and everyone was tired and hot and silence had rained for some time. Then someone came on board at the front and held up a crate of water bottles. Someone at the front suddenly said "Mine". The person next to him then replied "Mine" followed by the person behind them and then quickly down through the rows of seats the cry of "Mine, mine" travelled until the entire coach was saying "Mine, mine mine". The entire bus then broke into laughter and then suddenly the sense of pressure, heat and tiredness was forgotten. The seagulls thus became my favourite and even now I laugh when watching the film and the chorus of "Mine" commences.    

PICASSO POSTCARD

I picked up this postcard at the Europhilex Exhibition 2015 (see earlier blog below). It is an advert postcard for what was to be the auction of a postcard (depicted on the card) which was sent by the artist Picasso and upon which he had drawn a picture. The auction house - Christoph Gartner GmbH & Co. KG  - were to sell this card on 20 June 2015 and the estimate given on the card was 100,000 euros.

On the day it went for 166,000 euros (thats $188,000 which I make to be around £125,333). It is porbably no surprise that this set a new world record price for a postcard and it was sold to a telephone bidder (the auction house stated that the bidding was frantic and was carried out in German, English, French and Russian - which shows the scope of people interested).

The postcard had been sent by Picasso to his friend, French poet Guilaume Apollinaire and was sent on the 5th September 1918. The design drawn on the front has been stated as being from the artists cubist still life period/series. Unfortunately the postacrd apparently never made it to his friend because Picasso had addressed it in Spanish, writing his friend's name as Don Guillermo Apollinaire (although that was a poor show by the post as surely the address was still the same?).

Anyway, I am never likely to win the lottery so am equally never likely to own such an original and unusual item, but at least the cards appearance on this advertising card allows for a copy of it to still grace my less important collection (I was going to say 'small collection' but I can not lie...my collection is anything but small).       

So, imagine my surprise when just before Christmas this hand made, hand coloured greetings card arrived in the post from my good postcard collecting friend David Rye. David collects postcards depicting traditional Welsh costumes and for his hand made cards he took the Picasso design that appeared on the postcard and turned it into a riot of colour and then stuck a Welsh ladies traditional hat on the top, thus, how Picasso might have envisioned a Welsh Lady!.

The hat is made up of 1st and 2nd class royal mail machin head stamps which have been cut up and shaped to make the hat the right shape.

On the back of the folded greetings card David placed a short histiry of the Picaso card to add extra interest and to explain the original source idea for his image (which I must admit I realised as soon as I saw the design , although initially the hat threw me off for a second....but I got a good laugh out of seeing this). David always manages to come up with some interesting items and I always look forward to his postings.  

The back of David's Greetings Christmas card. David places the value reached as £143,000 but that includes the commission which could have been around £20,000. David's version I suspect would reach a little less, but as I have no intention of parting with it we will never know!!! 

ARNOLD PALMER PUTTING COURSE, WHITBY

Published by Richard & Emily Gottfried 2015

Ref CWOMT #808

This postcard was sent to me by Richard himself (see publisher details above) who is a collector of Crazy and Miniature golf course related postcards (he has an article about new miniature/crazy golf related postcards published in the 2016 Picture Postcard Annual). In his message on this postcard Richards stated that in his travels he did not find many contemporary related postcards in the UK so he an Emily decided to make one of their own.....and here it is. I now wonder if that is not Richard himself depicted on the front (I think it might be).

Posted 07/12/2015 - a Royal Mail Christmas 2015 stamp was used.

Text along the bottom on the reverse side of the card reads:-

'Visit The Ham & Egger Files at hamandeggerfiles.blogspot.co.uk'

www.hamandeggerfiles.blogspot.co.uk     

ROYAL MAIL DARTH MAUL PRINT CARD

In December 2015 Subscribers to any Royal Mail products or publications (I get the Postmark Bulletin and the Philitelic magazine) received an early Christmas gift from Royal Mail. This was an A5 (actually just a little larger than A5) sized specially produced print with a related Certificate of Authenticity. The special print shows an illustration of the Star Wars character Darth Maul and it is an illustration that was created during the design process for the Star Wars special stamps issued in Oct 2015. The Darth Maul design was not used in the end and this is the only source for this picture. I was especially pleased as Darth Maul is one of my favourite characters from the films and he was definately my favourite of the characters from prequel films.

This issue of an exclusive print is not a new thing as I have previously received a print of the WW1 commemorative Poppy design which was also lovely (when I can dig it out I will put it on here as well) which I think I received in December 2014.

I have just checked on eBay and there are five of these Darth Maul prints on there priced between £4.99 and £10 on 'Buy-it-Now' prices and three on bids starting from £1.99 to £3.99. But I would not be surprised if these are quite cheap prices and I would expect these to be popular with philatelic collectors and Star Wars fanatics...   

The Certificate of Authenticity which came with theb Darth Maul print

50 JAHRE DEUTSCHE LUFTPOST

This is a lovely German poster styled postcard celebrating the 50th anniversay of the German 'Luftpost'. Depicted are a number of airmail stamps and an airliner and the Graf Zeppelin airship. It was the Graf Zeppelin that drew my attention to this card (which I bought last year at the Stamp Shop in The Stand, London) because I collect postcards (and envelopes as well) which were actually carried onboard or posted onboard the Graf Zeppelin (and the Hindenburg airship). At some future point I will dig some of these flown cards out and put them here on my blog. This design is typically teutonic in style and thus instantly German in  its look.

This particular card was flown onboard an airliner - see below image 

This has three German stamps applied cancelled with a Stuttgart International Airport cancellation dated 18th February 1962. This was the departure date of flight LH 200 from Stuttgart to Copenhagen where upon its arrival it received a KOBENHAVN arrival date stamp dated 19th Feb 1962 (there is a further Copenhagen - Kobenhavn - date stamp dated 4th March 1962 which I think is this cards final departure out of the office - out to Hermann Walter Sieger who was a famous collector and dealer in airmail items. His name is often found on flown german philatelic material from this period).

The card also has a nice red 50th Anniversary Deutsche Luftpost Stuttgart - Kopenhagen Mit LH 200 cachet (of added interest to me as it depicts the Stuttgart TV Tower...) and a rectangular boxed black BEFORDERT MIT LH 200 STUTTGART - KOPENHAGEN cachet which means this item was carried onboard the actual flight.

This card cost me £3 and I think it was worth every penny.   

THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE SERIES

Edmund Ward (Publishers) Ltd

P.C. Series 101/4

"This is one of the 30 pictures in the well-known book TANK ENGINE THOMAS AGAIN and shows Thomas leaving the tunnel with a pain in his boiler" (text from reverse side of postcard).

There are quite a number of postcards featuring Thomas and his friends which were published by Edmund Ward Ltd and they are eagerly picked up despite the numbers out there. There popularity stems from the multiple themes this character crosses. I collect them because of the long running television series but railway collectors also want them and there are literary connections as well and those who collect book related cards are also in the chase as aresult. These are not too cheap as a result and individual cards are often priced between £5 and £10 each depending on character shown and condition of the card.

I also like them because my youngest son, James, was infatuated with Thomas when he was very young and we used to watch the video's (for the young out there we had to watch on video long before the world of DVD and Netflix came along) and he had a Thomas baby-walker when very, very young (this is even suspected to be the start of his fascination with Thomas - which in older life moved on to a fascination in railways and trains in general)   

THE LION KING - THE AWARD-WINNING MUSICAL, LYCEUM THEATRE, LONDON

Free Boomerang rack postcard featuring one of the performers wearing the 'Simba' lion characters headress. I have not seen the full theatre show but for awhile they performed segments of it on a stage in Disneyland Paris. You could pick up a counter service meal and sit down in the theatre eating area and watch it. I watched it a couple of times on different visits. The musical uses the songs from the animated Disney film which were by Elton John and Tim Rice. The musical production commenced in Minneapolis in 1997(the debut was on July 8th) and moved to Broadway the same year (Oct 15th was the first preview show - the official opening was on Nov 13th). The show reached the West End in 1999 (Oct 19th at the Lyceum and it has remained here since) and had a UK National Tour in 2012. On Broadway this is the third longest-running show in history and is apparently the highest grossing Broadway production of all time (it has grossed more han $1 Billion - around the world this had by 2014 grossed over $6 Billion)     

Here you have the performer who represents the character 'Nala' in the musical

EUROPHILEX STAMP EXHIBITION LONDON 2015

13TH MAY - 16TH MAY 2015

BUISNESS AND DESIGN CENTRE, ISLINGTON, LONDON

(Part one)

This was a four day international stamp exhibition held last year in London which commemorated the 175th anniversary of the Penny Black. I attended on all four days and added a number of exhibition related items to my collection.

This postcard here was exclusively sold at the Royal Mail's stand at the event. It depicts a special over printed stamp sheet which was also exclusively sold at this stand (the special sheets were strictly sold at just three per visitor - but the postcards were unrestricted in number). Both the original sheet and this postcard depicting it were issued in a limited edition. The Stamp sheet itself was issued in a limited number of 7,500 whilst it is understood that around 3000 of the postcards were issued (although this is not confirmed). Originally priced at 50p each these postcards now sell on eBay and elsewhere for £3.00 each. The design is very similar in format to the Royal Mail's PHQ Stamp Card issues although here the sheet is depicted against a blue background instead of the standard beige background normally used. The image depicts the sheet numbered as 1840 of 7500. This is beacuse 1840 was the year the Penny Black was issued.     

Here you can see one of my copies of the above postcard which I applied one of the limited edition over-printed Penny Black anniversary stamp sheets to. The sheets were £5 each and came in a special presentation pack (The cost of £5 was a lot more than the value of the four 1st class stamps the sheet contained - but despite this long before the end of the last day these were a total sell out - these sell on eBay for £20+ each now). The sheet attached here has been cancelled on the first day of the exhibition - 13th May 2015 - which is of course also the first day of issue for the stamp sheet and the postcard.

The hand stamp applied here was applied by hand and you can see the blurred edges which indicate this was hand struck.

These cards used with these sheets are not common and as I write this there is only one on eBay and it is priced at £80.

This is a second copy of this postcard again used with the special over-printed sheet and again cancelled with the exhibition first day cancellation. But if you look closely you will see that the sides of this cancellation and the inner details are far sharper than the one on the card above. This is because this cancellation was machine applied. It is probably a bit excessive to have examples of both the hand struck and machine struck cancels but I like to play when I visit these exhibitions and stamp shows and it cost a lot less than it would cost me to buy now.

This copy of the postcard has been used with four different 'Post & Go' stamps which were available from Post & Go machines at the exhibition. Post & Go stamps have been issued for a number of years now and special overprinted versions are popular with the increasing number of people who collect these. The ones applied here are as follows:-

TOP LEFT - plain machin head Post & Go with 'Europhilex London - Penny Black 175' overprint - Machine A004

TOP RIGHT - plain machin head Post & Go with 'Europhilex London - Penny Black 175' overprint - Machine B001

BOTTOM LEFT - Union Flag Post & Go (often a standard use post & go at shows) - Machine B001

BOTTOM RIGHT - Heraldic Beasts Post & Go (these were new designs which were released on the first day of the exhibition) - Machine B001

The cancellation applied is for the first day of the exhibition - 13th May 2015 - making this a first day use for the two Machin head overprinted Post & Go and the Heraldic Beasts Post & Go.

This is a nice souvenir of the first day and a nice collectible for any Post & Go collector. 

A special Royal Mail 'Smilers' stamp sheet was also issued on the first day of the exhibition and one of the labels tied to one of the stamps in this sheet depicted the glass fronted entrance to the Buisness and Design Centre building where the Europhilex Exhibition was held. This copy of the postcard has this single Smilers stamp and label, depicting this building, applied and cancelled first day of issue with the exhibition cancel. Although this is simpler than some of the other above designs it is a very nice and more unusual souvenir and most of the used cards I saw or have seen since.

Royal Mail set up a special, but much under promoted and under staffed, post office within the Exhibition itself. This was on the upstairs area which runs around the middle of the building. It only had one machine with which to issue Horizon Labels and with which to overprint Money Orders. Some dealers were in the queue and had hundreds (and I mean hundreds - one dealer put 400 items through and another one had nearer a 1000 items) of items they wanted to post so the queue moved very, very slowly. This put some people off and they left the queue before reaching the counter (which was just a desk anyway). This was a shame for them because there was a special large circular STAMP SHOW 2015 - LONDON - EUROPHILEX POST OFFICE' cancel which was being used which was only in use for the four days of the exhibition. Also if you asked them nicely they would also apply the smaller more usual EVENT OFFICE BRANCH cancel. Fortunately I persevered and here is my copy of this special postcard used with an exhibition over-printed Post & Go Machin Head stamp cancelled with the large Stamp Show cancel and with the smaller Event Office cancel applied by favour as well. This is again an unusual and quite scarce usage for one of these cards as most dealers and people in the queue were asking for Horizon Labels for envelopes.     

And here for the last of these special stamp sheet postcards we have one I used on the last day of the exhibition with another over-printed Post & Go stamp this time cancelled with the exhibition cancel dated 16th May 2015

Here you have one of the normal PHQ Stamp Cards, with a beige background and featuring the normal issued Penny Black anniversay stamp sheet, without the Europhilex London overprint around the block of four stamps. I liked this one and fully admit that it was not my idea and was put together in this clever way by a dealer. This normal PHQ Stamp Card had to be used because the top Post & Go stamp is a 2nd Class Machin Head from the machine at the British Postal Museum & Archive and has the BPMA overprint with an additional 'Penny Black 175' which is the same as the 'Penny Black 175' that appeared on the Europhilex issues. The BPMA version was issued on the 6th May 2015 and here it is cancelled first day of issue with a circular 'Maltese Cross' special hand stamp dated 6th May 2015 (which was of course the exact 175th anniversary date). Below this at the bottom of the card there is a Europhilex London - Penny Black 175 Post & Go cancelled with the first day exhibition cancel dated 13th May 2015.

A little bit of thought had to go into the preperation of this item and I was very pleased to obtain one from the dealer for my Europhilex collection.  

Attendee's of the exhibition could also pick up a free card which depicted the original sketch on an envelope made by Rowland Hill which set out the idea for the Penny Black. This was quite a well thought out souvenir because the actual sketch itself was on display at the exhibition.

The only problem, if you consider variety to be a problem, is that this card came in three different versions and that this fact was not readily known at the time of the actual exhibition by those attending (well, I did not know and later could find no normal collectors who had been made aware). The main differences are in the reverse layout and the printing processes used. This one here is matt printed (non shiny surface) and has a full Wyon Medal featuring Queen Victoria's head on the reverse side.

I am going to call this one Version 1  

The reverse side of this card (which although called a postcard by the issuers it is more of an information promotional card than a true postacrd - but no more collectible for all that). The Wyon medal is bottom right and has no block around it (which is mentioned for a reason which will become evident below later).

This was No 15 in a series of 15 cards which had been issued at previous major philatelic stamp exhibitions around the world promoting the Europhlex Exhibition in 2015. You ould order a complete set of these cards in advance and whilst available they were sold on the official 'Europhilex' stand at the exhibition (I did obtain a complete set this way despite the £20 cost). 

This is version two (although they are not numbered as versions) which has the only visible difference that can be seen here in that the actual image of the sheet is smaller on the card and the text is smaller and further away from the boarders than on the above version. If you handle a copy of this card the more obvious shiny coated board printing makes this stand out (but that difference does not show on the scan). But for the most obvious difference see the reverse side below. 

I am going to call this one Version 2

The clear difference here is that the Wyon Medal bottom right comes in a black box. This is the stand out difference for this second version.

This is the reverse side of :-

Version 3

The front of this version is identical in set up to that of Version 1 above except for how it is printed. The main difference is that this version was digitally printed and if you look at the line of text on the reverse side which gives this cards number there is an additional '(Digital)' after the number 15. This word in brackets does not appear on the reverse side of Version 1. Also for some reason on these digital printed versions the very bottom of the Wyon Medal has been cut off or clipped across the bottom edge - this is the case with all these digital versions and is a constant .

So, this card has some interesting collecting quirks which you can either ignre and just obtain one example or which you can chase to make for a more intensive collection.  

This copy is a Version 1 card used with a Penny Black Anniversay 1st Class stamp (issued 6th May 2015) cancelled with the Europhilex Exhibition first day cancel (machine applied) dated 13th May 2015.

I thought this was a lovely combination and the Penny Black stamp was crying out to be applied to this card. Another nice and cheap (the card was free) souvenir. 

Version 1 card with Europhilex Exhibition cancel dated 15th May 2015 (third day of exhibition) on Europhilex London - Penny Black 175 over-printed Post & Go machin head stamp. The cancel here was applied by machine.

With this card the Europhilex Exhibition cancel is dated 16th May 2015 which was the final day of the exhibition. This time the exhibition cancel was applied by hand.  

This is a photograph that I took of the actual Rowland Hill sketch on display at the Exhibition. If you consider that this is nearly an A4 sheet you can get some idea of how big this sheet of paper actually is. It is an historic philatelic document and one of the treasures of the stamp collecting world.    

This free exclusive Europhilex Exhibition postcard was produced by the 'Falkland Islands Philatelic Society Group' incompany with the 'Polar Postal History Society of Great Britain'. The card has the exhbition logo on the reverse side and on the front pictures a George VI Falkland Islands 1938 6d definitive design showing RRS Discovery II overprinted 'Graham Land / Dependency of'. The stamp was one of a set issued for use at Britiah Antarctic bases from February 1944 to January 1946. The card was produced to mark the joint participation of these societies at Europhilex 2015.     

If you visited the stand where the Falkland Islands Philatelic Study Group and the Polar Postal History Society of Great Britain where situated you could pick up a free copy of the above postcard. If you asked nicely they would also apply an exclusive cachet which depicted a penguin along with the initials of the groups along with EUROPHILEX LONDON 2015 and the dates 13 - 16 May. The person who applied the cachet to this card took real care and it has come out really nicely. The cachet was for exclusive use at this exhibition (obviously) and most people wil keep theirs as a souvenir so copies might not be too easy to pick up now.       

This copy has the special cachet and a Europhilex London - Penny Black 175 overprinted Machin Head Post & Go stamp cancelled with the Europhilex Exhibitin first day cancel (13th May 2015 - hand applied). 

They were also happy to apply their special cachet to postcards other than their own. Here the cachet has been applied to the front of a Version 1 copy of the Penny Black sketch show card.

The company 'Buckingham Covers' had a large stand at the exhibition and they were also giving away a set of four exclusive specially produced postcards which had been produced especially for this show (although Europhilex is not actually mentioned - so any cards left over would also be able to be handed out at future events). The four cards all depict special and expensive covers which were from the companies stock.

This first card depicts photogravure definitives on one cover. If you look closely you will see different dates on the cancels. This is because the stamps were issued on different dates either i pairs or individually.  

This is the second free card - This one depicts the first set of Postage Dues on matching covers.  

The third card - this one depicts the 1968 Bridges missing ultramine on 9d value stamp on cover

The final card, and in my opinion (biased I know) the best of the set. It is the television connection that makes this card my favourite and I was delighted when I saw it. I will probably never have the actual cover depicted here because it has the 1972 BBC missing head on 7 1/2p value stamp on it. This cover is around £5000 so this card is probably the nearest I will ever get to owning one of these.