Fourteen members attended in person at the Royal, with a further four members joining the afternoon Zoom session.
The room auction in the morning comprised some 64 mixed lots which were well bid by a number of attendees in competition, with some 43 lots selling well, either at reserve, or in some cases, well above reserve, with a final sum of £470 being realised.
Three further members provided displays before the lunch break. Simon Burke provided some very interesting items relating to Herm, including seven scarce Tuck picture postcards, and four postally-used postcards, all cancelled either with a rare Herm double-ring datestamp. This scarce datestamp was used from 1925 – 1938.. Simon also showed three items addressed to A. Toplis on Sark, and a Sark registered first flight cover carried by Imperial Airway on its inaugural flight across the north Atlantic. Examples of the 1¼d postal stationery cards were also shown, along with a copy of a King George III Act of Parliament titled “Duties on Coal, Culm and Cinders and the Exportation of Salt, Pepper and Wine to Guernsey, Jersey and Sark.”
Nick Martin showed six items of mail sent from Guernsey to France via St Malo, and Nick Stuart showed two postcards sent from Jersey bearing hotel cachets either for the Hotel de L’Europe or Grand Hotel du Palais de Cristal. These two hotels formed part of the private postal service of French hotels in Jersey (for further information about this service see Roger Harris’ book Delivered by the Hotel’s Care).
The first display of the afternoon broadcast on zoom was presented by Bryan Elliston, on early Guernsey postal history which revealed a 1796 entire letter from Guernsey to Inverness in Scotland endorsed care of Mr Hugh Fraser/ merchant Inverness N.B. (North Britain) in the address. This most interesting display of early postal history was then followed by our Secretary, Richard Flemming, displaying Gerald Marriner’s destination mails with some quite fascinating and interesting letters and postcards to and from all corners of the globe. Further details will be available in the December Les Iles Normandes.