Henley & District Filatelic Society
Refreshed by a long break imposed by Covid, the Henley & District Philatelic Society resumed its meetings in October.
The first meeting was dedicated to “My Favorite Postcard”.
Postcards are in themselves a discipline of philately, as are postage stamps.
Picture postcards can be admired for the images they portray, but text messages can also provide materials for postal history collectors.
In addition, postage stamps are another area of study. Too often collectors look for cards with geographical themes, such as “Thames”, and this meeting was no exception.
Readers can be amused by the postcard above which described the difficulty of parking in Henley in 1887. Plus what a difference.
Philately has close links with geography and history, as evidenced by the second meeting in October, on the topic “Early Albanian postage stamps”.
This enigmatic country gained independence from the battlefield of the First World War. During World War II it was occupied in turn by the Italians and the Germans.
The end of that war brought 40 years of communist rule.
More or less these external influences are reflected in the stamps of Albania. For the casual observer, the stamps of Albania do not give any information about their origin as the name of the country in Albanian is Albania (“Land of Eagles”).
The postal system did not develop only after 1900 and was run mainly by invading or foreign forces.
Stamps of that era were often “inscriptions” that were issued elsewhere and were paved with cobblestones for use in Albania.
One of the earliest republics is the 19 cent stamp of the 1925 air mail issue.
The only king of Albania and the only Muslim king of Europe, King Zog, was remembered in 2008 on the 80th anniversary of his coronation.
And did you know that Norman Wisdom’s films were a big favorite in Albania, giving him a stamp appearance in 2015?
Ian L King, chairman