ringwood club

The British Society of Australian Philately

If you are a collector of Australian stamps or postal history then whatever your level of collecting
we can offer you help and advice and a range of facilities together with friendship and social events
that includes a wonderful Annual Convention to be held this year at the Holiday Inn, Warmsworth, Doncaster.
The Society runs a packet, has its own extensive library, runs two or three auctions a year one of
which is always held at the annual Convention. A Bulletin is published six times a year and a range
of specialist handbooks are available. At the Annual Convention competitions are held and cover
Traditional, Postal History, Postal Stationery and Open Classes. Regular meetings are held at
the Royal Philatelic Society offices in London generally on the second Wednesday of most months.
The South West Section holds three meetings a year at Ringwood in Hampshire during November,
February and April on a Saturday afternoon, many remarkable collections of Australian philately have
been displayed at these meetings and guests and new members are made most welcome.
If you would like further details about any aspect of our society please contact Colin Mount on
01425 474310 who will be pleased to help.

The British Society of Australian Philately : South West Section

Cmdr. George Gibson is presented with a "thank you" certificate by the BSAP South West Chairman, Colin Mount. This followed a wonderful display given by George entitled "Aspects of Australasia", given to members and guests at Ringwood on Saturday 12th February 2011

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Report of the South West Meeting - Saturday 11th February 2012

A somewhat disappointing attendance to the first meeting of the new year, but no doubt the changeable
weather had something to do with this, it was a shame because the subject was one that should be very
dear to all our hearts, that of "Issues of Philatelic Conservation".    Our speaker Paul Skinner FRPSL is
the Assistant Curator of the British Library Philatelic Collections and started his presentation with a brief
look at the work that is involved with conserving stamps and philatelic documents for future generations.
He then went on to talk about the ideal environment, suggesting that collections should be stored at 18
centigrade with a relative humidity between 55 and 60%.    Outside of these conditions material can run
the risk of fungal growth which can lead to foxing.

Paul then went onto discuss lighting stating that obviously complete darkness was the the best but was
not totally possible when you show your collection to your fellow collectors.    Obviously one needs light,
but light intensity should not be above 50 lux, which in layman's terms is 50 candles at one metre. It was
disturbing to hear that at one big International show the light intensity in the display area was way over a
1,000 lux.

Next to be discussed was a paper saying that the pH of our album pages should be between
6.0 and 8.5, pH is the measure of the extent to which material is acidic or alkaline.
Paper that is acidic tends to go brown and philatelic material can suffer, the most obvious examples of this
are postal stationery (post cards) which can be so bad that the cards life can be restricted to only a few years.
Paul suggested that we should ask when buying our philatelic accessories like album pages which should
comply to the ISO 9706 standard for permanent paper.   A great deal has been written about protectors in
the stamp world but museums and libraries only use products made from polyester, without static coatings
and the products made with Myler or Melinex are strongly recommended, Paul said never use PVC which
can ooze plasticisers and forms acid as it decomposes
.
Gum was discussed at some length and it was soon obvious that the correct storage was vital when considering
gum, when the storage is too dry the gum can crack.    Modern stamps which are self adhesive could also be
a problem in the future and are creating major conservation concerns. Products such as Sellotape and other
similar products are to be avoided at all costs as they create brown stains which cannot be removed.
Paul touched on physical damage stating that collections should be stored away from silverfish, insects and
other vermin as this physical damage is impossible to repair. He went on to say that any philatelic material
that needed any treatments should be referred to a paper conservator
.
In conclusion, Paul said we were only custodians of our material and we were responsible to conserve it for
future generations.

Chairman Colin Mount said during his vote of thanks, that Paul had again opened our eyes
to this considerable problem that we all face and thanked him for a most interesting and informative afternoon.

CVM

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Report of the South West BSAP Meeting on the 14th April 2012.

Members and guests were entertained by the President John Crowe who had travelled over from Kent to
provide us with an excellent display of Australia and the Olympic Games. John told the story of how
the Olympic movement started and illustrated this with many covers, postmarks and stamps many of
which were very difficult to obtain.

CVM

The BSAP meets three times a year at Ringwood and also has a
meeting at Hampex, the Hampshire Federation's Convention when members and guests entertain
with mini displays. If you would like further details about the Australian Specialists meetings please
contact us you will be made very welcome:- telephone 01425 474310 or email cv.mount@gmail.com

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