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The area of study has now been extended
to cover postcards and postal seals.
A preliminary newsletter was sent to
prospective members under the banner
of The Masonic Philatelic Club of Great
Britain, with Trevor as secretary and
newsletter editor.
In February 1976 the first newsletter was
sent to the 111 founding members who had
joined over the five months since the
original advertisement appeared.
Initially the newsletter was scheduled to
appear twice a year but, from the January
1977 issue, this has been four times a year.
In July 1978, for constitutional reasons,
the Club changed its name to The Masonic
Philatelic Club.
At the 1991 AGM, the newsletter
became The Philatelic Club Magazine. On the
death of Terry Waghorn, Trevor Fray was
elected President and holds this office to
this day.
Every effort is made to include details
in the magazine of new issues that are
applicable, in one way or another, to the
Masonic theme, and more than 1,800 are
now recorded on the club database.
The majority of these also appear in
Trevor Fray’s Masonic Philately.
In 1992 the Club was invited to enter the
newsletter/magazine in the Philatelic
Periodicals section of PHILITEX 92, the
first International Literature Exhibition in
America, and it was awarded a Bronze.
One of the problems of collecting a
theme is obtaining suitable stamps, as most
of those that can be used are invariably part
of a set, and dealers are quite understandably
loath to split sets.
To overcome this problem the club
makes efforts, with varying degrees of
success, to purchase suitable items directly
from the country of issue. A circulating
exchange packet scheme is also in operation,
and members are encouraged to make use of
this to dispose of surplus and duplicate issues,
as well as to purchase those items missing
from their collections.
The methods of displaying stamps are
very much a matter of individual preference
and, providing the collector has no wish to
enter competitions which have their own
rules, he is able to please himself and do
anything he likes.
One of our members, who also collects
copies of Lodge summonses, involves himself
into a great deal of research through the
stamp catalogues to find a stamp, or stamps,
that depict the name of the Lodge concerned.
Once found, the stamp is attached to the
copy of the summons on file.
Perhaps the
most common method used by club
members is to split the collection up into
sections. The most popular are:
Those that depict known Freemasons, e.g.
Royalty, politicians, sportsmen etc.
The amount and depth of information about
the person concerned varies according to
individual tastes. We always endeavour to
list the dates when his various degrees were
conferred: no individual is confirmed as a
Freemason until this information is available.
Until this information is known he is
classed as a doubtful. The exception is when
the individual concerned is stated to be a
Freemason by a recognised source: e.g. a list
of Freemasons published by Grand Lodge or
Masonic publication.
Those that depict various aspects of Masonic
symbolism – working tools etc.
It is quite surprising what connections can
be made between a stamp and a phrase from
the ritual.
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