The Malaya Study Group

Members of the Malaya Study Group in Australia organised a special programme to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Group. The events coincided with the Melbourne Stamp Show July 23-26 2009

This report was kindly contributed by William Wells, Jeff Gunston, with photographs from them and Jeff Newman

This show was held in Melbourne form 23rd to 26th July, with a major emphasis on the 200th Anniversary of the Australian Post Office.

There were over 850 frames, and quality was extremely high overall. There were six entries related to “Malaya”.

The Malaya Study Group donated a special prize (an engraved Royal Selangor pewter plate) to be awarded to the “Best entry from the Malayan area”. This award was won by Boon-Swee Yen, of Sydney, for an outstanding entry titled “Australian Forces in Malaya – World Ware II”. This was a study of the Field P.O.’s used by Australian troops before the fall of Malaya in 1942, and subsequently the Prisoner of War mail.

An enlargement of the centre of this magnificent plaque is:

Awards made to Malayan area entries were:

GOLD Boon-Swee Yen (NSW) – Australian Forces in Malaya

Ray Price (SA) – Labuan – The Queen’s Head Issue

LARGE VERMEIL. Ian Matheson (South Africa) – Trengannu

VERMEIL Patrick Longfield (NS) – British North Borneo 1883-1941

SILVER Jeff Newman (NSW) – Malaya – The Northern States

SILVER BRONZE Paul Barsdell (ACT) – Postal History of Singapore, Penang and Malacca during reign of King George VI

Heartiest congratulations to everyone taking part, and of course especially to those exhibiting Malaya & the area's material

* MSG Celebration Dinner, Friday July 24th.

The Ginger House Restaurant (Brighton, Victoria) was the venue for a very successful MSG 50th Anniversary Celebration dinner on July 24th. There were 26 people in attendance, from four states of Australia. The 14 MSG members (some came with partners) welcomed members of our kindred Sarawak Specialists Society.

Veteran 50 year MSG member, Jeff Newman, cut a special birthday cake.

A special souvenir envelope was prepared for the occasion – being postmarked with the Melbourne Stamp Show 09 cancel for the day.

Some photographs courtesy of Jeff Newman:

Left to Right: Tony Shields, Boon-Swee Yen, Colin Lee, John Hill

Helen Wells, William Wells (standing), Kar Keat Ch’ng, Graham Hayward

L to R Graham and Judith Hayward, Robert Wiliamson, Ray and Gim Luan Price and Patrick Longford.

* Malaya Study Group Meeting, Saturday afternoon from 1.30-3.30pm on Saturday July 25th in Meeting Room 1 at the Exhibition

MSG Meeting – Melbourne 25th July 2009.

A meeting of the Malaya Study group and Sarawak Specialists Society was convened at the Melbourne Stamp Show 2009, held at the Function Centre of the Tennis Centre on Saturday July 25th. Around a dozen members attended and were treated to a vast range of material on display and enjoyed the socialising that went with such meetings.

The meeting was introduced by Dr William Wells and included a number of wonderful displays. Jeff Gunston did much of the work for the MSG Meeting and his contribution is much appreciated.

Jim Howard – Brunei
Including provisional issues and Malay Borneo Exhibition errors.

Graham Hayward – Straits Settlements and the De La Rue Key plates
Display of the die’s for the key plate issues and included a complete sheet of 120 of the
Plate 1, 1 cent dull purple and green (ex Dr F E Wood and still on original typeset page from his collection).

A fuller description of Graham's display is set out below:

Jeffrey Newman – British Empire Exhibition
Showing postcards of the Malayan pavilion at the exhibition ,cancellations from various states and incoming mail to Kedah during the period.

Patrick Longfield – North Borneo
Included paquebots, incoming mail and a very informative display of forgeries.

Ray Price – Labuan
Plate varieties, complete sheets and allied forces in Labuan, including an very interesting collection of photos and postcards. Ray also brought along a framed map of Borneo (circa 18th Century) probably of Portuguese origin, with some very interesting mapping of the Malayan peninsular and Borneo.

Paul Barsdell – Straits Settlements postcards used in Sarawak and Sarawak postcards.
A display of postcards both from Sarawak and Straits used in Sarawak, with some wonderful images.

Dr William Wells
-Straits Settlements early surcharges
Including errors and the inverted “S” surcharges. Also displayed was a complete pane (ex Wood) of the Plate 1 Left Hand pane of the M.B.E. 45 cent value on the original album page.
-Sarawak – 1923 provisional issue, including panes
-Clubbed Packet material, from Singapore, Thailand, China and Sarawak
-BMA forgeries
-Straits unissued stamps
-Sarawak bogus issues
-Madam Joseph Forgeries
Which had us all running for a pen and paper to include some key date and location postmarks to compare the forgeries with our own collections!

Although we only had a relatively short couple of hours to enjoy the feast of material on display, it was a wonderful opportunity for the Australian members of the Malaya Study Group to get together in front of the various material. The “tyranny” of distance makes this a very difficult obstacle for regular meetings amongst us. I would like to pass on the appreciation of the attendees to Dr. William Wells for his co-ordination and organization of this and the celebration dinner on the preceding evening.

Left to Right

Jim Howard, Patrick Longfield, Peter Bradbury (back to camera)

Paul Barsdell studying a display on Clubbed Packets

News Flash 50 Year Members! Australian MSG Members live long philatelic lives

Long lived members of the Group are

Howard Selzer (No. 1), Ted Proud (No. 61) and Jeff Newman (No. 77) -Australia.

For the period 1960/61,four more names were listed

109 Gordon Peters

131 Lum Siew Kooi, Malaysia

137 Gordon Weate, Australia

143 William Wells, Australia

For further information please contact William Wells

william@wrdwells.com

The show website is

http://www.melbournestampshow2009.com