Gibraltar Study Circle turns 50 – Gibraltar philately in focus in Golden Jubilee Exhibition celebrations

The Gibraltar Study Circle – sounds more like an historical association. The last time it visited the Rock was in 2019. Now, in its 50th year it is back this coming week to celebrate this milestone. The GSC has a global membership with experts on Gibraltar stamps, its postal stationery and postal history.

I have covered this Circle several times in the past when every few years it has offered the opportunity to its members to visit the Rock. Now they are set to hold the Golden Jubilee Exhibition featuring Gibraltar exhibits. You may have read, in the past couple of weeks, several articles on these pages written by our foremost expert on Gibraltar Stamps Richard Garcia who has been a member of the Circle since 1981.

Those of you who are regular readers of Alice’s Table know I have called on Richard several times since Alice’s Table began but the truth is I have called on Richard for more years than I care to remember as I look back to my early Radio Gibraltar days. Richard was and still is the first port of call when it comes to Gibraltar philately.

So, as I read through his articles - and I have had an interest in stamps since I was a child as my grandfather, my uncles and aunt all collected stamps and had large collections not just on Gibraltar stamps but from all over the world – I wanted to learn know more about the Gibraltar Study Circle and its 50 years of history.

With members in six continents this association was first started in 1975 by Wally Jackson who served in Gibraltar with the RAF in the 1970s. When he left Gibraltar and the service in 1974, he came up with the idea of the Gibraltar Study Circle.

Today GSC is the main source on everything to do with Gibraltar philately and remains focused on expanding their knowledge world-wide.

It was Richard who introduced me to a new name (for me) in Gibraltar stamps – Stan Lawrence – but as I soon found out from his first email to me in ‘Llanito’, he is no stranger to Gibraltar and lived here as a child and in his youth.

Stan now heads and is the chairman of the Gibraltar Study Circle. He has been linked to Gibraltar since his father Ken retired here when Stan was a child in early 1969. Stan went to school in Bishop Fitzgerald, St Jago’s and was in the first-year intake to the Bayside Comprehensive in 1972. He then spent two years at the Gibraltar and Dockyard Technical College. A year earlier he joined the Gibraltar Philatelic Society, then based at the John Mackintosh Hall, with the likes of John Baglietto, Jose-Luis Rodriguez, Freddy Ryman, Pepe Cortes, Tony Smith and John Gonzalez. He soon realised collecting world-wide stamps was an unachievable task and he needed to specialise on a more achievable collecting objective – Gibraltar was the obvious choice. This was just before the Gibraltar Study Circle was created in Birmingham in 1975. But it was not until 2015 approaching retirement that he decided he needed a hobby, so he got back to his stamps and joined the Gibraltar Study Circle.

Specialising solely on Gibraltar philately he has since exhibited Gibraltar material in national and international competitions, attaining high awards (Gold and Silver Medals) for his work and exhibits. Today, with his long-established links and many friends locally he considers himself an adopted Gibraltarian.

Following a series of questions from me – Stan and I have not yet met, though I suspect we may have over the years, he quickly sets the record straight on the definition of philately which on checking out Google describes it as “the collection and study of postage stamps”. But as he rightly points out, “there is a vast difference between collecting and studying postage stamps and philately”.

“Stamp collecting, is the collecting and study of the little bits of adhesive paper which are stuck on to letters or parcels to show that the conveyance of that letter or parcel has been paid for, and which is usually set at a price that matches the current agreed cost of sending such letters or parcels to a specific destination or region,” he explains.

“Philately is the collection and study of anything relating to the process of getting mail (a message, letter or parcel) from A to B (as was the case long before email came about). This of course includes stamps but also includes collecting and investigating,” he adds.

And this is what the Gibraltar Study Circle is all about.

Philately, encompasses many different areas of interest: “Entires” which are letters that were folded and addressed on the outside with no actual envelope, used long before stamps were invented in 1840 (the first Gibraltar postage stamps were issued in 1886), there are the routes taken to deliver mail and the additional hand-stamps added en route, then there is the process of designing and creating stamps, how they were used, and the cost. There is the methods of transportation of mail – airmail, ships letters, zeppelin mail and so on, the cancellations used, the censorship of mail during wartime, PoW mail, mail from crashed aircraft or sunken ships, the people who sent the mail, and thematics – collection of a specific type of mail or stamp.

“Almost anything you can imagine associated with a stamp, from aircraft to zodiac signs , and so much more.”

Of great importance to Stan and the Gibraltar Study Circle is that when identifying any of these areas its associated history is also investigated. Critical to the work and aims of the Gibraltar Study Circle is to improve and promote the knowledge available on Gibraltar philately. Today, 50 years on, the Gibraltar Study Circle and its members, he proudly tells me, are acknowledged as a primary global source with expert knowledge on Gibraltar philately.

“Every now and then someone will find something they cannot explain - a cover (envelope) with markings they do not recognise, for instance. If the mark is not recognised by members, then some research may be necessary, often requiring a visit to the Gibraltar National Archives. If found, the answer could also impact other countries and collectors and help to show how Gibraltar fits into the global map of philately,” he emphasises.

Stan further points out that not many people realise Gibraltar played a major part in Allied censorship of intercepted mail taken off neutral ships outside of the UK during WWII until the offices were moved to Bermuda after America joined the war. He recently discovered a new censor marking that was hitherto unknown and in so doing, he uncovered a whole new area of research and history.

“This is why the Circle is so important – not just for the collecting but for the processes and social history behind it,” he further emphasises.

When Wally Jackson started the Gibraltar Study Circle (GSC) in 1975 it had a membership of 68. For a time, the Circle comprised over 200 members. From the outset Jackson’s objective was the creation of a global non-profit philatelic society with aims to expand the knowledge of the philately of Gibraltar in all its forms for the benefit of collectors from all levels and walks of life.

Today the Society brings together around 100 members from all over the world, from new beginners to international gold medallists and authors of books. It investigates and researches the creation, use and history behind not just postal and revenue stamps but also postal history, postal stationery, associated overprints and other items related to the postal services of Gibraltar and any of these used in Morocco overprinted “Morocco Agencies”. Member’s investigations have shown up such varied stories as: the mail arrangements for the evacuated civilian population of Gibraltar during World War II, a detailed eye-witness account of the first day of the Spanish Civil War during the La Linea annual fair in 1939, written by an American lady on Bristol Hotel stationery, the last postcard sent by a soldier serving in Gibraltar in 1940 before being posted to France, where he died – the GSC member donated the postcard back to the soldier’s family.

The GSC works closely with the Royal Gibraltar Post Office and the Gibraltar Philatelic Bureau. It investigates the history of the postal service in Gibraltar, from the early Overland and Maritime mails to the modern air and sea mail services, including looking through the records held in the Gibraltar National Archives.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the GSC, the Gibraltar Post Office is issuing next Tuesday a £4 miniature sheet that depicts in the margin’s - items from GSC members’ - collections of significance, due either to rarity, value or historical significance. They include a variety of pre-stamp ships’ letters, stamps, covers, registered letters and more from Gibraltar and Morocco from the early 1800s to the 1970s. The stamp itself shows a picture postcard issued in Gibraltar around 1897.

Everyone has a different reason for collecting Gibraltar stamps. For Stan, the reasons are simple – his connection to the Rock, his love of Gibraltar and its history, and his interest in philately. It was on approaching retirement and given that the Gibraltar Philatelic Society was no longer active, that Stan discovered the Gibraltar Study Circle.

It did not take long before he was fully involved in the running of the Circle. Mentored by, amongst others, Professor David Stirrups, who also sponsored his entry into the Royal Philatelic Society of London, that he became responsible for the editorship of the GSC Journal, The Rock, soon after he joined the Circle.

As a member, he was to discover that even collecting just Gibraltar philately was too much and he needed to specialise further. He decided on the origins and processes involved in the production of a set of stamps for issue and which led to him collecting original artwork – now he has a considerable collection of hundreds of examples some of which he includes in his exhibits. Over the years he has dabbled in most areas of specialisation with a steady growing interest in the historical and sociological aspects behind philately.

In the 50th Anniversary Exhibition this coming week he will be showing philatelic material that focuses less on actual stamps and more on historical aspects of Gibraltar including: the history of the Trinity Lighthouse at Europa Point, the impact King George V had on Gibraltar since his coronation in 1910, and the censorship during WWII and how it connects to his father.

My next questions, I am certain you are also thinking about - how relevant is stamp collecting today? Is there still much interest? The answer from Stan is a straightforward, “yes”. Everyone, he says, assumes that the hobby of stamp collecting is dying, along with the use of stamps, but in fact the numbers are increasing – slowly, but increasing.

“This has been confirmed by the Royal Philatelic Society, London - RPSL, which is the largest philatelic society in the world with over two thousand members. However, very few new joiners to the hobby are young.” Most are in their early fifties or older – in other words, coming up to retirement when they have the time to follow their hobby. There is some interest from the younger generations, but very few actually convert into members of the GSC.

Today, because demand is not what it used to be and our preference is to use the faster method of emailing, countries are producing less stamps. Norway recently announced that it was no longer viable to run their post office at all.

So, I begin to wonder, if the aim of the Gibraltar Study Circle today remains the same as 50 years ago? The answer is another emphatic “yes”. Stan points out that with the advances in technology - the collection, translation and availability of archival data and increase of available shared knowledge through the internet - makes research and acquisition of information much easier than before, both on the internet and in libraries and archives.

Today, the collecting interests of the members of the Gibraltar Study Circle vary greatly. Members not only collect Gibraltar, in fact for many collecting Gibraltar philately is a secondary or even minor activity in their following of the hobby, according to Stan.

“But this does not mean that their Gibraltar interest is any less important to them, just that as a small country with a limited amount of collectible material, there is less for them to occupy their interest. Yet, there are now some significant collectors in other areas who have only recently discovered an interest in Gibraltar philately or follow one of the many themes highlighted in our stamps.”

The Gibraltar Study Circle has a close relationship with the Gibraltar Posts Office and Gibraltar Philatelic Bureau. The Bureau sponsored the display in Birmingham this year and donated a large quantity of modern Gibraltar stamps, given away to visitors at the stand.

“The Gibraltar Philatelic Bureau has around 200 regular customers worldwide buying Gibraltar stamps. In addition, there is stiff competition for the earlier philatelic items, but the market has been fairly flooded with the later QEII stamps, which unless they have an error on them, seem to go for pennies,” he says.

But Gibraltar stamps, he adds, do come on the market occasionally such as collections from some of the oldest members as they get too old to continue or they pass away.

“These are then bought by younger collectors, so the same covers circulate every generation or so. But there are still some rarer items that are difficult to obtain, and this is reflected in the market values.”

When planning this year’s anniversary events, Stan noted that 66% of its members resided in the UK, but only between six and eight percent actively took part in activities. The next biggest block of members, 13%, live in Gibraltar and this makes their involvement significantly more when the Circle visits Gibraltar.

So, it became clear that the main event in its 50 years of history should be held locally. The exhibition held earlier this year in Birmingham to attract attention to the GSC and Gibraltar philately also formed part of the celebrations. Stan is also making increasing use of remote technologies so that more Gibraltar members can be involved in the running of the Circle. To this end, at the AGM in Birmingham, Mike Celecia was voted on to the committee as Honorary Archivist.

Stan is clear that the Gibraltar Study Circle exists solely to study the philately of Gibraltar with most of the core research material existing in Gibraltar. Members in Gibraltar make up the second largest block in the GSC. Now, this second exhibition in Gibraltar aims to encourage members to continue the good work they do, to encourage new members to join and enhance the visibility of philately in Gibraltar and show the public locally the importance of the connection between philately, history and the story of the Gibraltarian people.

Stan is ready to welcome new Gibraltarian collectors, at all levels, as members of the GSC at the exhibitions. The society can then help them develop their collections.

For the Gibraltar Study Group, it is vital to continue to spread the word and get more people interested in this dynamic but significantly untouched source of information about the widespread range of social, financial and even political history of Gibraltar – inside Gibraltar’s philatelic world.

Make a note in your diary for the exhibition days which will be open to the public at the Garrison Library - next week - Tuesday 16, Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18.